Community. Culture.
Care.

A warm, hearty Irish welcomes awaits all who enter into the New York Irish Center’s friendly confines. Whether you’re Irish, Irish American, or you trace your roots back several generations to Ireland—or perhaps you’re Italian or Korean, Indian or Ecuadorian—the New York Irish Center openly invites you into our corridors to learn about and participate in the Irish culture. Our Long Island City, Queens, location is paramount to our story, as is our involvement with the community at large. We depend on the community, and many of the Irish in LIC (and surrounding neighborhoods such as Sunnyside, Woodside, Maspeth) depend on us. Our building on Jackson Avenue is central to the collective ethos of our founders, Fr. Colm Campbell and Paddy Reilly.

Paying it forward

We haven’t inherited our cultural heritage from our ancestors, we’ve borrowed it from our children.

When Belfast native Fr. Campbell first envisioned a place for the Irish to gather, he couldn’t imagine his idea culminating with a place to call their own. It wasn’t until well-known Cavan man Paddy Reilly pointed out to Fr. Campbell that this was the only way to go; that owning a building would give the Center the permanence it needed to last the course, to remain true to its mission. Soon after, with the assistance additional community leaders, our Long Island City property was secured in 2003. Following an enormous injection of sweat equity for renovations by its early members, and tremendous generosity from Irish building contractors, the Center opened its doors to all in 2005. And we’re here to stay.

Ease of access is significant. The burgeoning, rapidly expanding neighborhood of LIC offers a central location for our visitors. We’re one stop from Grand Central Station on the 7 Train, which is also a through-line across Queens, servicing many an Irish neighborhood.

Above all else, we are about community, and the mission of the Center is to provide a place for our community to gather together. At our core, we are a generation that left Ireland in the 1980s at a time of deep recession, inspired by the hope instilled in our hearts by the United States. With easier travel and emerging Internet technology, those that left Ireland could now stay in touch like never before. They brought new life to the ties that bind two great nations, playing a huge role in the peace process and Ireland’s advances on the world stage.

After a generation spent setting our roots in New York, the Irish who arrived in the ’80s increasingly form the backbone of our community, an anchor between young and old. And the Irish Center fully embodies that, with events, programs and classes for all ages; where the generations often mix; where a steady stream of volunteers with a desire to give their time to the community can find a home.