Glucksman Ireland House at New York University will hold its 12th annual dinner gala on Tuesday, March 5 next at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan.
The gala, according to a release, is an annual fixture on the New York calendar and celebrates the best in Irish literature and arts, journalism, and philanthropy.
Proceeds from the event support student resources, the publication of leading research through the Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series with NYU Press, dynamic public lectures and events, and the documentation of Irish American experiences through the Archives of Irish America.
Each year, Glucksman Ireland House makes three awards: the Seamus Heaney Award for Arts & Letters, the Lewis L. Glucksman Award for Leadership, and the Pete Hamill Award for Journalistic Excellence.
This 2024 honorees are: Claire Keegan, Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters; Mike O’Halleran, Lew Glucksman Award for Leadership, and Peggy Noonan, Pete Hamill Award for Journalistic Excellence.
Added the NYU release: Claire Keegan is an award-winning Irish novelist and short story writer. Her first volume of short stories, Antarctica (1999), won the Rooney prize for Irish Literature. Her short story, “Foster” was adapted for the screen as Academy Award Nominee, The Quiet Girl ( An Cailín Ciúin) in 2022. Foster, the collection, won the Davy Byrnes Award and was chosen by The Times as one of the top 50 works of fiction to be published in the 21st century in 2021. Keegans’s novel, Small Things Like These (2022), was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Booker Prize in 2022. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Her newest collection is to be released in November.
Michael D. O’Halleran is Executive Chairman of Geneva Re Limited, a Bermuda based reinsurance holding company, and Senior Advisor at Ryan Specialty, an international specialty insurance firm.
Prior to joining Ryan Specialty, O’Halleran was Executive Chairman and founder of Aon Re, the largest reinsurance brokerage and capital advisory firm in the world. O’Halleran was previously President and COO of Aon Corporation and has held senior operating positions throughout his 40+ year career in the insurance and reinsurance industry. In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Insurance/Reinsurance Industry. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and The Commercial Club of Chicago. He also serves on the Board of Providence St. Mel School, Dublin City University, The Ireland Funds, and the Goodman Theatre. Additionally, Mr. O’Halleran is Chairman of the Advisory Board
for ManchesterStory Ltd.
Peggy Noonan is an award-winning opinion columnist, journalist, political analyst, and author of 9 books. Her column, “Declarations,” has run in The Wall Street Journal since 2000. In 2017, she won the Pulitzer prize for Commentary. In 2010 she received the Award for Media Excellence by the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
She has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and has taught in the history department at Yale University. Before she worked in the White House as special assistant and speech writer to President Ronald Reagan, she was an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University and producer and writer at CBS News in New York.
