Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group

Organization

Founded

2023

Eras

Modern eraIrish era

Concepts

heritageirish-arranmorecommunitymusic-folkloretourism

Within

Beaver Island

Summary

The Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group (BIIHG) is a modern nonprofit heritage organization that presents activities intended to recognize, showcase, and preserve Beaver Island’s Irish heritage, including its connection with Arranmore Island, County Donegal. Its signature public program is the annual Emerald Isle Irish Féile, held each September.

Formation and mission

The group’s 2024 community announcement describes a transition from the Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce committee that organized the 2023 Féile into the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group. It names a board, festival and administrative support, and says the new organization established accounts, policies, procedures, and committees as it developed.¹ A January 2024 account places the Féile’s beginning in 2019 and describes the move toward a separate 501(c)(3) organization.²

The November 2024 retrospective gives a more specific, but still community-reported, sequence: incorporation as a Michigan Domestic Nonprofit in November 2023, followed by work on bylaws, policies, procedures, and an IRS submission while the group prepared the 2024 Féile. It reports that federal tax-exempt recognition had been received by November 2024.³

BIIHG’s own stated mission is to present authentic and varied activities that recognize, showcase, and preserve Beaver Island’s unique Irish heritage, including its connection to Arranmore Island in County Donegal. The group describes the Emerald Isle Irish Féile as its signature annual event.¹ The November 2024 retrospective reports that the organization had received federal tax-exempt status and could accept tax-deductible contributions, but the project does not hold the underlying IRS determination letter or incorporation filing.³

The Emerald Isle Irish Féile

The group’s own account places the Emerald Isle Irish Féile’s start in 2019, when it was sponsored by the Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce and by private individuals, businesses, and nonprofits. The January 2024 sponsorship notice describes the festival’s purpose as presenting authentic and varied Irish-inspired activities, extending the island’s tourism season by one week, and showcasing what it calls Beaver Island’s identity as “America’s Emerald Isle.” The first festival in 2019 featured music, activities, and history related to the island’s Irish settlement. After a two-year hiatus attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival returned with additional talent, a revamped website, and the inaugural induction of six individuals into a Beaver Island Irish American Hall of Fame.²

The January 2024 account describes 2023 as the festival’s third and most recent year, reporting that it welcomed more than 120 attendees from the island’s Irish sister community of Arranmore, including the Arranmore Pipe Band, introduced a “Calling of the Clans” fundraiser that gathered more than $30,000 from ten clans on the island, and saw ticketed attendance grow from 250 to nearly 475.²

A June 2024 organizational announcement, by Kitty McNamara, thanked outgoing staff member Shannon McDonough for leading the Féile’s bookkeeping through its 2023 run as a Chamber of Commerce committee and through its transition into BIIHG, and announced the hiring of Katie Johnson as administrative assistant and bookkeeper. The announcement quoted board treasurer Lu O’Connor on McDonough’s departure and board president Paul Cole on Johnson’s hiring, and said Johnson would work with festival coordinator Kathleen McNamara.¹

The November 2024 retrospective adds that BIIHG’s new federal tax-exempt status meant the organization could accept tax-deductible bequests and fund transfers, that donors who gave in 2024 could apply the exemption to that year’s federal taxes, and that the board saw the designation as opening access to grant funding for the group’s mission.³

Relationship to older institutions

BIIHG is distinct from the Beaver Island Historical Society and Holy Cross Catholic Church. Its sources describe a heritage and festival organization, not a museum, parish, or replacement for either institution. Its work extends the older Irish settlement and the Beaver Island–Arranmore civic relationship into contemporary music, performance, family memory, and tourism.³

Evidence limits

The held sources establish the group’s public identity, mission, personnel, and festival role. start_date: "2023" follows the community report’s stated November 2023 incorporation; it is not a substitute for the formal state filing. The same applies to the reported 2024 IRS recognition: an underlying determination letter remains an open source gap.

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Added 31 July 2026 · revised 3 August 2026. Recent changes