Exhibits and Programs

The Museum’s New Exhibit: “The Irish and the Erie Canal”

In keeping with its mission, the Irish American Heritage Museum presents its newest exhibit “The Irish and the Erie Canal.” This exhibit reveals the historical contributions of the Irish to the planning, designing, engineering, funding and construction of the Canal. This famed achievement transformed early America, and in particular New York City, into a world economic power by linking the Great Lakes and the interior of the young nation to the Atlantic Ocean and the world.

The Museum’s Rich History of Acclaimed Exhibits

Over the last two decades, the Museum has developed and produced a number of very successful exhibits.

• “Dublin: Then and Now.” Our internationally acclaimed exhibit of stunning photographs portrays life on the gritty streets of Dublin and in its “docklands” in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It likewise portrays life in Dublin in the same areas during the first decade of the 21st century to reveal the transformation in Irish life over 50 years.
• “Soldiers Are We: The Irish in Military Service” tells the story of centuries-long service of the Irish to their homelands.
• “The Irish in Music” chronicles the contributions of the Irish to music in our culture, including writers, composers, performers and entrepreneurs.
• “Corporate Irish” celebrates the lives of the men and women who rose to powerful positions in the business world and helped shape the economic future of the United States -- from the colonial period to many contemporary entrepreneurs.
• “The Irish and Labor” reveals the contributions of the Irish to the American labor movement.
• “An Gorta Mór: The Great Hunger” chronicles the tremendous impact of the Irish famine in the mid-19th century.
• “Fire Upon the Hearth” celebrates the contributions of women of Irish heritage in America.
• “Go and Preach the Kingdom of God” tells about Irish religious and how they clothed, fed, housed and educated the waves of Irish immigrants that flooded America’s shores.
• “Presidents of Irish Descent” is the story of our 20 presidents who claim Irish ancestry.

All of the Irish American Heritage Museum’s exhibits are available for presentation on a loan basis and are in great demand. In 2010, the Museum presented “Dublin: Then and Now” at the Irish Consulate in New York City, the Commodore Barry Irish Center in Philadelphia, the Gaelic-American Club in Fairfield, CT, and the Waterford (NY) Senior Citizens Center. The same exhibit drew international acclaim in 2006 when the Museum became the first American Museum of its kind to exhibit at Ireland’s National Library in Dublin.

The Museum’s various exhibits have been on display in such venues as the Children’s Museum of West Virginia; the Heritage State Park Visitor’s Center, Lawrence, MA; the Kerry County Library, Tralee, Co. Kerry, and the US Embassy in Dublin Ireland; The Margaret Mitchell House, Atlanta, GA; the Milwaukee Public Library, Milwaukee, WI; the Trade Center in St. Paul, MN; the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans; the Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO; the Hatikvah Holocaust Education and Research Center in Springfield, MA; the Arlington Heights Historical Museum, Arlington Heights, IL; and the St. Petersburg International Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida.