Just published!

THE GAELIC GOTHAM REPORT:
ASSESSING A CONTROVERSIAL EXHIBITION
AT THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

by The Council for Scholarly Evaluation of Gaelic Gotham
(NY: New York Irish History Roundtable, 1997)
8½ x 11, 173 pp.    0-9657397-0-8    $ 20.00

This new report presents assessments of the exhibition Gaelic Gotham: A History of the Irish in New York assembled by the Museum of the City of New York and opened for a seven-months showing at the Museum on March 13, 1996. The report is occasioned by critical reactions within the New York Irish-American community to actions and statements concerning the controversial exhibition by Museum administrators that began in 1995 and continued into 1996.

These community reactions occurred in a period when controversies over historical and cultural exhibitions at other institutions, including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, were subjects of national attention.

The meaning of these controversies, their similarities and differences, as well as the meanings of community-based reactions and the appropriateness of responses by museum administrators, are central to questions of public participation and institutional responsibility for scholars, museum and civic leaders, and the peoples they serve. THE GAELIC GOTHAM REPORT contributes to framing and answering these questions. 

The immediate purpose of the report is to make expert assessments of Gaelic Gotham available to interested parties.   Its contents include the following:

A chronology of events in the Gaelic Gotham controversy; 
Reviews of the Gaelic Gotham exhibition by Dr. Allen Feldman and Dr. John Kuo Wei Tchen presented at a special forum sponsored by the Columbia University Seminar on Irish Studies; 
Reviews of the exhibition published within the three-month period after its opening;
Analyses of the exhibition script and its audio-visual components;
Seven appendices, including an analysis of the controversy by Dr. Frank Naughton; excerpts from the original exhibition plan submitted as part of a grant proposal application to the National Endowment for the Humanities; copies of correspondence between the Council for Scholarly Evaluation of Gaelic Gotham and the Museum of the City of New York; a list of scholars endorsing Council resolutions; and a descriptive statement on the Museum's public session held in September, 1996.

Copies of THE GAELIC GOTHAM REPORT are now available.  Send a check made payable to the New York Irish History Roundtable, P.O. Box 2087 Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008.  NYS residents please add sales tax.  Further inquiries may be made to the NYIHR via e-mail: [log in to unmask]