Sean Prendiville Papers
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Abstract
Sean Prendiville is a first-generation Irish American, born and raised in San Francisco, California. Members of the Prendiville family living in Ireland were active Republicans during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922-1923). Prendiville joined Irish support groups established in San Francisco during confict in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. This collection contains material concerning the Irish American experience with specific focus on Northern California. Materials include personal correspondence and other documentation regarding numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made by Prendiville to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning several Irish American individuals and organizations suspected of Irish Republican activity from approximately 1920 to 1979. Also included are original letters written by a Fenian prisoner in Western Australia in 1870, as well as newspaper accounts from the same time period. The collection also includes ephemera and physical objects, including flyers, newspapers, broadsides, bumper stickers, and a singificant button collection supprting Irish prisoners and the Republican movement.
Biographical Note
Sean Prendiville is a first generation Irish American, born and raised in San Francisco, California. His father emigrated from County Kerry, his mother from County Roscommon. In Ireland, members of the Prendiville family were active Republicans during the country's fight for independence from Great Britain (1919-1921) and subsequent civil war (1922-1923). Two of Sean Prendiville's grand-uncles were in the Irish Republican Army (IRA): one was killed in a raid on a Royal Irish Constabulary (police) station in Castleisland, County Kerry; the other continued to fight with the IRA until he was wounded and captured during the civil war. Their nephew in San Francisco regularly took young Sean Prendiville to buy the Sinn Fein newspaper The United Irishman at the Golden Gate News Agency on Third Street.
When conflict broke out in Northern Ireland in 1968, following attacks on Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches, Sean Prendiville joined some of the Irish support groups that were established in San Francisco. Later, after the Republican movement split, he joined the Irish Republican Clubs, supporters of the Official Irish Republican movement, because their politics seemed more in line with the anti-Vietnam war movement that he was also participating in at the time. While a member of the Irish Republican Clubs, Prendiville met some older activists who had participated in the Irish Republican Congress Clubs of the 1930s, especially Vernon Healey in San Francisco and Gerald O'Reilly in New York. He became aware of a current in Irish-American and Irish Republican history that had been passed over - the links between left-wing Irish organizations and American progressives – sparking a research interest that eventually led to the assembly of this collection between 1986 and 1994
Arrangement
Collection is arranged into five series. Series are arranged alphabetically, then chronologically.
Missing Title
- Series I. Correspondence, 1902-1997
- Series II. Subject Files, 1864-1988
- Series III. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests and Correspondence, 1920-1979
- Series IV. Printed Ephemera, 1818-1924
- Series V. Nonprint, 1980-1995
Scope and Content Note
This collection documents Sean Prendiville's involvement in and research on the activities of Irish and Irish American organizations in the 20th century, with a specific focus on Irish Republicanism. Materials include flyers, pamphlets, broadsides, buttons, bumper stickers, correspondence, newspapers, government forms, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and Federal Bureau of Investigation documents. The majority of the collection consists of Prendiville's FOIA requests and the documents he received in response. These materials focused on Irish organizations in Ireland and the United States under surveillance for alleged Irish Republican activities.
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Access Restrictions
Materials are open for research without restrictions.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Sean Prendiville, the creator of this collection, were transferred to New York University in 1997. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Sean Prendiville Papers; AIA 005; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Sean Prendiville donated the documents to the Archives of Irish America at the Tamiment Library, NYU in June 1997, July 1998, August 1998, August 2004, and 2011. The series of personal correspondence came to the Archives along with the Patrick Daughton Papers (AIA 055) in 2009. The accession numbers associated with this collection are 1997.059 and 2011.005.
An additional accretion was donated in 2018. The accession number associated with this gift is 2018.102.
Separated Materials
The 19th century publication The Phoenix was separated from this collection and integrated into the Archives of Irish America Newspapers and Periodicals Collection (AIA 004) as Box 185.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Material from the 2018 accretion was housed in archival folders and boxes. In the fall of 2022, materials from accession 2018-102 were processed and described by an archivist.