How the Maine Irish Heritage Center Is Reimagining Tradition

Link: https://youtu.be/9n55Ktsm7\_Q

Summary:

Dr. Eric Brown is the executive director of the Maine Irish Heritage Center and a scholar whose background spans Renaissance drama, poetry, and even insect studies. In this episode of Radio Maine, Brown joins Dr. Lisa Belisle to explore how Irish heritage, literature, and imagination intersect in Maine today. Raised in Dover-Foxcroft with deep Irish roots, Brown reflects on rediscovering his ancestry during the pandemic and how that journey led him from academia into community leadership. Now stewarding the former St. Dominic’s Church in Portland, he is helping transform the historic “Irish Cathedral” into a vibrant cultural hub—hosting music, education, and cross-cultural events like the upcoming Shalom & Shamrocks dinner. Thoughtful and wide-ranging, this conversation touches on diaspora, creativity, discomfort, and the power of shared space to build understanding across communities.

Join our conversation with Dr. Eric Brown today on Radio Maine—and be sure to subscribe to the channel.

Join our conversation with Dr. Eric Brown today on Radio Maine—and be sure to subscribe to the channel.

Title Options:

From Shakespeare to St. Patrick’s Day | Dr. Eric Brown’s Irish Maine Story

Irish Heritage, Poetry, and Community in Maine with Dr. Eric Brown

The Creative Spirit of Irish Maine | Dr. Eric Brown on Radio Maine

How the Maine Irish Heritage Center Is Reimagining Tradition

Diaspora, History, and Hope: Dr. Eric Brown’s Vision for Irish Maine

Social Media Caption:

🍀 New Radio Maine episode 🍀 Dr. Eric Brown, Executive Director, Maine Irish Heritage Center, joins Dr. Lisa Belisle to talk about Irish heritage, literature, and community in Maine. From Renaissance drama to St. Dominic’s Church on State Street, this is a rich conversation about diaspora, creativity, and keeping tradition alive.

🎧 Watch or listen now on Radio Maine.

Alternative Socials Caption

🍀 Dr. Eric Brown of the Maine Irish Heritage Center on Irish identity, imagination, and community in Portland. Now streaming on Radio Maine.

\#RadioMaine \#EricBrown \#MaineIrishHeritageCenter \#IrishMaine \#PortlandMaine \#MaineCulture \#IrishDiaspora \#CreativeCommunity \#MaineHistory \#HumanSpirit

Dr. Lisa Belisle (00:10):

Hello, I am Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity in the human spirit. Today I have with me Dr. Eric Brown. He is the executive director of the Maine Irish Heritage Center. And I'm really interested in having a conversation with you about this, Eric, because of course I have all kinds of Irish in my background and I did neglect to say for those of you who are listening, we are sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery located in Portland, Maine. And Eric, have I seen you in the Portland Art Gallery before? Have you come to any of our openings?

Dr. Eric Brown (00:45):

I don't know if you've seen me in the Portland Art Gallery, but my first experience actually with the Maine Irish Heritage Center was when the Portland Museum of Art was hosting a retrospective for Alison Hildreth as part of, I think she was receiving the Speedwell Prize for Lifetime Achievement. And this was late 2023 and the PMA couldn't accommodate the numbers, and so they shifted it to the Irish Heritage Center and that was the first event I attended there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (01:12):

I love that. So there's, you've definitely got the art connection going on there.

Dr. Eric Brown (01:16):

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (01:16):

Portland Art Connection,

Dr. Eric Brown (01:17):

Portland, Portland art for sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (01:19):

Yes. You have such a rich background of art even in your own right. I mean, I was reading, so you have a PhD in Renaissance drama.

Dr. Eric Brown (01:32):

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (01:33):

And you actually have two bachelor's degrees both in English and in Zoology from the University of Maine.

Dr. Eric Brown (01:39):

That is correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (01:40):

So I think it's really fascinating your kind of early interest both on the science side of things, but also on the arts side of things. So as a doctor who does a lot of writing and this sort of thing, I feel like I can kind of relate to you.

Dr. Eric Brown (01:56):

Yes, I do see a lot of similarities. I took one graduate class in Zoology and I loved it. It was a class on polar ecology, and I think if every zoology class I'd had been like that, I might've gone more in that direction. I was pre-vet for a while and then in the end I just thought I could import more of my interests generally from the sciences into literature than I could probably do in the other direction. Although you've shown to the contrary, maybe in other model, but that's turned out more or less right for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (02:30):

I was recently listening to Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and I think as I've gotten, well I'll just say is as I've been on the planet that circled the sun over time. That's how I like to think of myself, just more experience. I find that there is more overlap between science and literature and the arts. And even in your case now where you at the Maine Heritage Center, I mean history and there's so much overlap with history and all of those things that trying to separate them out is actually harder than understanding how well they work together.

Dr. Eric Brown (03:11):

It's really true. So I was, for a long time my career was in higher education and as a professor of English and then later as a provost and I did a year as an interim president and always there was so much talk about multidisciplinarity and I always kind of preferred and just thinking of not combining so much as just dissolving those borders because you're absolutely right. Just a quick personal anecdote, but I had a poem accepted last year at Scientific American, and I thought, okay, that's kind of for me the culmination of these two paths personally. Anyway. Well

Dr. Lisa Belisle (03:52):

Congratulations. I mean, that's a big deal

Dr. Eric Brown (03:56):

Thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (03:56):

Yeah, and also, you're right, you don't necessarily think of that publication as being the place precise where one would go to read poetry.

Dr. Eric Brown (04:06):

For me, it ended up being exactly the right place. But now that's true, and I think that was very much what interested me about the Irish Heritage Center was that it did, I looked at the programming that they had and it combined with so many of my own interests and things that I had, I think drifted a little bit away from after stepping out of the classroom and into administration. So it was it a great chance to come back and think now more about history and the embrace of all of the parts of culture that factor into that, and including poetry and including music and storytelling and all of that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (04:42):

There's a lot of different directions we could go in. But I guess let's start with Maine and you being from Dover Foxcroft, and I know that there are pockets of people who are Irish around the state, meaning my family is, we've got some Irish, some French, and we're truly the Maine. That's a perfect combination. Yes, that is the combination, unless maybe Italian, I think Italian is another potential combination of that era. But you were raised in Dover Foxcroft. So talk to me about how your upbringing there and specifically your connection to your own Irish roots and the Irish community was an early influence for you.

Dr. Eric Brown (05:29):

So my parents were part of the back to the land movement in the early seventies, so that's how I ended up, in fact, first in Willimantic, which I dunno if you know the Greenville area, Willimantic is a dot up there, and then the relative metropolis of Dover Foxcroft after that. But so have Irish on both sides, my family, my mom and dad, and they in different ways. Those families sort of South shore, Boston, Quincy, Weymouth, Foxborough area, so a lot of Irish obviously in that part. And it was something I probably didn't even internalize as I was growing up that my mom would bake Irish bread for St. Patrick's Day and make Shepherd's Pie and we would go down and I was just thinking on the drive up here that my dad, when I was really a wee one, would sing me an Irish lullaby to put me to sleep.

(06:26):

And it's a lullaby that I continued with my own three sons to sing to them when they were 1, 2, 3, whatever. And it wasn't again anything I even really connected to Irishness, but for me, I think mean a lot of people. It was really the pandemic that kind of had me just thinking differently about my family, where I came from, where I was going, what I was doing. And that's when I really kind of, my father had done a lot of genealogy research. I got more interested in that part of it. We did a family trip to Ireland. This was before I took the position in Portland, and it just did kind of awakened for me a lot of different connections that I hadn't consciously been considering, but I think had been part of my growing up and part of the fabric of who I am for a long time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (07:22):

It always makes me wonder whether say our ancestors interact with one another. I mean, I guess there's Irish all over the world. Absolutely, that's right. I mean we have O'Brien's and Kellehers and Kerwin's are in my backstory on the Irish side anyway, and of course my family came through county court and a lot of people's families came through county court. But when you are describing some of the earliest connections that you didn't even know about, it reminds me of being at Bowdoin and taking an Irish music class and there was a visiting professor who was from Ireland, truly from Ireland. And I felt connected through that music in a way that I hadn't previously experienced, even though I knew my family was Irish. But I'm listening to the music and I'm listening to the inflections and I'm listening. I mean, there's a whole thing on jigs and the musical structure, and I was thinking how is it possible that my actual very being is responding to this in a really, I guess mystical way

Dr. Eric Brown (08:33):

Where all of those molecules and energies fall into peace is so interesting. My brother a few years back was traveling to Ireland and just as he was flying in and just looking at the land below, he said, well, it felt like coming home even though he'd been there maybe one or two other times. And I actually think Maine, I mean Maine just factually has a lot of similarities geologically and otherwise to Ireland. I hear a lot of the native born Irish in our community talking about especially the coast and how much it reminds them of Ireland and rightly. But since taking the position too, I didn't know, I mean according to the last census, one out of every six Mainers trace, some Irish heritage in Portland, it's one out of five. So that makes us, I think by percent the fifth most Irish state in the country, which is pretty extraordinary. And so just in terms of the community and some of those just micro moments that you don't necessarily understand even maybe at the time, but build up and then maybe for an experience like you had when you encounter it. And it really awakens

Dr. Lisa Belisle (09:49):

For me. There's something that's unsurprising about the fact that you got back into poetry because for me, John O'Donohue is one of my favorite authors. He was a former priest, he's now deceased unfortunately. And even in his non poems, he was so lyrical and there is a lyricism and a flow, and there's something that just, I think if you have again, any sort of irishness running around in your genes, it kind of connects.

Dr. Eric Brown (10:24):

Yeah, I think that's right. I've been thinking lately. We did, we collaborated this past spring with the OSHA Lifelong Learning Institute at USM on an Irish history and culture course. And so we were talking about music and we were talking about history, and I came in and did a little bit on poetry and it did just get me thinking, you've got an island that is, it maps almost perfectly onto the size of Maine. You've got a population about the population of Massachusetts, and somehow out of that has sprung centuries, generations of just the most incredible lyrical poetry and music and arts in general. And I wonder myself sometimes, what is it about, is it the place, the land? Is it the kind of the history of both of pride and pain that goes with being Irish too? I mean, I think there's a lot that springs from both of those sources, but there is absolutely a really unique quality that is kind of hard to explain.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (11:35):

I remember interviewing one of our artists who happens to be from Ireland, and this is Christopher O'Connor, and he described some of his earlier pieces that he brought into the Portland Art Gallery. He's been with the gallery for a number of years now. Were the coast and were the rocks of the coast. And he described feeling this sense that he was in Ireland, he came to Maine, and there is even the very rocks,

Dr. Eric Brown (12:01):

The very rocks

Dr. Lisa Belisle (12:02):

Themselves seem to have this similarity. So I think that that feeling that even though you're part of a diaspora essentially, but you're still coming to a place that feels familiar that you can settle into, I think that is very powerful. Also, this description of pain that you bring forward. I mean, it's so very real. I mean, you and I are only a few generations away from these very significant famines that took place at the beginning of the last and the end of two centuries ago now. And this idea of starvation, this idea of political oppression, of loss, of connection to the land of loss of family, and the reason why people had to leave is it wasn't really a choice so much. So how does that weave into this work that you're doing with the Maine Irish Heritage Center? Because I guess every group has pain.

Dr. Eric Brown (13:08):

That's fair for sure. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (13:10):

And this one in particular, this was a lot of pain.

Dr. Eric Brown (13:14):

I think what I see is when the center first began in the early two thousands, and I should say we're located in the former St. Dominic's Church, which I guess some folks still refer to as the Irish Cathedral on State Street. If you've never been inside, you've driven by it for sure, probably plenty of times. And so the Catholic diocese consolidated in the late 1990s and the building was handed over to the city and then a group got together and the Irish Heritage Center was formed out of that. But the spirit of that even was really about creating a community center. And it's certainly about preserving this building and about using that as an opportunity to also celebrate and animate Irish culture and tradition. But I think that there is a real spirit of commonality there too with other immigrant populations. I would say that no less true today than it was 25 years ago, and probably more so because of course that goes along.

(14:28):

I mean, it wasn't just the sort of the graphic horrors of the famine and the travel and the ships where the mortality rate was so high and then coming to a country where certainly at first contact a lot of those Irish travelers weren't welcomed. And that lasted for a long time. And certainly you could argue there's undercurrents still. So I think there's a lot of effort, and certainly I have been having this, I think much in mind since I arrived about that spirit of Irishness about connecting with other communities that have gone through or are going through shared experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (15:14):

I've been thinking a lot about this idea of re-parenting, and I think it's a theme that has arisen where people are going back and they're connecting with their inner child and whatever it is that they maybe need to fill in gaps for as their own parent of their own selves. I

Dr. Eric Brown (15:32):

I love that

Dr. Lisa Belisle (15:33):

And I think that that takes a lot of effort to do that as individuals. But what if we are talking about essentially Inculturating an entire group?

(15:48):

I mean, if you have a whole group of people that suffered as you just described it, and not just as a result of the potato blight, but actually because there was a rift politically and there were people who own the land and they were not considered Irish, even though they were,

(16:07):

And the people who were let's say Irish Catholic and they were the ones who were actually tilling the soil, and these are side by side. These are people on the same soil. So reparent an entire culture, how do we come to a place where we can let go of honor that these things actually happened and let go of them? Because in Ireland itself, they're still trying to figure out how to deal with the very real rift that continues to this day, even though it isn't as bad as it once was.

Dr. Eric Brown (16:43):

Yeah, absolutely. Which of course has an interesting main connection in George Mitchell's role in

(16:49):

Forging the Good Friday agreement. And no, that's a fascinating question. I mean, I don't know exactly the answer to that. I do know that I think Ireland itself is very aware, I suppose of this in a way that similar to what you described relationally, that is to say because of the diaspora being so truly global and the old chest out about there being more Irish in the states that there are in Ireland, which is also true, they support through their Department of Foreign Affairs hundreds if not more organizations, community groups across the world through their immigrant support program that includes we receive funding every year from them through this program. So my position is largely funded actually through the Irish government. So I think that in that sense there is a kind of parenting, almost a kind of caretaking of those who have left and who are dispersed but just not forgotten, but actually continue to be cared for in a very deliberate way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (18:10):

Well, I'm glad you mentioned George Mitchell because I had the opportunity to interview him after reading his book about the peace accords, and I have always been so, I mean, first of all, his background as an immigrant, I mean I believe he's Lebanese Irish. I hope I'm not getting this wrong. I would not want to disrespect him in any way whatsoever. He went to Bowdoin and I happened to just cross paths with him and he sat down with me in an interview and the power of sitting down and having these two groups and saying, we're not going to come to who was right and who was wrong, but we need to decide that we are going to start from a place. And so what you're describing as supporting people either within Ireland or worldwide, that coming to a place of, okay, here we are now and it doesn't invalidate anybody's experience from the past, but in order for us to move forward, we have to agree to this beginning. And I think that that is so much easier said than done

Dr. Eric Brown (19:20):

For sure. Yes, that's right. The forgetting in particular, you've heard of the Irish amnesia where you forget everything about your grudges. I mean, that's probably, there's some truth you're reminding me too. We also collaborate with the George Mitchell Institute in Portland, and a good friend of mine, Jared Cash is the current president of that. And I hope he doesn't mind me sharing, but he shared an anecdote that the senator relayed to him about how he was able to navigate all of those competing interests. And he said, really, it began with them kind of as you just intimated, sitting down for breakfast together and breaking bread and taking it out of this sort of uncomfort zone and humanizing it in a way that is one of the hardest things I think to overcome. You sit across the table from your negotiating team and it immediately becomes a very performative space. And I think about that a lot actually. There's a lot of wisdom in that simplicity and a lot of power I think in in breaking some of those masks down a little bit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (20:32):

Well, I agree with that, and I think that this idea that you have a community center that you're now the executive director of, I mean, it's a physical place that people can come to and they can be side by side, and maybe the differences don't seem as stark if you're actually next to somebody who has a shared experience, even if they're not exactly the same as you. I think that that is really powerful. I want to go back to something that you alluded to a little bit earlier on, and that is your background in academics. So you got pretty far along, you were a professor of English, you have a long and very well respected background in scholarship. You also went into administration and my experience, because I have a medical degree and I also have a doctorate in leadership studies, and my experience is that, I mean, I've had some really wonderful educational, I guess parts of my professional trajectory, and also I have seen that it's a very competitive and very structured and very siloed. They're kind of maybe non-com approach to life in general,

(21:54):

Which kind of surprised me to be honest. I mean, I shouldn't have been surprised because I had a medical degree when I got that when I was younger. I got my other doctorate when I was older. But as we focus in on the smaller things in academia, but we really need to take a larger view of things, which is what you're doing now. How do we bring these ideas together?

Dr. Eric Brown (22:19):

That's a great question too. So I think I certainly have been nudging our organization more into the educational domain. We just, were about to seat, actually, we're starting some conversations with folks interested to join a new education and culture committee as one of our standing board committees. It's really interesting also just kind of that ongoing movement between the macro and the micro. And you've reminded me in conjuring up some of my past work, I wrote a book on film adaptations of John Milton's Paradise Lost and was involved for a time as a script consultant on a Hollywood production of it that never ended up materializing, but Bradley Cooper was cast as Satan in that. But part of the, in writing that and looking at that poem and thinking about Milton's imagination and how often he goes soars up into heaven, and then we'll at the same time have this really almost cinematic kind of zoom closeup on a wonderful epic simile of a whale and sailors and the ability to just be versatile in that way and to think at the one time the connectivity between all that in literally an epic way.

(23:44):

I think so much of that is actually rooted in the imagination. I think that's where it's found. As I've mentioned, I have three sons, all teenagers, and I think about my own experience growing up and how much imagination was part of that in play and encountering new things. And I think sometimes I think I have concerns sometimes about how that's evolved and where that's located now. And I think from my perspective, it's shifted a little out of some natural environments into some artificial environments, and that seems to be where we maybe headed more broadly. And I hope there's a way to continue specifically I think around that imaginative part as a way to bridge some of those thinkings.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (24:30):

Well, I love the idea of the micro on the macro.

(24:33):

I mean, because I think there's so much to be learned in both spaces, and I think this ability to zoom out is so powerful. And the people that I've met who, because I mean obviously the things that you've written three books, Milton on film, Shakespearean Performance and Insect Poetics, which I'd really be, I need to ask you what that is, but I mean, you absolutely as a result of going into academia have needed to go into the micro. That is what I mean. The further along you go, the more they're asking people to kind of define a space and investigate a space. And also if that's where you stay, then how do you interact with other people who themselves have gone further and further into a space? And I see this as somebody who has been in medicine a long time where the more siloed we get, the less communicative we are with one another. So I see the beauty in both and how do we help people cross over?

Dr. Eric Brown (25:35):

Yeah, that's really a lot of truth in that. And I think the siloing effect is I see all the time articles about this being the loneliest time and people feel more separated even though we are connected in other ways more easily than ever before through technology and other ways. You brought me back again to a quote that I love, and I'll unpack it a little bit, but from not Paradise Loss, but another work by Milton called Aica, where he talks about freedom of the press essentially. And he says in that he cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue. And what he means in that context is that we shouldn't censor books from coming into the public discourse. We should allow people to encounter these contraries and then through that work come to a determination themselves and that idea about fugitive and cloistered virtue, that there's no real goodness, there's no real virtue in just partitioning yourself off and thinking, okay, because I've done that, I'm fulfilling something.

(26:46):

It's really about even when it is most uncomfortable opening those doors and having those conversations. I think about that a lot both in administrative work and even in the classroom that so much of learning is unlearning and so much of it is being kind of brave enough to step into places you're not comfortable, but you'd need a catalyst. It's hard to do that just organically, right? There's not a natural flow always for that. And I think that's where education comes in. I mean, I think that's really in so many ways, whether it's formal and formal, but those moments where you really can change your pathways a little bit and rethink things or confirm things sometimes too, but when it feels most uncomfortable, I think that's the sign that you're progressing in some way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (27:35):

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I have to say, I know my mother is going to be, my mother is Mary Patricia and she's, so you might guess that there's a little Irish in there, and she came from the Emerys and the O'Brien. She was a long time educator, and I think that that's when you bring up this idea of discomfort, I also think about kind of similarly, the idea of openness and when my mother doesn't really understand where I'm coming from, let's just say, and I'm the oldest of 10, so I mean, we're not all going to be the same as her, children.

(28:14):

She is really good about asking questions, and I could sense that this is actually something that she did well in the classroom as well. So some of what is being okay with not knowing the answer yourself and also being skilled at opening up the conversation so that you say, well, tell me what you think.

Dr. Eric Brown (28:33):

Yes, that's brilliant. And I think that is the right way. I mean, it's a powerful way to think about teaching is through questioning. And you reminded me of Keats's comment on Shakespeare, which I think is true, that his genius was in this negative capability being able to exist in uncertainties without trying to wrestle for a rational explanation sometimes or resolution on things. And I think that is driven by question and interrogation, but also it is driven by that what keeps called negative capability, being able to exist in a state of unease and finding potency in that. And that that's, I mean, you reach Shakespeare's plays and he does that all the time. He has endings that aren't endings. He's got uncertainty, written scripted throughout everything. And I think he was fascinated by it. And I think for good reason,

Dr. Lisa Belisle (29:28):

I happen to be reading a book on writing by Elizabeth McCracken and she's, I don't know, she's been writing for maybe half a century, maybe more, but more about fiction. And then she absolutely talks from the very, on this book on craft, she talks, she's like, well, maybe so it's this a lot of the time. And then sometimes it's that, and there's this, but that's not always true. And I do think that that's one of the interesting things that I've gotten to as I've gotten older is, yes, you have to learn all the rules, but you also have to understand that the rules don't always apply.

Dr. Eric Brown (30:00):

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (30:01):

And it's in that moment that you're like, but which rules apply? Which ones do I follow and which ones do I flout? And it is that being around the edges. So I love that you're bringing that up with regard to Shakespeare because I mean, he is known as the Bard and he's very revered now as this sort of almost ossified figure in literature. But that wasn't where he started out,

Dr. Eric Brown (30:24):

That is, did not start out that way and was sort of pilly at times by his contemporaries for the writing that he was doing. And he broke a lot of conventions at the time. Most of his fellow playwrights were very strict classical, and he broke just about every one of those Aristotelian rules. And through that created I think a lot of people's eyes, including mine, a really new way of thinking and experiencing that was unsettling. And the Renaissance was in a lot of ways at the age of unsettling old concepts. And yeah, I think there's absolutely a lot to be learned and valued in being able to be okay with that and reading. It's like reading a mystery thriller where you get to the end and you still don't know who done it. And sitting with that for a while I think is worth doing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (31:29):

So then first of all, I already said I was going to do this, but insect poetics, what is that?

Dr. Eric Brown (31:36):

Well, he said, thank you for noting that one. That was before the Scientific American program. That was the best example for me of that I had chosen the right path because I was always fascinated with entomology. And it goes back to, I think when I was 10, we did an insect collecting experiential time. It was fifth grade going out the butterfly nets. And so I had that always in mind. I think even in the decision to go into literary studies that I wanted to bring my interest in animal studies along with it and specifically insects. So that book canvases insects and a whole bunch of different cultural dimensions. So everything from this sort of eating of insects is kind of a fear factor bit to trying to redeem cockroaches and other insects that many people find unsettling. And so yeah, I think within the greater domain of zoology interests, that's a particular one. And that book is probably the one that still, it's been almost 20 years now since that came out, but still, I get calls to speak on that topic because the other part of it is that it's sort of one of the least loved of what they call the charismatic megaphone. I get all the attention in animal studies and dogs and horses and all of that. So I was glad to give a little representation to the insect.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (33:15):

You've had a lot of different opportunities to go pretty far down a path, get pretty comfortable, get very skilled in what you were doing, and then be like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to go do something else.

Dr. Eric Brown (33:32):

That's very insightful of you. I hadn't thought of it in quite that way, but you're right, given everything we've been talking about, I think I have been unsettling myself

Dr. Lisa Belisle (33:39):

Well, I mean, you talk about the need to be okay with discomfort, and you are now the executive director of a relatively new organization, the Maine Irish Heritage Center. And so what does your ability to be unsettled and your willingness to take different paths, what does that help you do within your latest role?

Dr. Eric Brown (34:05):

Yeah, I'm going to be processing this for a while, but I think

Dr. Lisa Belisle (34:07):

Oh fantastic. I love doing that.

Dr. Eric Brown (34:09):

But you're right. And I think that was consciously or not one of the things that did draw me to it, and as you said, I think you are speaking a truth for me, that even within my career in academia, the shift from being in the classroom to going into administration was kind of driven by a similar feeling that I had. In fact, I specifically remember it was a class on early European literature, and it was a senior seminar, and I loved it. It was one of my favorite classes that I had been part of there. But I also felt like, okay, this is probably as good as it's going to get, and I want to maybe think about other possibilities, but what really draws me to it, and I think that does really encapsulate not only the position, but kind of the organization is that in so many nonprofits, especially of that scale.

(35:04):

And my father ran a nonprofit for 39 years in Piscataquis County, the Charlotte White Center, which provided services for people with physical, emotional, mental disabilities. And when he started, there were I think three staff members. And when he finished it was the largest employer, I think, in Piscataquis County. But so watching him as I was growing up one day was never the same as the next, always putting on different hats. That has been very true of my work at the Center Caretaking. The building means some days there's a leak through the roof and you're swabbing the basement. And then we have a really good working relationship with the consulate in Boston. As I mentioned, we received support from the Irish government. So just a couple of months ago we were hosting the Irish Ambassador in that same space where a few months earlier I was trying to fix a leak. So it really does satisfy, I suppose, in a way or a range or that craving sometimes for versatility. It can also be maddening as well, and kind of dissociating one day to the next. Certainly there are days I crave a little more stability, I think. But you're right, there's a lot to that, a position like that. You have to be open every day to the unexpected and being okay with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (36:34):

For those who have, or maybe don't have Irish heritage, but are interested in the work that you're doing, what are some of the things that you think we should be mentioning to people so that they might kind of look into the Maine Irish Heritage Center and what types of offerings are available?

Dr. Eric Brown (36:53):

Yeah. Well, we're coming up on high season, so March, we will pick up in St. Patrick's Day, whatever percents I gave you earlier, the one out of five, one out of six that jumps to 10 out of 10, you're feeling Irish pretty quickly here. So we have a lot of programming year round, actually, but certainly that picks up in the next, well, we're right into it now already actually. We have, I think, a kind of a good capture of what you're talking about coming up at the start of March 8th, I believe we're collaborating with the Maine Jewish museum on a shalom and shamrocks dinner around a shared history of corned beef. And we did that over at the Maine Jewish museum last year. This year we're shifting it to the center, so we'll have tickets available for that upcoming, but we have year round great traditional Irish music coming through, which I think for certainly Irish community, local community and in general tends to be probably the most popular kind of universal draw.

(38:05):

But we also just welcome anytime people want to come and see the space. I mean, for me, that's one of the great delights of this work is keeping that space animated. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful church, and there is a kind of wonder that comes along with that and goes back to the early 1890s itself and just coming and walking through that space, even if you're not attending any of the Irish event that we're hosting, is really an amazing experience too. And I just was speaking with one of your other guests before I came in who lives nearby and who has walked by the building, lives in the neighborhood, walked by many times. I hear this constantly that people have seen it and never gone into it. So we try to keep the doors open as much as we can. And yeah, that's a good way to encounter it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (39:00):

Well, this now is going to date me, but I've actually been to church in that space back when I was functioning as a church, and my grandparents actually were married at the other Catholic church just up the street. That still continues to function. And so in talking with my mother about the conversation I was going to have with you, and it just meant something to our family because I mean, I also gave birth to two of my children at the Old Mercy Hospital, which is just up the street, the nun pictures of the nuns on the walls, and there's these threads that I think connect to the past, but it also sounds like you're kind of casting out to the future to bring people together, and I really appreciate that.

Dr. Eric Brown (39:45):

Yeah, thank you. That's a very elegant way to put it. I mean, I think that is right. I know certainly the origins of the organization were very much and rightly about preserving this building that did mean so much to so many people and still does, and 20 plus years in now. I think it has to also be about, okay, well, we have it and we're preserving it, and there's this kind of energy, but what about this sort of centrifugal energy where you're now looking outward? What are you going to do with this space? How are we going to keep it animated? How are we going to keep it alive? And it's part of the reason why I truly do hope people, not just on St Patrick's Day, but will come through and visit, but it is also absolutely about collaborating, about finding partners beyond those walls, whether it's through a shared experience and commonality or a shared vision of where things can go in the future. That's very much driving my own thinking around it. So I hope that's where it's going.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (40:55):

Well, Eric, I appreciate your coming in and having this conversation with me today. Thank you. I suspect it was very, we talked about freestyling, and I suspect in your mind it probably did end up being somewhat of a free styling freewheeling conversation.

Dr. Eric Brown (41:08):

I really enjoyed it. No, yeah. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (41:10):

Well, thanks for rolling with the freewheeling here. Yeah, we're all about that here on this particular podcast.

Dr. Eric Brown (41:15):

Yeah, there's a little unsettling even in that. So it's all consonant. I think with the theme. It's good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (41:22):

I've been speaking with Dr. Eric Brown. He is the executive director of the Maine Irish Heritage Center. So you've heard the open invitation to go down and actually see the beautiful space. I can attest to the glory that you'll behold when you are actually in there. But I do also encourage those of you who either do or don't have an Irish heritage to connect with that community and maybe take advantage of the Shalom and shamrocks.

Dr. Eric Brown (41:49):

Yes, that's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (41:50):

Event that is coming up in March. And certainly it is our great pleasure at the Portland Art Gallery to be affiliated with organizations such as the Maine Irish Heritage Center. And it is my pleasure. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle with Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore creativity in the human spirit. And if you're Irish, the creative human spirit of being Irish. So thank you Dr. Eric Brown for coming in and having this conversation with me today.

Dr. Eric Brown (42:19):

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.