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Of the four fiddling 'greenhorns' who arrived in New York in 1928, just in time for the Great Depression - James Lad O'Beirne, Donegal native Hugh Gillespie, Roscommon man Larry Redican and Mayo-born John McGrath, Lad O’Beirne has perhaps the greatest reputation among traditional musicians.

Born in 1911 in the townland of Bellanalack near Ballymote, County Sligo, ''Lad'' was only 16 when he disembarked in New York. But as a son of fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, one of Michael Coleman’s chief influences, he was soon welcomed into elite musical circles. The connection to Coleman was strengthened when he married the older fiddler’s niece Mary in 1942. O’Beirne never made a solo commercial disc of his own, though he did cut a handful of 78 rpm sides, including one fantastic hornpipe duet with a band led by Louis Quinn. Cassette copies of some of Lad’s privately made home disc recordings circulated for years, and some of those discs have now been added to ITMA’s collection. Lad’s reputation as one of the greatest of Irish fiddlers is largely based on the impression he made on fellow musicians at house parties, private sessions and on trips back to Ireland.

Perhaps the greatest collection of Irish fiddle players ever assembled in one neighbourhood lived and played in the south Bronx in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lad O’Beirne was the dean of this college of fiddle masters. Reels and jigs echoed from O’Beirne’s apartment every Friday night, windows thrown open to ventilate parties that drew the likes of Paddy Killoran, Paddy Sweeney, Tim Harte, Tom Connolly, Larry Redican, Louis Quinn, Vincent Harrison, Martin Wynne, Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds. Cavan-born Philadelphia resident Ed Reavy was a frequent visitor, bringing his latest compositions to New York for the delectation of his musical peers.

Paddy Reynolds, Andy McGann, Vincent Harrison, Louis Quinn, Ed Reavy and Sligo brothers Séamus and Manus McGuire are among the many musical associates who attested to Lad’s genius as fiddler and composer. Several of Lad’s unnamed compositions are now in general circulation among traditional players the world over. When he passed away in 1980, Lad, like Coleman, Morrison and Killoran, was laid to rest in St. Raymond’s cemetery in the Bronx. 

Seamus O’Keeffe (James George O’Keeffe) was an exhibition dancer for the Gaelic League of London. A native of Kanturk, Co Cork, Seamus was steeped in the language, literature and dance of his native area. He was educated in Blackrock College, Dublin, and moved to London in 1885 to work as a civil servant in the War Office. As a member of the Irish Literary Society and the Gaelic League of London, he taught Irish-language classes. With the League, he and Kathleen O’Brien of Limerick taught step dancing classes in Madame Geree's Ballet Dance Parlours in Leicester Square, and with Liam O’Looney of Cork performed exhibition dances. London-based dance master Patrick Reidy introduced a repertory of group dances or ‘ceili’ dances such as 'The Siege of Ennis' and 'The Walls of Limerick' which were easier to learn. O’Keeffe and O’Brien visited Kerry following the Ballyvourney Feis in 1899 to add to their social dances and meet an increased demand for such dances. The Gaelic League of London played an important role in introducing the concept of Irish ceili dancing to London in the 1890s. The popularity of such social dancing within the Gaelic League movement may well have provided the impetus to share and publish a description of the dances in 1902.

James George O’Keeffe was a respected and prolific editor of Irish-language texts as a member of the Irish Texts Society and Scoil Ard-Léinn na Gaeilge, publishing for example Táin Bó Cuailgne from the Yellow Book of Lecan with John Strachan and Buile Suibhne. In 1914 he was appointed a financial advisor for the British War Office in the United States and was awarded an OBE. in 1918. He died in Richmond, Surrey in 1937.

Art O'Brien was born in London to a prosperous and established family, his father John Francis O’Brien being a native of Cork. He studied civil and electrical engineering and after working abroad returned to London in c. 1899. Late-Victorian London was the home of a variety of Irish cultural revivalist organisations such as the Southwark Irish Literary Club (founded 1883), the Irish Literary Society (1892), the Irish Texts Society (1896) and the Gaelic League of London (1896). Art O’Brien joined the Gaelic League of London in 1899, and gaelicised his name to Art Ó Briain… ‘thenceforth becoming a regular attendant at the classes and other gatherings’.

Art O’Brien was to play a substantial role in nationalist politics following the outbreak of the First World War as a member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in London, and in founding the Irish Self-Determination League of Great Britain (1920–21). His political career was however marred by financial controversy and he removed himself from political life until 1933, but remained President of the Gaelic League of London until 1935. Under Sean T. O’Kelly he was appointed Irish Minister to France and Belgium 1935–1938. He died in Dublin in 1949.