IrishAmerica250.org

National Committee Members

We are in the process of building a national leadership team and are very pleased with the enormous and positive response. While we are still a committee in formation, listed below are some of those who have joined:

• Alice McDermott, award-winning novelist and playwright
• Terence Winch,  winner of the American Book Award (1985) and co-editor of The Best American Poetry of 2025
• Micheal O’Siadhail, ” The Five Quintets cements his status as arguably Ireland’s greatest living poet”
• Niall O’Dowd, founder and publisher of Irish America, Irish Central, and author
• Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, Harvard Kennedy School
• Larry McCarthy, immediate past president of the GAA
• Marty Meehan, Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts system
• Dennis M. Lucey, VP AKIMA and Co-Chair of the American Ireland Fund National Gala
• Sean Pender, President of the AOH
• Catriona Frotrell, President and CEO, Ireland Fund
• John Fitzpatrick, President and CEO of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group
• Susan Davis, President of Susan Davis International, Co-Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the GFA
• Mary Sugrue, President and CEO, Irish American Partnership
• Former Ambassador to Ireland Kevin O’Malley
• Former Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin
• John Feehery, recently appointed by the Trump Administration to be the alternate observer to the International Fund for Ireland
• Susan O’Neill, American Ireland Fund
• Theresa Flanagan Murtagh, President of the Friendly Sons and Daughters of Saint Patrick (1771), Philadelphia
• John Connorton, National Committee on American Foreign Policy
• Tom P. O’Neill III, O’Neill and Associates, Boston
• James Normile, Chairman of the American Irish Historical Society 
• Prof. Martin Flaherty, Fordham Law School and Princeton University
• John Feerick, former Dean of Fordham Law School
• Ambassador Susan Eliot, National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCTAF)
• Prof. Kimberly Cowell Meyers, Vice Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the GFA
• Ted Smyth, President Advisory Board, Glucksman Ireland House for Irish Studies, NYU
• Dr. Niamh Hamill, Institute for Studies Abroad, Donegal
• Duncan Morrow, Ulster University
• Dennis Browlee, Founder and Chairman of the African American Irish Diaspora Network
• Stella O’Leary, former U.S. representative to the IFI
• Artist and scholar Prof. Emeritus James W. Flannery, Emory University
• Brendan Fay, founder of the Lavender & Green Alliance
• Turlough McConnell, McConnell Communications
• Carol Wheeler, Founder of the Washington Ireland Program
• Dan Dennehy, Council for American Irish Relations
• James P. Tierney, historian, Fighting Irish 69th Division
• Bob Arnold, Jr., U.S.S. Patrick Gallagher, Commissioning Committee
• Tom Elmore, author, South Carolina Humanities
• Marilyn Madigan, Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians
• Kevin Charles Murray, Frost Brown Todd, Senior Partner, Indianapolis 
• Keith Carney, President FedNet. Washington D.C. 
• Chris Moser, Professor Emeritus, Georgia State University, expert on the history of the Scots Irish 
• Martina Curtin, President of the Irish Cultural Center of Greater Boston
• Michael Quinlin, Co-Founder Boston Irish Tourism Association (BITA)
• Mark H. Tuohey, advisor to the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland. 
• Brian G. Andersson, Former Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Records. Historian, Genealogist.

Founders and Directors

Irish America 250 is a pro bono initiative dedicated to honoring and celebrating the enduring legacy of Irish contributions to American history and culture. The project is made possible through the generous donation of time, expertise, and resources by its Directors, who serve without compensation in support of this mission.

• Kevin Sullivan, CEO and Chair
  Kevin Sullivan is a first generation Irish American with deep family ties in Cork and Tyrone. He is an Irish citizen. Kevin led the Board of the Washington Ireland Program (WIP) for nine years and in 2019 cofounded the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the GFA https://adhocgfa.org/. He remains the Executive Director of the Ad Hoc Committee. He co-founded www.votingrights.ie in 2016 with the late Senator for the Diaspora Billy Lawless. Sullivan spent 14 years working for various members of Congress before joining the Clinton Administration in 1992. In the immediate aftermath of the GFA signing Sullivan working with https://cooperationireland.org/ helped to launch Civic Link, a cross community, cross border secondary school initiative that would reach over 12,000 students before it ended in 2010.  He is a principal at Kevin Sullivan and Associates. 
  
• Morgan O’Sullivan, Vice Chair
  Morgan O’Sullivan, originally from Cork, is the Director of Financial Aid Communications and Operations at Lynn University in Boca Raton. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Cork, a Masters focused on the US role in the Irish Peace Process and a doctorate focused on educational leadership and financial literacy. Morgan is a  long-time advocate for strengthening links between Ireland and its global community, and has written extensively on Irish diaspora engagement, voting rights, and civic participation abroad. He is a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the GFA and VotingRights.ie
  
• Hilary Beirne, Greater New York, Irish US Relations
  Hilary Bierne, originally from Roscommon served as the  Chair of the NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Foundation and  was the Executive Secretary of the NYC Saint Patrick’s Parade between 2002 and 2025
  
• Noreen Bowden, Communications Director
  Noreen Bowden is the former Director of the Dublin-based Emigrant Advice Network, she has advocated on issues affecting emigrants through op-eds to the Irish Times and other news outlets, and on her own GlobalIrish.ie website.  She holds an MPA from Harvard University, and an MA in Irish Studies from Boston College, and works in Marketing for CIE Tours.  Noreen has served on several boards, including the Irish Immigration Center in Boston and the Brussels-based Europeans Throughout the World, where she served as Vice President, and was the  Communications Director for two terms at the Irish Business Organization in New York; she has taught about the Irish Diaspora through CelticJunction.com.  She is a co-founder along with Kevin Sullivan of www/votingrights.ie 
  
• Susan Davis, Counselor
  Susan Ann Davis is Chairman, Susan Davis International, a global public affairs and strategic communications agency headquartered in Washington DC. With expertise in strategic positioning, government relations. market entry and crisis communications, Davis provides counsel to government and industry leaders on six continents. She is Co-Founder of IPREX, the $200 million agency network with 74 partners worldwide . Davis became an advisor to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland when the first Northern Ireland Bureau was established in the U.S. She has continued that support over decades with the Executive, as well as business and community leaders , to include Women in Business NI and women entrepreneurs.
  A passionate advocate for building young leaders and for girls education, she serves on the Washington Ireland Program Leadership Council and as the Board Chair of the RRoH Foundation, which continues to educate 800 girls in Afghanistan Davis is Board Chair Emeritus of Vital Voices, a network of 18,000 emerging women leaders and is a founder and the first International President of the 7000-member International Women’s Forum. She is presently an Executive Board member of the American Ireland Fund and serves on the Grants Committee and as chair of the Communications Committee.
  
• Prof. Darragh Gannon, Georgetown University Global Irish Studies, Lead Historian
  Click Here for Bio
  
• Sean O’Dowd, Treasurer
• James Gaffey, The South and the Scots Irish

• Bobby Cunningham, Government Relations
• Chris Isleib, Retired Navy Captain: Liaison to U.S. Armed Forces and America 250 Commission 
• Ruadhán Byron, Marketing Director 
• Robert Leigh, Lead Graphic Designer
• Michelle O’Mahony, History Consultant & Communications Director in Ireland
• Owen Kirby, Outreach Director