Joseph M. Hassett, PhD, ’64, is the author of “Under The Metal Man: Sligo in Yeats” (Lilliput Press), a new study of the presence of the town of Sligo, Ireland, in the work of Irish poet William Butler Yeats and his family.
Roy Foster, Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and author of the definitive two-volume biography of Yeats, calls Hassett’s new book “a treasure.” Paula Meehan, a former Ireland Professor of Poetry, writes, “This book is a Cabinet of Curiosities. Open it and be transported to the creative heart of the Yeats family and to the soul of Sligo, the two commingled to powerful and bountiful effect.”
After graduating from Canisius, Hassett earned a law degree from Harvard University and became partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Hogan & Harston (now Hogan Lovells). He also earned first a master’s degree, then a doctorate in Anglo-Irish literature at University College Dublin. In 2022 Hassett received Ireland’s Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad.
Among Hassett’s many gifts to Canisius was the creation of the Mel Schroeder Scholarship to honor his former teacher, a longtime and beloved member of the English Department. It funds Canisius students chosen to attend the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, most recently Mason Bowes, ’24, and Maeve Devine, ’24.
Hassett also established the annual Hassett Family Reading, which brings Irish and Irish-American writers to campus to read from their work. Past Hassett readers include Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Anne Enright, Alice McDermott, Emma Donoghue and Paul Muldoon. Earlier this year, he endowed the Hassett Family Creative Writing Scholarship, a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to attract and support student-writers of exceptional promise.
Hassett’s previous publications include “Yeats Now: Echoing into Life” (Lilliput, 2020), “The Ulysses Trials: Beauty and Truth Meet the Law” (Lilliput, 2016), and “W.B. Yeats and the Muses” (Oxford University, 2010).
Submitted by: Mick Cochrane, English
