Maine Irish Heritage Center

08/30/2026

This Thursday! The first of the season: Maine Irish Writes: September is back in the Library from 5-7 on September 3rd!

08/29/2026

Coming soon: the start of Maine Irish Reads!

Check out https://maineirish.com/series/maine-irish-reads-2026-2027/ for the whole season's reading list, and join us on Thursday, September 3rd for Maine Irish Reads “TransAtlantic” by Colum McCann!

08/28/2026

We're throwing a party! Come celebrate the start of fall with our Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day Party on Sunday, September 13th from 2-5pm! Learn more and get your tickets here: https://maineirish.com/event/halfway-to-st-patricks-day/

Join us for an afternoon of great Irish fun! Grab your dancing shoes for the Ceili (don’t worry, instruction included!), sing along to some folk favorites, and enjoy a fabulous Irish step dance exhibition from Stillson School of Irish Dance! This family-friendly celebration brings music, movement, and community to the start of your fall. Plus, enjoy light food and soft drinks included with admission, and a cash bar for something a little stronger.

08/27/2026

TODAY!!!! Join us at 6:30pm for our final storytelling event of the summer!

Summer Storytelling Series: Mast Landing Brewing Company kicks off tonight at Mast Landing's Freeport location at 200 Lower Main Street, Freeport, ME.

Will we see you there?

08/24/2026

Happy !

This week, we want to hear from you! The Maine Irish Heritage Center is planning to begin offering guided trips to Ireland, and we would like your feedback! Responses to this survey will help us as we develop an exciting, enriching, and accessible travel experience.

Find the survey here: https://forms.gle/zLzytcsvycQW3eTp7

This survey should take 5-10 minutes to complete. We are grateful for your input!

The Maine Irish Heritage Center is planning to begin offering guided trips to Ireland, and we would like your feedback! Responses to this survey will help us as we develop an exciting, enriching, and accessible travel experience. Thank you!

08/23/2026

Join us at 7:30pm on Thursday, September 3rd for Maine Irish Reads “TransAtlantic” by Colum McCann!

About this month's book:
In the National Book Award–winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called “an emotional tour de force.” Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined.

Three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.

The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.

08/22/2026

Our Writer's Group is returning this fall! Maine Irish Writes: September.

Join us on Thursday, September 3rd for the first Maine Irish Writes of the season!

Learn more here: https://maineirish.com/event/maine-irish-writes-september-26/

Maine Irish Writes is an inclusive monthly Writers’ Group that will meet in the MIHC Library on the first Thursday of each month! Led by the incredible poet and author Robert Breen, this welcoming writers group is open to all—whether you’re just starting out or deep into a manuscript. Bring your works in progress, share your voice, and receive supportive, thoughtful feedback in a relaxed and inspiring setting. Together, we’ll explore storytelling, poetry, memory, and the written word in all its forms. Come to listen, come to write, come to connect.

08/21/2026

Susan Donovan Bernhard: WESTERLY - a Maine Irish Author event!

Join us on Sunday, September 27th for a lovely afternoon of conversation with bestselling author Susan Donovan Bernhard!

Meet Susan:
Susan Donovan Bernhard is the bestselling author of the novels Westerly and Winter Loon, which won the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Prize for Fiction. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship recipient, a GrubStreet Novel Incubator program graduate, and a Tennessee Williams Scholar to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. A dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, Susan was born and raised in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana and graduated from the University of Maryland. When she’s not traveling, she lives and writes in Massachusetts. Learn more at https://www.susandonovanbernhard.com/
bookstore

08/20/2026

One week! Join us for our LAST Storytelling event of the summer on Thursday, August 27th at 6:30pm!

Summer Storytelling Series: Mast Landing Brewing Company is going to be a blast - will we see you there?

08/19/2026

Lara O'Brien's Vinalhaven Workshop is coming up fast!

Write Your Stories on an Enchanting Maine Island
Sunday, August 23rd, 10:30am-1:30pm, at Tidewater Motel

Vinalhaven Writing Workshop with Best-Selling Author Lara O'Brien! Lara ran an incredible workshop with us at the start of July, and this is a phenomenal opportunity. This will be a fun, explorative and creative portal to life story and crafting micro memoirs and storytelling.

Lara is offering $10 off this workshop for Maine Irish Members. Email her at [email protected] to learn more and save your seat!

To access the discount, please send Lara your MIHC Library card number!