Taking Care of Irish Culture Kevin Kenny (bio) Gaelic Gotham: A History of the Irish in New York, at the Museum of the City of New York, 13 March 1996–27 October 1996. Edward T. O’Donnell, project historian. Whirlwind & Co., exhibition designers. Funded by major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Elan Corporation. No catalog. Rarely has a museum exhibition in New York City generated so much controversy before it opened as Gaelic Gotham: A History of the Irish in New York. The controversy arose from a dispute, in spring 1995, between the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) and the historian Marion R. Casey, who researched and wrote the bulk of the museum’s application for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Casey had expected to be appointed guest curator for the forthcoming exhibition; instead, in the midst of an acrimonious dispute, MCNY director Robert Macdonald first offered her a temporary contract as a scriptwriter and then, when this offer was declined, removed her from any further involvement in the project. MCNY could scarcely have known how powerful and well-connected a figure in New York’s Irish-American cultural community had thus been summarily dispatched. A doctoral candidate at New York University, Casey is a member of the board of directors of the Irish Institute and has served as president of the New York Irish History Roundtable and secretary of the Columbia University Seminar on Irish Studies. She is the best-known and best-respected historian of the Irish in New York City, a subject to which she has devoted all of her professional [End Page 806] life. Justifiably upset at how she had been treated, Casey mobilized a powerful response among historians of Irish America and the doyens of Irish-American culture in New York City. The result was a counterattack on MCNY which came close to shutting down Gaelic Gotham altogether, generating one of the most heated and bitter debates on museum culture in the history of the city. 1 The first major blow delivered against MCNY was the departure of the three leading historical advisors for Gaelic Gotham: Ronald Bayor, who recently coedited The New York Irish, a major collection of interpretive essays published under the aegis of the New York Irish History Roundtable and the Irish Institute in 1996; Kerby Miller, author of the monumental Emigrants and Exiles and the leading historian of Irish America; and David Reimers, an expert on immigration and ethnicity at New York University. 2 The departure of these three leading historians robbed Gaelic Gotham of some indispensable intellectual input. But it was just the beginning, being followed in rapid succession by the withdrawal of a $15,000 contribution in matching funds by the Irish Institute; the refusal of New York University’s Ireland House and the Columbia University Seminar on Irish Studies (hosted by Columbia, but only loosely affiliated with the university) to support the exhibition or participate in its planned public forums; and the refusal of numerous leading writers, artists, filmmakers, and other cultural figures in New York’s Irish community to participate or lend their support, including musician and folklorist Mick Moloney and novelist Peter Quinn. Many institutions, among them the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Veterans of the 69th Regiment, and the Irish American Cultural Institute, withdrew offers to lend artifacts and documents to the museum. So, too, did many private donors. This hurt Gaelic Gotham badly, forcing the museum to draw heavily on its own artifactual resources, with the result that many of the images presented in the exhibition were generic rather than specifically Irish. More interesting than the parade of stars and luminaries who defected from Gaelic Gotham in solidarity with Marion Casey is the shifting ideological content of the controversy. What began as a disagreement over contract soon became a dispute over intellectual property, then turned into an argument over the size and scope of the exhibition, and eventually took the form of a full-blown controversy over who should act as the custodians of Irish-American culture. While there can be no doubt that Casey was treated very shabbily by MCNY, the...