Looking Back: Boston and The Ireland Fund
by William McNally
Executive Director, The American Ireland Fund, 1982-1992

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Twenty five years ago I was approached by an executive recruiter about my interest in getting involved with an organization then known as “The Ireland Fund.” At the time I was fully engaged as the head of a 100-lawyer legal services program here in Boston, had never been to Ireland, and had no particular reason to want to refocus my life around Irish issues.

After some preliminary discussion I agreed to meet with its two co-founders, Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tony O’Reilly of the H.J.Heinz Company, and with Chuck Daly of the Kennedy Library. The three of them convinced me of the many parallels between the social justice issues dividing segments of our society here in the U.S. and the situation in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

They wanted to generate more help from Americans to address the deteriorating conditions there. The unemployment rate in Dublin was in the double digits, the youth of the country were leaving in droves, and many parts of the North were a shambles of bombed out buildings. They believed that the skills and interests that I had developed in my career as a legal advocate for the disadvantaged in the U.S. would have relevance in the work of The Fund. They also stressed the breadth of The Fund’s goals and aspirations, which included, and still do, the core aspirations to promote peace and reconciliation within Ireland, to preserve and enhance Irish culture throughout the Irish Diaspora, and to provide charitable assistance to the less fortunate in Ireland, both North and South. (Hence their logo of “Peace, Culture and Charity.”)

At the time, The Ireland Fund had annual net returns from all of its fundraising activities of around $400,000 per year. This came principally from a gala dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, which had been held annually from the inception of The Fund in 1976, and a racing night at Yonkers Raceway. The challenge was to broaden the approach and appeal of The Fund beyond its small, loyal base of supporters.

I was very fortunate that at the same time as I took on this challenge, two Bostonians came together to explore the feasibility of replicating the New York Dinner here in Boston. Walter Dunfey and Bob Fitzgerald were of the view that Irish-Americans in Boston would respond to the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the people of Ireland – one which would essentially promote peace and reconciliation, rather than the gun-running and violence that was so often the image of Irish fund raising in America. They assembled a team of Bostonians who might be interested. These included, from the outset, Bill Connell, Jack Connors, Jim Cleary, John Cullinane, Tom Flatley and Tom O’Neill.

Walter Dunfey came up with the idea of centering the fundraising effort around the concept of “Founders,” each of whom would pay $5,000 a table to provide the backbone of the financial success of the dinner. This was an unheard of amount in 1982 for a charitable event, particularly one for a distant cause and an unknown charity. And, as Tony O’Reilly always quipped, it was the only dinner where you got to be a Founder each and every year thereafter!

Bob Fitzgerald and the Dunfey brothers led the way, between them underwriting 9 of the 18 tables sold at the very first dinner in 1982. We then filled the room with about 60 extra guests to make it look reasonably full at the Park Plaza, and celebrated the launch of The Ireland Fund in New England.

Because the cause was just, and the timing was right, the effort was an instant success. It was described by one newspaper as “a coming out party for Irish-American success in Boston,” and there was much truth to that. The event became an opportunity for a good-natured celebration every year, with the fundamental generosity of the donors mixing so naturally with their modesty and their interest in having a good time with their families and friends and with their colleagues in business and education. In so many ways, the annual dinner became the one place each year where the Irish in Boston could proudly take notice of their own phenomenal success here in America, in a city once known for its use of posted notices that the “Irish Need Not Apply.”

The six others who had served on the first Dinner Committee all took turns chairing the event in subsequent years. And they were followed by 18 others over the years, all of whom have stuck with the basic formula of having a great time while engaging in serious fundraising with their friends. The early result was that the Boston event quickly became more successful than the ongoing New York Dinner, which of course could draw on the much larger business community there. The good natured competition between the two cities carries on to this day, and has served as a text-book model of how to build a truly successful organization from the good will and healthy competitiveness of good friends.

Building on this model, over the following 25 years, cities across the U.S. have joined in with events of their own, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. And parallel “Ireland Funds” to the ones in Canada and the U.S. were set up in England, Germany, France, China, Monaco, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. In all of these efforts the same basic structure pertains: In fact, under the indefatigable leadership of Kingsley Aikins, nearly 40,000 people in over 40 cities around the world now come together annually to engage in a bit of pride in the success of the Irish, to have a good time and to dig deep to promote Peace and Reconciliation, preserve and enhance Irish Culture, and foster Charity for those in need. The net result is that over $325,000,000 has now been raised through the combined efforts of so many friends in so many places.

On St. Patrick’s Day in 1987 the early culmination of this successful strategy was confirmed by President Ronald Reagan when he presided over the merger of the The Ireland Fund with the American Irish Foundation to form The American Ireland Fund. President Reagan observed that The AIF “had become the nation’s and the world’s largest private organization funding constructive change throughout all of Ireland, North and South.”

The American Irish Foundation had been formed in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy made his historic visit to Ireland and, along with President Eamonn de Valera, helped found that organization as an outgrowth of that visit. The Foundation’s mission was to foster the cultural and historic connections between the people of Ireland and those of the United States. The successful merger of these two organizations, and of the many supporters of each, has been one of the most significant events in the healthy and continuous growth of The American Ireland Fund. It has led to the establishment of The Fund as the premier vehicle by which well-intended Americans can ensure that their good intentions towards the people of Ireland are diligently pursued.

So, on behalf of the thousands of grantee organizations in Ireland and Northern Ireland over the past 25 years, and the hundreds of thousands of ultimate beneficiaries in all 32 counties, my sincerest congratulations to all of my friends in Boston for playing such an important role in making the efforts of The American Ireland Fund so successful, both here in Boston and worldwide.

—William J. McNally