The Boston Public Library (BPL) celebrates Irish history and culture with special events in March.

Boston Globe writer Maureen Dezell will talk about her book, Irish America: Coming into Clover at the BPL in Copley Square on Thursday, March 26^th at 6 p.m. The program explores the influential culture of Irish Americans and is part of the BPL’s Out of Boston Author Series featuring authors with ties to Boston. Ms. Dezell will also be reading at the BPL’s Charlestown branch, 179 Main St., on Thursday, March 7^th at 7:30 p.m. in a program sponsored by the Friends of the Charlestown Branch Library.

Michael Sherlock, former host of WGBH’s “Sunday Anthology”, will host an evening of Irish poetry with readings from the work of William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanaugh, Patrick Pearse and other contemporary Irish poets at the BPL’s Allston branch, 300 North Harvard St., on Wednesday, March 20^th at 7 p.m.

Gloucester Hornpipe and Clog Society will present a foot-tapping Irish concert at the BPL’s Jamaica Plain branch, 12 Sedgwick St., on Saturday, March 9^th at 7 p.m. The program is sponsored by the Friends of the Jamaica Plain Branch Library.

Author James Charles Roy, a noted authority on Irish history and travel, will read from his new book The Back of Beyond: A Search for the Soul of Ireland on Wednesday, March 13^th at 6:30 p.m. the BPL in Copley Square.

Local historian and prize-winning author Dennis Ryan will give a slide lecture on Bivouacs and Campfires: The Boston Irish and the American Civil War at the BPL’s Brighton branch, 40 Academy Hill Rd., on Monday, March 11^th at 7 p.m.

Musician David O’Docherty will perform on the Irish flute and the tin whistle at the BPL’s West Roxbury branch, 1961 Centre St., on Thursday, March 14^th at 7 p.m.

The O’Shea-Chaplin Irish Dancers will perform traditional Irish step dancing at the BPL’s Faneuil branch, 419 Faneuil St. in Brighton, on Tuesday, March 19^th at 4 p.m.

Storyteller Sharon Kennedy will perform as Mary Margaret O’Connell, a mill girl who worked in Lowell in 1847, at the BPL’s Adams Street branch, 690 Adams St. in Dorchester on Saturday, March 23^rd at 1 p.m.

The BPL’s South Boston branch will host the Exploring Ireland Film Series on Thursday evenings in March. The travelogues and documentaries screen at 6 p.m. at the branch at 646 East Broadway.

The BPL’s Lower Mills branch will host an Irish step dancing demonstration on Saturday, March 2^nd at 2 p.m. at 27 Richmond St. in Dorchester.

The Boston Public Library, established in 1848, was the first publicly supported municipal library in America, and the first public library to allow people to borrow books and materials, a truly revolutionary concept at the time. In 1870, the BPL was the first library to institute a system of branch libraries linked to a central library with the opening of the East Boston branch, and the first library to establish a space specifically designed for children with the opening of the children’s room in Copley Square in 1895. Today, the BPL has more than 6 million books; serves more than 2 million people in its 27 branch libraries around the city; and is one of only two public libraries in the country that is a member of the Association of Research Libraries. All of its events are free and open to the public. At the Boston Public Library, books are just the beginning!

Prepared by the Boston Public Library's Communications Office. For more information about news, programs and events at the BPL, call 617-859-2212 or send a message to the Communications Office.