Events - 2025

In January 2025, on the invitation of the Anthracite Heritage Foundation and King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, Anne Flaherty authored the annual Msgr. John J. Curran Lecture for presentation during Anthracite Mining Heritage Month (due to illness, Susie Flaherty delivered the address on January 23). Anne Flaherty’s lecture was titled “John Kehoe: ‘Molly Maguire’ or Hibernian Pacifist?” Prior to the lecture, the Anthracite Heritage Foundation gave Anne Flaherty’s book The Passion of John Kehoe and the Myth of the “Molly Maguires” its Book Award for 2025.

 

In January 2025, Anne Flaherty authored a short bio titled “Who Was John Kehoe?” for the program “Famous Coal Region Personalities,” held at Scranton’s Anthracite Heritage Museum (due to illness, Susie Flaherty delivered the presentation on January 22).

 

On March 9, 2025, Anne Flaherty presented the program “Who Was John Kehoe?” at Eckley Miners’ Village. The village, site of the filming of Martin Ritt’s The Molly Maguires, is located in Weatherly, PA.

 

On March 19, 2025, Anne Flaherty presented the program “Who Was John Kehoe?” at the Schuylkill County Historical Society, located at 305 N Centre Street in Pottsville, PA.

Available on Amazon

The Passion of John Kehoe and the Myth of the “Molly Maguires”

Recipient, Anthracite Heritage Foundation Book Award for 2025

 

By Anne Flaherty, Hibernian Press, Saint Leonard, MD, 2023. Paperback, 550 pages. $35.00. Includes bibliography, index, and glossary of terms.

 

In The Passion of John Kehoe and The Myth of the “Molly Maguires,” John Kehoe’s descendant, Anne Flaherty, overturns all widely accepted historical accounts of this turbulent period in Pennsylvania’s nineteenth-century anthracite coalfields. The haunting eloquence of the Irish Catholic men falsely accused as “Mollies” carries their tragic story. The charter of their benevolent order, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, was based on the tenet “Love guides the whole design.” The words of these Irishmen underscore how fallacious chronicling has silenced them for almost a century and a half.

 

To purchase, visit:

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+Passion+of+John+Kehoe&crid=3N2UBPP2CJ35E&sprefix=the+passion+of+john+kehoe%2Caps%2C96&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

To hear an interview with the author by Erika Funke of NPR affiliate WVIA Radio, visit this link :

 

https://soundcloud.com/wvia-public-media/anne-flaherty-january-16-2025?in=wvia-public-media/sets/artscene-1#t=0:00