Free to attend!

Scituate Author, Vincent J. Quealy Jr., will provide a reading and discussion with Q&A of his book “Reflections of an Irish Grandson,” a story of the Meade Family of Miltown Malbay, County Clare, Ireland.

About the Book

Peter Meade leased a small ten-acre farm in Miltown Malbay, County Clare, Ireland as a tenant farmer beginning in 1885. Peter and Ellen (Murtagh) Meade raised a large family of fourteen children, including my grandmother, Bridget Meade, on that farm during a turbulent, violent and difficult time in Ireland.

Many millions of Irish had, sadly, found it necessary to leave their homes and their homeland as oppression, penal laws, famine, rack-rents, anti-Catholicism and more beset them for centuries. Bridget found herself now numbered among them by 1909, departing her home, her family, her native land and sailing on the SS Saxonia from Queenstown, Ireland, in that sorrowful year. The big ship left its berth on June 2, steering a true and steady course for America, but for many aboard—for Bridget Meade—steering, as well, toward an unclear and an uncertain future. Bridget Meade is listed on the passenger manifest of the SS Saxonia as having departed from Queenstown, though it is sure that she departed from the “Harbor of Tears.”

About the Author

Vincent Quealy, Jr. was born in Boston, MA, one of six children of Vincent and Anne Quealy.  Grandparents John Quealy and Bridget (Meade) Quealy were both born in Ireland and lived there into early adulthood, eventually emigrating to the United States in the early 1900’s and settling, for a time, in Lowell, MA.  

Vincent is a graduate of Boston College, Class of 1975, and remains deeply engaged with many university programs and initiatives, including the Boston College Ireland Business Council.  He lives in Scituate, MA with his wife, Joanie, and very nearby their three children and five grandchildren.