Grace Brady named executive director of Ireland's Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University

News provided by

Oct 11, 2012, 09:00 ET

HAMDEN, Conn., Oct. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Grace Brady has been appointed executive director of Ireland's Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University.

In her new position, Brady will be responsible for overseeing the museum, which is home to the world's largest collection of visual art, artifacts and printed materials relating to the Irish Famine. The museum, located at 3011 Whitney Avenue in Hamden, will open to the public on Oct. 11.

The museum's collection focuses on the famine years from 1845-52, when blight destroyed virtually all of Ireland's potato crops for consecutive years. The crop destruction, coupled with British governmental indifference to the plight of the Irish, who at the time were part of the United Kingdom, resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million Irish men, women and children and the emigration of more than 2 million to nations around the world. This tragedy occurred even though there was more than adequate food in the country to feed its starving populace.

The museum is open Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sundays 1-5 p.m. For more information, call 203-582-6500.

Before coming to Quinnipiac, Brady was the assistant secretary to the board of trustees and general manager in the office of the senior vice president, secretary and general counsel at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 6,200 full-time undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students in 58 undergraduate and more than 20 graduate programs of study in its School of Business and Engineering, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, School of Nursing and College of Arts and Sciences. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top regional universities in the North in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges issue. The 2013 issue of U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges named Quinnipiac as the top up-and-coming school with master's programs in the Northern Region.