EVER WONDERED WHAT your ancestors were like?
Maybe you hold out hope they did great things and held positions of power?
This collection of Irish-Americans make that task a little bit easier – bringing a large number of eminent gentlemen together in one place, complete with photographs.
The men were all at one time or another members of the American Irish Historical Society.
There pictures have all been gathered together here on this Flickr account.
The book, dating from 1913, mostly recounts the different members that the society had and some of the activity they got involved in – drawing together their experiences at that time.
Colonel David M. Flynn was vice-president of the New Jersey branch of the society after the election of President Woodrow Wilson. He was involved in organising an event to welcome the new President to the area.
The event featured four to five thousand supporters marching with Japanese lanterns before witnessing a speech by the President himself.
Flynn was an old personal friend of Wilson and presented him with a “loving cup” from the society.
The society put a large focus on the roots that its members had back in the old country and the position that they have assumed within American society. One passage of the book reads:
That natives of Ireland came to this country in amazing numbers, overcame great obstacles, suffered hardships, made great sacrifices and contributed gloriously to the development of our country, to the records of human progress, to the expansion of industry, the securement of liberty, the exposition of the highest and best traits in national life, is a matter of such common knowledge as to need no rehearsal.
It states that it hopes the document and the organisations shall “gain ground upon which history shall base its judgement of the Irishman upon this continent.”
Former President of the United States Woodrow Wilson also features in the book. Wilson had grandparents from just outside of Strabane in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
During his time in office he was occasionally criticised for not taking a firmer stance on Irish nationalism.
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