Michael C. Connolly

Professor Connolly teaches History and Political Science. His research has focused on Irish and Irish-American history and the labor movement in Ireland and America. In 2004 the University of Maine Press published his edited collection of essays entitled, They Change Their Sky: The Irish in Maine which has been well-reviewed and received. He was co-editor, along with Dr. Kevin Stoehr of Boston University, of a collection of essays entitled, John Ford in Focus: Essays on the Filmmaker's Life and Work (McFarland Publishers, 2006). Currently he is finishing a book, under contract with the University Press of Florida, entitled, Dreams Lived by the Second: The Maritime History of Portland, Maine and its Irish Longshoremen. A publishing date in 2010 is anticipated for this book.

Professor Connolly is an active member of the American Conference for Irish Studies, and has presented at numerous annual meetings of this organization both in the US and in Ireland. He will be reading a paper for their annual meeting in Galway, Ireland in June 2009. An historical novel centered on the events of one day at the turn of the twentieth century in Portland, Maine is his current task, and is bringing much enjoyment. He is active with the preservation and promotion of the Maine Irish Heritage Center, located at the former Saint Dominic's Church in Portland, plays traditional Irish music for contra dancing and Irish ceili dancing, and has recorded several of the oldest members of Portland 's Irish community for historical preservation.