page_title: Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Katharine A. O'Keeffe (later Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney)
context_page_description: Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney was an Irish-born American educator, lecturer, and writer. A teacher of poetry to Robert Frost, she was also the author of Famous Irishwomen. O'Mahoney was one of the first Catholic women in New England, if not in the United States, to speak in public from the platform. Among her lectures may be mentioned "A Trip to Ireland"; "Religion and Patriotism in English and Irish History"; "Mary, Queen of Scots", and "Joan of Arc"; "An Evening with Milton, including recitations from Paradise Lost", illustrated with fifty views from Dore; "An Evening with Dante, including recitations from the Divine Comedy", illustrated by seventy-six views from Dore; and "The Passion Play of Oberammergau". She founded, and until marriage, edited and published The Sunday Register.
context_section_description: O'Mahoney taught in the Lawrence High School from 1873–92, filling the position of teacher of history, rhetoric and elocution, including teaching poetry to Robert Frost. At an early age she manifested unusual cleverness in recitations, and, from the beginning of her career as a teacher, a forcible and lucid way of setting forth her subject .
  From 1885, she was a lecturer on literary and historical subjects. She was, probably, the first Irish-American woman, at least in New England, to venture in the role of lecturer. She began to come into prominence in the Irish National Land League days, and made her first public appearance in Boston at the time of a visit to that city of Fanny Parnell. Since then, she developed as a lecturer, gaining steadily in strength and versatility, as well as in popularity. Among her lectures were "A Trip to Ireland," "Landmarks of English History," "Mary, Queen of Scots," "An Evening With Longfellow. "An Evening With Moore, "Catholic and Irish Pages of American History," "An Evening With Milton," "An Evening With Dante." "History of the United States " "The Passion Play," and "Scenes and Events in the Life and Writings of John Boyle O'Reilly." Some of those lectures were given before large audiences in the cities and towns of New England. In 1892, she delivered the Memorial Day oration before the Grand Army of the Republic in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She was one of the evening lecturers in the Catholic Summer School, New London, Connecticut, in the summer of 1892.
  In 1892, she founded, published, and edited the Catholic Register. She contributed to the Boston Pilot, the Sacred Heart Review, Donahoe's Magazine, and Magazine of Our Lady of Good Counsel. She found time to work as an original writer and compiler, and published a "Longfellow Night" and a series of school readings. She also furnished local correspondence to the Sacred Heart Review, of Boston and Cambridge, and was an associate member of the New England Woman's Press Association. She was the author of Catholicity in Lawrence (Augustinian Fathers, Lawrence, 1882); Faith of Our Fathers (poem, Register Publishing Co., Lawrence, 1892); Moore's Birthday, a musical allegory (Register Publishing Co., 1893); Famous Irishwomen (1907), and Collection of Hibernian Odes, 1908 (both published by Lawrence Publishing Co., Lawrence, Mass.).
caption: Katharine O'Keeffe (1893)
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