Professor Marion Casey of New York University is the Irish Echo's Irish American of the Year for 2026.
Professor Casey succeeds Siobhan Dennehy, Executive Director of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center and a tireless frontline advocate for Irish immigrants in the United States.
Casey's is the founder and curator of the Archives of Irish America at NYU/Glucksman Ireland House. As such she is the guardian of Irish America's story throughout the 250 years of the American Republic, a standout anniversary that is being marked this year.
Professor Casey is also an advocate for the collective story of Irish immigrants, their Irish heritage and American legacies.
Casey studied history with David N. Doyle at University College Dublin and with David M. Reimers at New York University. Her goals, according to her online biographical posting, are to use the longevity of Irish emigration to illuminate the evolving ethnic and racial experience in the United States; to explore diaspora and transnationalism from Irish and American perspectives; and to teach students how to think historically."
In 1997 Professor Casey established the Archives of Irish America in New York University’s Bobst Library and in 1999 she was named a Centennial Historian of the City of New York.
Established as part of New York University’s Division of Libraries and with the support of Glucksman Ireland House, the Archives of Irish America is a repository of primary research materials that assists students, faculty and visiting scholars in evaluating the Irish impact on the history of American social and cultural development, as well as the evolution of a specifically Irish-American identity.
The Archives of Irish America includes the Ireland House History Collection, developed as part of the Glucksman Ireland House undergraduate Irish Studies curriculum.
Marion Casey now joins a distinguished and varied Irish American of the Year roster that features 2025's Siobhan Dennehy and, in preceding years, former New York State Assemblyman and Irish American Presidential Forum founder John Dearie; labor champion John "Chick" Donohue; Professor Christine Kinealy; hotelier and philanthropist John Fitzpatrick; former member of the Irish Senate and immigration activist, Billy Lawless; Irish Immigration Reform Movement co-founder Mae O’Driscoll; Congressman Joe Crowley; university lecturer and Great Hunger curriculum pioneer Maureen Murphy; Congressman Peter King; broadcaster Adrian Flannelly; philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman; attorney and rights activist Brian O’Dwyer; journalist and author Pete Hamill; Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal; author Colum McCann; former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
