Following is an excerpt from The Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, vol 1, 1898, edited by Thomas Hamilton Murray: On defining an Irishman -- It is almost as hopeless a task to define an Irishman as it is to give the dimensions of perfume; for the Irishman is as evasive and delusive, as pervasive and variable in type and character as the sweetness rising from the glowing bed of flowers. If this society is to have a logical and reasonable plea for existence, if its title of American-Irish is to mean anything, we must reach some solid basis upon which to build our fabric; we must agree upon an acceptable definition of what is an Irishman. After much pondering, this is their description: THIS IS THE IRISHMAN The man born on Irish soil, breathing Irish air, drinking in the beauty of the hills and vales and streams and loughs of Ireland, listening to whispering winds of Irish seas, hearing the story and legend of the Irish days long gone, his heart and soul responding to the hopes of those around him, e his father English or Norman, Scotch or Welsh, Dane or Norse, French or Dutch, that man will grow into an Irishman. This is the verdict of history; this is the experience of seven centuries. Let them come from where they will, those who plunge into the Irish Lethe emerge on the other bank Irishmen, better betimes than the son of the older race, more Irish than the Irish. Conditions, climate, environment are more potent that blood; they are the instruments with which God works. The normal man, born on Irish soil and growing to manhood on it is an Irishman. Carry him to the most remote quarter of the earth, and he is still Irish, AND HIS CHILDREN TO THE TENTH GENERATION.