Six students, three from high school and three from college, have been selected for scholarship awards from The New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade.
The college winners are, first place, Emily Grasso, New York University School of Law. Emily’s mother is a member of the County Leitrim Society of New York.
John Doyle from Iona College was awarded second place, while Margaret Smith from Fordham University was third place.
The high school first place winner was John Aidan Armstrong of Mount Sinai High School in Mount Sinai, New York. John’s mother is a member of the parade affiliated organization Molloy Collage.
Second place went to Mary Elizabeth Amonica of Albertus Magnus High School in Bardonia, New York. Mary’s uncle is a member of Division 3 Rockland County AOH in Pearl River.
Third place winner was Katherine Brophy from Delaware Valley High School in Milford, Pennsylvania. Katherine’s grandfather is a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
“We commend all the applicants for their submissions and compliment them for the extremely high level of academic excellence. The scholarship program is important as it engages young individuals who are interested in their Irish heritage and hopefully they will step up to be the future leaders of this great parade”, said Catherine Tully Muscente, co-chair of the program.
“We wish to thank our expert panel of judges who gave of their time to review the research papers and especially thank all of the applicants for their submissions.”
The parade scholarship program is funded by the St. Patrick’s Day Foundation which established the St. Patrick’s Scholars program a number of years ago. This year, the foundation is funding nine scholarships, the traditional six parade scholarships for affiliated groups and three additional scholarships in Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s name for Irish American children attending Catholic schools that march annually in the parade.
“We are delighted to support the education of children whose families are associated with the parade’s affiliated organizations,” said Hilary Beirne, co-chair of the program and chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day Foundation.
“In the future, we want to raise additional funds that will allow us to expand the scholars program, helping us to better support the Affiliated Organizations. The St. Patrick’s Day Foundation will continue to sponsor this program next year and support of the affiliated organizations in whatever way we can.”
The scholarship program is held annually in memory of two past parade leaders, Francis P. Beirne and Margaret O’Rourke. The applicant’s school, college or university must be affiliated with the parade, or the applicant must be a family member (son, daughter, spouse, brother, sister, niece, nephew, grandchild, grandniece, grandnephew and great grandchild) of any person belonging to a Parade affiliated organization.
Every year the scholarship panel select topics that relates to the parade, Irish American history or Ireland. This year’s college topic was, “In light of the United Kingdom’s pending withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit), explore the potential implications for Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement.”
The high school topic was, “The history of Catholic education has been closely entwined with the history of Irish immigration. Explore the relationship from the 1840s to present.”
Applicants are required to research their respective topic and submit essays which are adjudicated by a panel of judges.
This year’s panel included Tully Muscente and Beirne, Linda Dowling Almeida, Michael Boyle, Jack Calcado, Ann Garvey, John Garvey, Catherine Hogan, Mary Hogan, Michael Howley, Mary Pat Kelly, Turlough McConnell, John O’Connell, Ruth Riddick and Laura Travers.
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