Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
REAR-ADMIRAL RICHARD WORSAM MEADE
First President-General
THE JOURNAL
OF THE
AMERICAN-IRISH
Historical Society
AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
The American-Irish Historical Society was founded, as itsconstitution declares, for “the study of American history generally;to investigate specially the immigration of the peopleof Ireland to this country, determine its numbers, examine thesources, learn the places of its settlement; to examine recordsof every character wherever found; to endeavor to correcterroneous, distorted, and false views of history in relation tothe Irish race in America; to encourage and assist the formationof local societies; to promote and foster an honorable andnational spirit of patriotism; to place the result of its historicalinvestigations and researches in acceptable literary form;to print, publish, and distribute its documents; to sift anddiscriminate every paper, sketch, document bearing on thesociety’s line of work, before the same is accepted and givenofficial sanction.” The work was inaugurated by the issuanceof the following invitation to prominent men throughout thecountry:
A Call for the Organization of an American HistoricalSociety whose Special Line of Research shall be theHistory of the Irish Element in the Composition ofthe American People.
Dear Sir,—A number of gentlemen, interested in the part takenin American history by people of Irish birth or lineage, are aboutto organize themselves into an historical society for the purposeof investigating and recording the influence of that element in theup-building of the nation.
People of Irish blood have been coming to this continent, voluntarilyand otherwise, since the date of its earliest settlement. Whilethey have been a valuable addition to colony and republic in all2departments of human activity, their work and contributions havereceived but scant recognition from chroniclers of American history.
Whether this omission springs from carelessness, ignorance, indifference,or design, is now of little moment. The fact that such acondition does exist makes it imperative that it should be remediednot only in the interest of historical truth, but of racial fair play.Certain elements in the make-up of the American people have nothesitated on occasion to masquerade, at the expense of the Irish,in borrowed plumes, and to pose under plundered laurels. It isthe duty of honest historians to look after the rights of the l