NEWS RELEASE: IAHM’S 2025 ERIE CANAL BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS
IAHM will host a series of events between October 11-19, 2025 to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal. Completed in 1825, the 363-mile long Erie Canal was the longest artificial waterway in North America. It was also the first canal to connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, making New York City the principal seaport in the United States. During the eight years of construction, significant numbers of Irish immigrants joined American-born workers as they excavated and constructed the canal by hand and animal power.
The Irish American Heritage Museum (IAHM) joins a number of partners in the Capital region in celebrating the Erie Canal’s rich history and the cultural legacy of Irish immigrants who helped build the canal. IAHM’s commemorative events culminate with the landing in the City of Albany of a replica of the Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief on October 18, 2025, while on its Bicentennial Voyage, commemorating Governor DeWitt Clinton’s historic 1825 journey from Buffalo to New York Harbor.
During the museum’s week-long celebration of the Erie Canal’s Bicentennial, the following IAHM programming will honor the remarkable accomplishments of those who built the waterway and celebrate the long-term effects on our commerce and communities:
• October 11, 2025 (7:00 PM): IAHM will present a multi-media musical journey entitled Musical Postcards from Irish Albany and Troy, which was written - and will be performed - by local Irish American performing artists Toss the Feathers. This historical concert will tell - through slides, stories, songs and traditional tunes - the story of the Irish immigrants who settled in the Upper Hudson Valley.
• October 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM: Special screening of the movie Creating the Erie Canal by ThirdWave Films, which beautifully depicts the pioneers and immigrants who discovered the intersection of ambition and opportunity in upstate New York.
• October 18, 2025 (7:00 PM): IAHM will host a dinner with visiting Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief’s Captain Ann Loeding and the Seneca Chief’s crew. During that evening, there will be live music; an interpretive dance performance entitled The Erie Canal Project: An Original Choreography to Erie Canal Songs by Cecilia Whelan Dance Company (NYC); and, a panel discussion about the Erie Canal by Seneca Chief’s Captain Loeding, Jack McEneny and IAHM’s Executive Director Michael C. Clarke.
See IAHM’s News Release, here.
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The Irish American Heritage Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit created by the New York State Legislature in 1986 and permanently chartered by the Board of Regents of New York as an educational institution in 1992. We explore the contributions, history, and culture of Irish people in America, and fosters dialogue and exchange between America and Ireland today. By sharing our stories, we strive to create connections and community between all Americans, as we appreciate and study the universality of the immigrant story in American history.
The Museum was an integral force in providing instruction in New York State’s public schools about the Irish Famine of 1845-1853. Further, we are the first Museum of its kind here in America to have exhibited at the National Library in Dublin.
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