A promoter of goodhealth — and Ireland

By Harry Keaney

Mary Shanahan is a mother, a social worker and an educator. Now, as the president of a health promotional company called Best of Health Productions, she draws not only on all these qualifications but, as an Irish American, she also draws on part of what she believes is a natural ability of the Irish, that of the storyteller. While she’s a promoter of public health awareness, she too is a storyteller, a seeker of information to be processed and ultimately "told" in video format.

"I believe that health programing is something that people are looking for, done in an honest and indepth way," she said.

It all began about five years ago when the City of Stamford, Conn., for which she works part-time as director of public health education, was approached by the local cable channel seeking health awareness programing.

"The local Connecticut PBS affiliate saw some of the shows and felt we were on to a good idea," Shanahan said. Subsequently, she was hired as an independent producer for the Connecticut public television service for a program on early childhood brain development, and a program on asthma, a condition that afflicts about five million children in the U.S.

She is currently working on a video on Lyme Disease, which she hopes to have completed by January. Best of Health Productions has also produced a number of awareness and promotional videos on diverse topics such as AIDS, parent leadership and on a local Stamford cancer detection initiative promoted by Mayor Dannel Malloy.

Brooklyn-born Shanahan (nee Loughlin) and her second husband, Carl, a native of Bruff, Co. Limerick, are among Stamford’s leading standard bearers for the Irish. Every year, around June 16, the Shanahans’ home overlooking Long Island Sound, in the Shippan area of the city, is the venue for Bloomsday celebrations complete with period dress. Performers have included tenor Frank Patterson, members of the Irish Repertory Theatre, and Frank and Malachy McCourt.

Mary Shanahan was among those who helped raise funds to enable the Irish Cultural Institute erect a statue of Annie Moore on Ellis Island, where Shanahan’s grandmother, Nora Browne, arrived from County Clare about 1910. She is also a member of the Wild Geese, an organization that promotes and celebrates Irish culture, and of which her husband is a founder.

As an Irish American married to an Irishman, Shanahan appreciates the subtle differences in attitude and opinion between the native Irish and the American Irish. In fact, she says, when she married Carl Shanahan about eight years ago, she realized that she was an American. Carl, she said, had "a keen sense of perception that Irish culture was about more than pub songs and corned beef and cabbage."

Mary Shanahan’s own introduction to Ireland started early. "I was the middle child, I had an older brother and a younger sister, but Grandma Browne had a shine for me. She made me feel very proud to be Irish."

A few years ago, Shanahan purchased the tiny delapidated cottage in Clare from where her grandmother emigrated; about a month ago, Shanahan could be found in Ennis courthouse searching for her grandmother’s birth certificate.

The Shanahan’s exemplify the quintessential can-do American spirit. Carl Shanahan’s mother died when he was 3 and although he grew up poor, he is now a much-admired Irish American business success, heading a Stamford-based building maintenance and management corporation called Shamrock Building Services. He also owns the Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare, in his native County Limerick. He is the father of six sons ranging in ages from 25 to 35.

Now in her 40s, Mary Shanahan says she is "one lucky woman." Lucky too is anyone fortunate enough to share her outlook, and her infectious enthusiasm about embarking on what she calls her "new found career" in promoting health awareness.