NEWPORT, R.I. – Marian Mathison Desrosiers, a two-time Fulbright Scholar and adjunct professor of history and humanities at Salve Regina, will be the guest lecturer on Jan. 18 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s Michael F. Crowley Lecture Series.
Desrosiers will present, “Remembering the Famine: The McGlincheys of Inishowen and Cambridge, Mass.” At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 18 in the Special Event Room located above the La Forge Casino Restaurant, 194 Bellevue Ave. Cost for museum members is $2, whikle non-members are asked to make a $15 donation. Reservations are required, and can be made by contacting Ann Arnold at 401-841-5493 or tpm1@earthlink.net.
After the 1602 defeat of Red Hugh O’Donnell, many of the McGlinchey clan escaped to Donegal in the North. Desrosiers’ Irish ancestors, Eliza McGowan and Patrick McGlinchey, lived in Meentaghcallagh near Buncrana in the remote Inishowen Peninsula. When Patrick lost his life in a quarry accident, Eliza found a way to sail to America with her brothers and her five children.
She traveled in the Famine Exodus from Moville to Liverpool and on to Boston Harbor. There she was welcomed by a cousin, Reverend Manasses Dougherty (Doherty) of St. Peter’s in Cambridge. Professor Desrosiers will share the importance of Faith and education for the next generations of McGlincheys: engaging in the Civil War and Gold Rush; settling the Kansas Prairie and creating their own Boston businesses; and graduating from Radcliffe (Harvard) followed by serving both secular and religious roles in their communities. From oral history to Hearth Roll taxes, from the Boston Pilot to state archives, Desrosiers will explore the emergence of an American family who never forgot their roots in Ireland.
Desrosiers, who earned her Ph.D. from Salve Regina, has researched and written on 19th century Irish immigration, women in positions of leadership during wartime and in the judiciary, among other topics. She is an executive board member of the National Council for Social Studies, and teaches history and humanities at Salve Regina.