The Boston Irish Honors, Boston’s annual Irish heritage event that recognizes leadership contributions in the arts, business, education, science and medicine, is inducting Marty Meehan into their Hall of Honors.
The honor recognizes Meehan for his public service, commitment to the Commonwealth, and contributions to the Irish community. The ceremony takes place this Friday, October 24 in Boston.
Meehan is one of three people being inducted into the Boston Irish Hall of Honors this year. He joins Claire Cronin, a former Massachusetts legislator and U.S ambassador to Ireland, and Dr. James O’Connell, president of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.
Established in 2010, the Boston Irish Hall of Honors past inductees include Gov. Maura Healey, Sen. Edward J. Markey and former UMass President and Senate President William M. Bulger.
Meehan is the grandson of Irish immigrants who arrived in the United States in 1911 and settled in Lowell. He says the lessons he learned from his grandparents about overcoming struggle and economic injustice in Ireland informed his life and career decisions.
In receiving the award, Meehan said, “To me, being Irish, or Irish-American, means that you fight for people. You fight to provide people with opportunity and with hope. It means battling for the underdog and recognizing that everyone should have a fair shot at building a better life and a secure future.”
Meehan strived to live up to these ideals during his tenure in Congress, as chancellor of UMass Lowell, and as president of the university. He feels that being welcomed into the Boston Irish Hall of Honors is a meaningful and humbling affirmation of his commitment to those ideals.
Meehan’s career has focused on public service, serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2007. A Lowell native, he left Congress to become chancellor of his alma mater, UMass Lowell. In 2015, he was elected president of the five-campus UMass system.
Throughout his career and in his various leadership positions, Meehan worked to build bridges between the United States and Ireland. As a member of the U.S. House, Meehan served on the Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs and co-sponsored resolutions calling for all-party peace talks – negotiations that eventually led to the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement.
At UMass, Meehan has forged ties to colleges and universities in Ireland, creating research and student-exchange programs that provide significant benefits on both sides of the Atlantic. While chancellor at UMass Lowell, he established the Center for Irish Partnerships, an entity that works to create links with educational institutions in Ireland and Northern Ireland in areas including the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering, the humanities, health, and education.
As president of the five-campus UMass system, Meehan developed collaborations with Irish educational institutions including Queen’s University Belfast, Dublin City University, University College Cork, and the University of Galway. In 2017, he traveled to Belfast to deliver the keynote address at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, located at Queen’s University Belfast. He spoke about the successes and durability of the Northern Ireland peace agreement negotiated by Mitchell.
He also currently serves on the Massachusetts-Ireland Trade Commission, an entity established last year by Governor Maura Healey to “help strengthen the economic ties between Massachusetts and Ireland.”
