by LAUREN SCHUSTER, Asst. Editor
In celebration of Irish Heritage Month, the Manhattan College Gaelic Society and Multicultural Center came together to host the school’s annual Irish Night in Smith Auditorium.
The event consisted of traditional Irish food, music, and performances. Among the performers were singers, musicians, Irish stepdancers and the Manhattan College Pipes and Drums band.
Gaelic Society President Jaclyn Marchetta said, “This event is important to me and everyone on campus, because I think we sometimes forget our roots and where we come from, and I think celebrating this Irish history and culture at least once a year, hopefully more than that, is just so special, […] even if you’re not of Irish descent.”
Tara O’Shea, secretary of the Gaelic Society, said, “I think [this event] is a great way for people who are Irish to embrace their culture, and even people who aren’t Irish to learn more about the culture and embrace it just the same way.”
The Multicultural Center saw this event as an opportunity to bring together people of all different cultures allow them to experience Irish culture for themselves.
Hayden Greene, director of the Multicultural Center, said, “As with any multicultural event, I think we want people to come in and experience something that they’re not familiar with, and to do that with people that they are not familiar with. If you are Irish and you’re accustomed to eating shepherd’s pie […], sitting next to somebody who that’s new for might open up your eyes to something that you hadn’t noticed.”
This year was the first time that the two organizations worked together on the event. In years past, the Gaelic Society hosted what was known as Irish Night, and the Multicultural Center hosted a similar event known as the Irish Heritage Month Opening Dinner. After realizing their similarities, they decided to join forces this year.
Greene said, “[Combining the events], was a really good way to do it, because it was a really good sharing of the work that needed to be done.”
“This event [had] a lot more work [put into it] this year because we were working with the Multicultural Center, which was really great, because Hayden was really nice to combine the events,” O’Shea said.
Fiona Delaney, associate director of student life, serves as the faculty advisor for the Gaelic Society. She hopes that events like this will help keep club membership up and will inspire students to plan campus events that they are passionate about.
Delaney said, “The Gaelic Society […] usually has a strong number of students participating in it, so just getting feedback from the students, knowing what they want, and just seeing them actually interested and doing the work behind the scenes to get the event to run is very rewarding.”
Marchetta said, “Being a senior, I am really looking forward to the upcoming board to keep this tradition alive, because when I was a sophomore, this club was not as popular as it used to be back in the day, so it was my goal to bring […] the club back to keep it alive and keep the tradition alive, which I hope to see in the future years.”