Molloy College.
By Irish Echo Staff
Molloy College's Irish Studies Institute is celebrating the ancient festival of St. Brigid on Saturday, Feb. 6, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Reception Room on the main floor of Kellenberg Hall in the middle of Molloy's Rockville Centre campus.
The day will have how-to workshops in Gaelic culture, including language, song, piping, fiddling, tin whistle, bodhrán, history, Brehon Law and ancient Irish genealogy. Refreshments will be served. Admission is free.
The event is a prelude to Irish classes that will start at Molloy the following Saturday, Feb. 13, led by Irish language instructor Jerry Kelly. For more information, see www.molloy-irish-language.com or contact Cathy Muscente at 516-323-4710 or cmuscente@molloy.edu.
There will be plenty of stories, music, poetry, as well as mini-Irish language, dancing and St. Brigid-cross weaving classes on the evening of the feast day, Monday, Feb. 1, at Ripley Grier Studios, 520 Eighth Ave., Manhattan from 6:30-9 p.m. Maura Mulligan will be emcee for the evening’s entertainment, which will include fiddlers Bernadette Fee and Marie Reilly, singer Mary Deady and several others. The suggested donation is $20. All proceeds will go to the Dwelling Place of New York, a privately funded transitional residence for homeless women in Midtown Manhattan, administered by Sr. Joann Sambas, CSA.
[caption id="attachment_82164" align="alignnone" width="150"] Sr. Joann Sambas.[/caption]
Meanwhile the parish of St. Brigid-St. Emeric in Manhattan’s East Village will mark the 3rd anniversary of the restoration and reopening of the 1849-built church with a party after 1 p.m. Mass on this Sunday, Jan. 31. The former members of the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s will remember in particular Dublin-born architect Peter Harding, who died during the summer. Committee chairman Ed Torres said in July: “We will be forever grateful to Peter. It was his knowledge of Building Department laws that gave us our big break.”
[caption id="attachment_82165" align="alignnone" width="134"] Peter Harding.[/caption]
The party will take place from 2 p.m. in the Social Hall, which can be accessed after Mass in the church, or from East 8th Street, at the corner of Avenue B. Free admission.
[caption id="attachment_82166" align="alignnone" width="300"] St. Brigid’s Church. PHOTO: PETER MCDERMOTT[/caption]