merrion street

Thursday 4th July 2013: Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, will this evening (6.30pm) open the "Fifth Province Exhibition: County Societies in Irish America" in the National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

The "Fifth Province” is a travelling version of an exhibition by New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House & Archives of Irish America, created in partnership with the United Irish Counties Association of New York with funding from the Government of Ireland’s Emigrant Support Programme.

Speaking in advance of the opening Minister Deenihan said: "This exhibition tells the story of what it meant to be Irish in America in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Today, it's difficult to imagine just what it must have been like for many immigrants, moving from rural areas in Ireland to huge urban centres, wildly different from anything they could have imagined. It is no wonder that they established supporting networks, and communities with other Irish people, to maintain the link to their native soil and culture. This was especially important in a world without multimedia, texting or Skype."

This exhibition is also significant as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the visit of John F Kennedy, who referred to Ireland as "not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the most affection"