Almost forgotten today is James Edmund Burke, long time mayor of Burlington, sometime city representative to the state legislature, and one-time candidate for governor. When he died in 1942 at age 93, he was eulogized as a “city builder “and as the “Grand Old Man of the Democratic Party”. He came to prominence in the 1890s and steered the emergence of Burlington’s large Irish American community into a leadership role in local politics. Through it all he was an uncompromising, take-no-prisoners politician.

Greg Delanty is a celebrated poet on both sides of the Atlantic and a recipient of many awards. Born in Cork in 1958, he has lived in Vermont since 1987 and has appeared in various significant US anthologies. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Selected Delanty (2017; selected and introduced by Archie Burnett); The Greek Anthology Book XVI (Oxford Poets, Carcanet Press, UK; titled Book Seventeen in the US by LSU Press); and his latest collection of poems, No More Time (2020, LSU Press).