Non-partisan and non-sectarian since its inception in 1897,[1] it maintains the most complete private collection of Irish and Irish-American literature and history in the United States,[2] and it publishes a journal entitled The Recorder.

Notable members through the years have included politician William Bourke Cockran, tenor John McCormack, New York Governor Hugh Carey, and performer/composer George M. Cohan.

[8] In early 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized publicly after joking at a dinner that he's seen a bunch of people "totally inebriated” hanging from the society's balcony on St. Patrick's Day.

The New York Times published an article stating Bloomberg "could hardly have picked a more unlikely [stereotyping] target," with locals feeling "surprise and puzzlement that the carefully preserved building and its staid crowd had been singled out as an emblem for, of all things, rowdiness.

Elizabeth Stack, a native of Kerry, is the former executive director of the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany and took up her role in the AIHS at the beginning of February.

Speaking from a makeshift office on the ground floor of the stunning townhouse, Stack said there were dozens of small jobs to be completed before the Society could open to academics and the general public.

Past honorees have included Bono, George J. Mitchell, Mary Higgins Clark, Wilbur Ross, Michael J. Dowling, and Robert McCann.