The Collection

The Archives of Irish America has been building upon a pilot project started in 1997 to survey and collect materials related to the New York Irish community. Under a multi-year grant from the Irish Institute of New York, in memory of its founder Paul O'Dwyer, material was retrieved from spare rooms, basements, attics, and garages in the metropolitan New York area.

American Irish Citizens Committee for the Re-election of Mayor William O'Dwyer Papers ( .2 linear ft.)
Ancient Order of Hibernians Papers (1.25 linear ft.)
County Societies Collection (13.3 linear ft.)
Primarily printed materials such as circular letters, dinner journals and flyers related to the activities of 23 of Ireland's 32 county societies based in New York City since the early 1960s. Roscommon, Carlow, Leitrim, Mayo and Sligo are particularly well represented.

Series A: County Organizations

Box 1: Armagh-Leitrim
Box 2: Leix-Tyrone
Box 3: County Clare
Box 4: County Clare
Box 5: County Kilkenny
Box 6: County Kilkenny
Box 7: County Roscommon
Box 8: County Roscommon
Box 9: County Roscommon

Dorothy Hayden Cudahy Collection (4.6 linear ft.)
This collection reflects at least forty years of radio broadcasting for the Irish community in New York City. In addition to playlists, local advertisements, and other documentation of the weekly programme Irish Memories, this collection includes more the 1,200 commercially produced LPs, several hundred 78s, and dozens of tapes, including some interviews.

Series A: Irish Memories Radio Program Files, Boxes 1-2
Series B: Dorothy Hayden Cudahy, Box 3
Series C: John Cudahy, Box 4
Series D: Rockaway, Box 5
Kathleen Walsh D'Arcy Collection (.4 linear ft.)
Rosaleen Cahill FitzGibbon Papers (.4 linear ft.)
Correspondence, printed materials and photographs related to the Irish Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair and to the Irish Pavilion on East 57th Street (1968 - ).
Gaelic Athletic Association Papers (.4 linear ft.)
Gaelic Society of New York Papers (.4 linear ft.)
Dermot C. Gately Collection (.4 linear ft.)
A digital collection of about one hundred family photographs, spanning the period 1880s to 1960s, contributed by Dermot Gately, a professor of economics at New York University. The family descends from Thomas Gately, a native of Dublin, who emigrated to New York in 1847. The images in this collection were scanned from the originals at 600 dpi and saved as TIFF files (IBM format).

Box 1: C.C. Gately Company Records
George Harrison Papers (4 linear ft.)
This collection spans the last thirty years (1970s-1990s) and reflects Co. Mayo native George Harrison's lifetime of political activism in the United States on behalf of Irish nationalism. In addition to biographical material, the collection includes papers related to the National Graves Association, to Republican Sinn Fein Poblachtach, to the legal case U.S. vs. Harrison, Falvey, Mullen, Gormley and Flannery, as well as more than 100 buttons from liberation movements in, for example, Ireland, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba and South Africa.

Series A: Biographical

Box 1: General files, U.S. vs. Harrison, et. al
Box 2: Correspondence

Box 3: General files
Box 4: Irish Organizations
Box 5: Irish Defense Fund

Ireland House Oral History Collection
Irish Film Association Collection (1 linear ft.)
Irish Institute Collection (.4 linear ft.)
Irish Republicanism Collection (3 linear ft.)
The bulk of this collection begins with the Hunger Strikes of the early 1980s. It includes flyers and other materials relating to, for example, anti-British demonstrations in the United States and activities in support of Irish Republicans subject to deportation proceedings in the United States.

Series A: Organizations

Box 1: A - Irish American Information Service
Box 2: Irish American Labor Coalition - Irish National Congress
Box 3: Irish Northern Aid - P
Box 4: P - W

Box 4: A - J
Box 5: L - W

John McLaughlin Papers (1 linear ft.)
Material Culture Collection (1.2 linear ft.)
Box 1: Ephemera
Box 2: Football 1947 Polo Grounds
Newspaper Collection (est. 60 linear ft.)
hard copy:

The Boston Irish News (1986-1990)
The Celtic Weekly (1872-1873)
Irish Citizen (1867-1871)
Irish Echo (1969-1979)
Irish People (1972-1987)
The Irish Voice (1987-1991, 1997-1998)
The Irish World (1943)

The Phoenix (1859-1861)

Cormac K. H. O'Malley Papers (25 linear ft.)
Boxes 1-2: Irish American National Bicentennial Committee
Box 3: Organizations
Boxes 4-5: American Committee for Ulster Justice
Boxes 6-8: Political (clippings)
Box 9: Newspapers, Periodicals, & Articles (clippings)
Boxes 10-11: Fortnight Review Hibernia (1/72-11/74, 6/76-6/79)
Box 12: Irish Republican Information Service (11/75-9/77),
Common Appeal (An tEan) (7/72-4/77)
Photographs (1.5 linear ft.)
The core of this collection consists of nearly 300 photographs acquired from Dorothy and John Cudahy. It includes many portraits and sports photos collected by James Hayden in his capacity as a columnist for the Irish Echo in the 1930s and early 1940s.

Box 1: Photographs
Box 2: Elizabeth Mulvey Album
Box 3: Oversize material
Sean Prendiville Collection (6 linear ft.)
Primarily documents relating to FBI surveillance of Irish Republican activities in the U.S.A, circa 1930 to the present. They were acquired under the Freedom of Information Act.

Boxes 1-2: Irish Republican Army
Box 3: National Association for Irish Freedom, National Association for Irish Justice
Box 4: National Association for Irish Justice
Box 5: Irish American Labor League
Box 6: Irish Republican Club
Box 7: Correspondence, Notes,
Box 8: miscellaneous Irish groups
Publications Collection (4 linear ft.)
This collection includes information on magazines and journals published for the Irish American community since the 1970s. In some instances, there are good runs of the actual magazine, for example An Gael (published by the Irish Arts Center, 1978-1992).

Box 1: A - I
Box 2: I - W
Box 3: Oversize material
Special Collections (.6 linear ft.)
Includes rare pamphlets such as "India and Ireland" by Eamon de Valera (published in New York City in 1920), newspapers such as The Shamrock (New York, 1811) and magazines like Brennan's: A Weekly Journal Advocating Justice, Equality and the Preservation of American Independence (Chicago, 1924), as well as the constitution and by-laws of the Hibernian Benevolent Association of the City of Troy (1841) and memorabilia of the Irish American Athletic Club.
Vertical Files (15 linear ft.)
The bulk of this collection represents the type of literature commonly circulating within the New York Irish community during the last thirty years. It contains information on more than 100 non-profit Irish American political and cultural organizations, as well as on ethnic business ventures, the Irish language, and on one-time events such as demonstrations and poetry readings.

Box 1: General, Arts, Books, Film
Box 2: Music and Dance, Theater

Box 3: A-I
Box 4: I-W

Box 7: A-F
Box 8: F-I
Box 9: I-W

Marie Walsh Papers (.4 linear ft.)