American Irish Historical Society

The American Irish Historical Society, New York, NY, United States of America houses one of the oldest collections of Irish history in North America. Since its Boston founding in 1897, it has worked diligently to provide heritage materials to the American diaspora. After its move to New York at the turn of the century, and following the 1916 Easter Rising, it became increasingly interested in the preservation of Irish language materials and has a number of modern and historical collections in this subject. The format of its Irish language collections contain books, correspondence, manuscripts, sheet music, and audio/visual recordings.

As an organisation focused on American history, many of its Irish language collections are modern in origin or subject. Its two most notable Irish objects are a first edition of William Bedell’s (1571–1642) Irish Bible from 1685 (MS IR 1), and a copy of the Irish annal Chronicon Scotorum, transcribed by Mícheál mac Peattair Ó Longáin (c.1693–c.1770) in 1711 (MS AN 1).

To date, there is no published catalog in print of the AIHS collections. However, publicly accessible catalogs can be found on their website at American Irish Historical Society, and sections of the collection may be found in external catalogs, including but not limited to Breandán Ó Conchúir’s 1982 publication, Scríobhaithe Chorcaí (1700-1850), and the 1980 catalog description of MS AN 1 completed by DIAS scholars Padraig de Brun and Nessa Ní Shéaghdha // Nessa bean Ui Dheorain.

The digitisation performed by DIAS enables AIHS to follow its mission to preserve and share materials of Irish heritage with the public. We are greatly indebted to the work of Anne Marie O’Brien, Eibhlin Nic Dhonncha, Professors Chantal Kobel and Sarah Waidler, and The School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.