Lady Wilde At Irish Society Meeting




One of the great women of Ireland is hidden in the shadow of her famous son, Oscar Wilde. Who among us hasn’t wanted to be spared the wrinkles of age, as was Wilde’s Dorian Gray, the hero of his novel

The Picture of Dorian Gray?

His astounding mother, Lady Jane Wilde, will be the subject of the speaker at the meeting of the Irish Cultural Society on Tuesday, September 14 at 8:00 p.m. in the Garden City Library, 60 Seventh Street, across the street from the Garden City Hotel. The meeting is free and open to the public.

The audience will learn about Lady Wilde’s considerable talents as a poet, about her work on behalf of Irish independence, about her connection to Young Ireland and Thomas Francis Meagher and John Mitchell, about her assistance to young writers like W.B. Yeats and Bernard Shaw and why she became known as “Speranza of the Nation.”

Presenting Lady Wilde will be Professor Christine Kinealy of Drew University, Caspersen Graduate School, Madison, NJ. Dr. Kinealy earned her doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. She has taught at the University of Central Lanchashire, Edge Hill College, the University of Liverpool, People’s College (Dublin) and Macquarie University (Australia). Professor Kenealy has also worked professionally at the Sorbonne, the University of Ulster, and the University of Limerick. In addition to her Irish Post Award winning book

This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-1852

(2002), Professor Kinealy has written extensively on the Famine, has published a general history of Ireland,

A New History of Ireland,

and is co-author of

Teaching and Learning History.

Professor Christine Kinealy will bring the estimable Lady Wilde out from the shadow of her son, Oscar. A scholar and author, Dr. Kinealy will perform the miracle of bringing Speranza alive for her audience on the stage of the Garden City Library.

Dues will be collected at the meeting and further details of the Society’s thirty-fifth anniversary celebration at the Wantagh Inn on November 7 will be announced.



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