The first meeting of the new year of the Irish Cultural Society brings one of the published author members of the Society, John A. Brennan, to the stage of the Garden City Public Library.  The meeting will be held at the Garden City Public Library on Wednesday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting is free and open to the public.

 Mr. Brennan will read selections from his award winning memoir, Don’t Die with Regrets: Ireland and the Lessons My Father Taught Me.  John’s memoir won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Memoir in 2015, and it was chosen as a finalist in the Worldwide Book Excellence Award in 2016.  His second book, The Journey: A Nomad Reflects, a poetry collection, was also a finalist for the Worldwide Book Excellence Award.

John’s readings at the meeting will touch on the theme of accepting challenges, and he will bring his audience with him to early Irish history—John’s favorite century is the 5^th!—and also dramatize stories from modern Ireland.  He will delight the audience with the elegance of his “Back when…” verses.  Mr. Brennan’s manner of speech was acquired as he grew up in Crossmaglen, County Armagh.  

Society president Clare Curtin will invite the audience to march with the Society on Sunday, March 5 at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Mineola.  Marchers will assemble at noon behind the courts near the intersection of County Courthouse Road and Old Country Road to march  north on Mineola Boulevard to Jericho Turnpike.  She will suggest that marchers dress warmly for this earliest of St. Patrick Day parades.