Part of the Summer 2023 Maritime Lecture Series!

Historian and author Catherine Shannon will present a talk on the tragic wreck of the Brig St. John, carrying over 100 Irish immigrants, which ran aground on the shores off the coast of Cohasset during a storm in 1849.

Catherine B. Shannon is Professor Emerita of History at Westfield State University, where she taught Irish, British, and European history. She also taught Irish history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her publications include studies of the roles of British politicians Arthur J. Balfour and Lord Randolph Churchill in Anglo-Irish affairs between 1878 to 1923. She has documented the role of women in the Northern Irish conflict and peace process in numerous articles and book chapters. Her recent publications focus on the relief that Boston’s Irish and non-Irish citizens provided to Ireland during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s and subsequent food emergencies in the later nineteenth century.

Professor Shannon has served as president of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston and the Eire Society of Boston. She has been the recipient of various awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate of sacred letters from St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, the Gold Medal of the Eire Society, and the Trailblazer Award from the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail.