English Professor

Adele Dalsimer falls into the role of honorary Irish person by dint of heading up the Department of Irish Studies at Boston College. Dalsimer, a member of the Irish American Cultural Institute, has guided the program since its inception in 1978, and it has grown in popularity with each year that passed. Boston College now offers unrivaled opportunities for the academic exploration of Irish culture, literature and society. Dalsimer earned her doctorate at Yale University in 1971 after graduating from Hunter College in New York in 1962 and Mount Holyoke College in 1960. An expert on the works of Yeats, she has been involved with Boston College since 1975. 

She is also an accomplished author, with dozens of publications featuring her work. Dalsimer is co-curator of the art exhibition currently running at Boston College: America’s Eye: The Irish Art of Brian P. Burns. She is a member of the executive boards of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies and the International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature. In 1985, she was responsible for establishing and co-editing the College’s Irish Literary Supplement, and also co-directed the Abbey Theatre Summer Workshop. 

The Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, wrote a poem in honor of Adele Dalsimer.