William O'Dwyer was an Irish-American politician who served as the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950. O'Dwyer went on to serve President Harry Truman as Ambassador to Mexico from 1950–1952. O'Dwyer began his political career by serving as the Kings County District Attorney from 1940–45. His brother Paul O'Dwyer served as President of the City Council from 1973–77, and his nephew Brian O'Dwyer was appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul as New York State Gaming Commission Chair in 2022.
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local political machine of the Democratic Party and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics. It helped immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise in American politics from the 1850s into the 1960s. Tammany usually controlled Democratic nominations and political patronage in Manhattan for over 100 years following the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854, and used its patronage resources to build a loyal, well-rewarded core of district and precinct leaders; after 1850, the vast majority were Irish Catholics due to mass immigration from Ireland during and after the Irish Famine of the late 1840s.
Ronald Harmon Brown was an American politician. He served as the United States Secretary of Commerce during the first term of President Bill Clinton. Before this, he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He was the first African American to hold these positions. He was killed, along with 34 others, in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia.
Bruce Andrew Morrison is an American attorney and former Congressman from Connecticut who was candidate for Governor of Connecticut. He is a lobbyist and immigration lawyer. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and an officer of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee.
The Irish community is one of New York City's major and important ethnic groups, and has been a significant proportion of the city's population since the waves of immigration in the late 19th century.
Robert Allen Katzmann was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He served as chief judge from September 1, 2013, to August 31, 2020.
Michael L. Tolkin is an American screenwriter, novelist, and director. He has written numerous screenplays, including The Player (1992), which he adapted from his own 1988 novel of the same name, and for which he received the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (1993) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He later wrote a follow-up to the novel, titled The Return of the Player, which was published in 2006.
Peter Paul O'Dwyer was an Irish-born American politician and civil rights lawyer who served as President of the New York City Council during 1974–1977. He was the younger brother of Mayor William O'Dwyer, and the father of New York State Gaming Commission Chair Brian O'Dwyer.
Frank Durkan was an Irish-American attorney best known for having represented numerous members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), including avowed IRA gun-runner George Harrison, who stood trial, and was acquitted, in 1982.
Andrea Alice Stewart-Cousins is an American politician and educator from Yonkers, New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Stewart-Cousins has represented District 35 in the New York State Senate since 2007 and has served as Majority Leader and Temporary President of that body since 2019. She has previously served twice as acting lieutenant governor of New York under Governor Kathy Hochul, for 16 days in 2021 and between April and May 2022. Stewart-Cousins is the first Black woman to serve as the New York lieutenant governor, although in an acting capacity. She is the first woman in the history of New York State to lead a conference in the New York State Legislature and is also the first female Senate Majority Leader in New York history.
Brian Patrick Kavanagh is an American politician who represents the 27th district in the New York State Senate, representing Lower Manhattan since December 2017. Before the redrawing of legislative districts in January 2023, Kavanagh represented the west part of Brooklyn. He previously served in the New York State Assembly representing the East Side of Manhattan. Kavanagh is a Democrat.
Jeffrey Hayes Pearlman is an Acting Supreme Court Justice in New York County and was formerly the Director of the Authorities Budget Office from 2016 to 2021 and resumed this role again in 2022. He recently served as Special Counsel to the Governor, Kathy Hochul and as Special Counsel to the Transition following the resignation of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Pearlman was previously Chief of Staff and Counsel to the Lieutenant Governor. Prior to this, Jeff served as Chief of Staff to the New York State Senate Democratic Conference. Also, Jeff was formerly Of Counsel to the law firm Greenberg Traurig, where his field of practice included Government Affairs and litigation, specializing in Ethics, Freedom of Information Law, Election Law and other client related matters. Pearlman also was an Assistant Counsel to Governor David Paterson of New York. He resides in Albany, New York.
Kathleen Hochul is an American politician and lawyer who has served since August 2021 as the 57th governor of New York. A member of the Democratic Party, she is New York's first female governor and the first governor from Upstate New York since Nathan L. Miller in 1920.
The Irish America Hall of Fame was founded by Irish America magazine in November 2010. It recognizes extraordinary figures in the Irish American community who have had a profound effect on the Irish in America and strengthened the bonds between the United States and Ireland.
Vicki L. Been is an American lawyer, public servant, and professor who served as the Deputy Mayor of New York City for Housing and Economic Development from April 2019 to December 2021. She previously served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. She is a law professor at the New York University School of Law and has served as director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.
Irish Americans are ethnic Irish who live in the United States and are American citizens. Most Irish Americans of the 21st century are descendants of immigrants who moved to the United States in the mid-19th century because of the Great Famine in Ireland.
Robert J. Kafin is an American lawyer whose practice has been concentrated in the area of environmental law. He is a partner at the international law firm of Proskauer Rose LLP. Kafin was the chair of the Times Square Alliance, the Business Improvement District in midtown Manhattan and served on its board of directors and executive committee from 1991 to 2018. He holds a New York City Mayoral appointment as a director of GrowNYC, a non-for-profit organization promoting sustainable urban living and served as its Chair for a 16 year period ending in 2023. In 2015 he was elected chair of the Adirondack Council, an organization protecting the wild character and ecological integrity of the six million acre Adirondack Park., for a term that ended in 2019 and continued to serve on its board of directors until June 2023.
The 2018 New York gubernatorial election occurred on November 6, 2018. Incumbent Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo won re-election to a third term, defeating Republican Marc Molinaro and several minor party candidates. Cuomo received 59.6% of the vote to Molinaro's 36.2%.
Jenifer Rajkumar is an American politician. A Democrat, she is a member of the New York State Assembly from the 38th district, representing Queens neighborhoods of Glendale, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Ridgewood, and Woodhaven.
From the beginning of the city's history as the western bank of Springfield, Irish families have resided in and contributed to the development of the civics and culture of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Among the first appellations given to the city were the handles "Ireland", "Ireland Parish", or "Ireland Depot", after the village was designated the 3rd Parish of West Springfield in 1786. Initially occupied by a mixture of Yankee English and Irish Protestant families, many of whom belonged to the Baptist community of Elmwood, from 1840 through 1870 the area saw a large influx of Irish Catholic workers, immigrants to the United States, initially from the exodus of the Great Famine. During that period Irish immigrants and their descendants comprised the largest demographic in Holyoke and built much of the early city's infrastructure, including the dams, canals, and factories. Facing early hardships from Anti-Irish sentiment, Holyoke's Irish would largely build the early labor movement of the city's textile and paper mills, and remained active in the national Irish nationalist and Gaelic revival movements of the United States, with the Holyoke Philo-Celtic Society being one of 13 signatory organizations creating the Gaelic League of America, an early 20th century American counterpart of Conradh na Gaeilge.
