The John F. and Kathleen L. Gibbons Family Endowment in Irish Studies was established in 1993. John F. “Jack” Gibbons (’63) is a member of the Hesburgh Libraries Advisory Council. He and his wife, Kay, a graduate of Saint Mary’s College, have six children. All of them are graduates of Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame.

The Gibbons Endowment has played an important role in providing library materials to maintain and build a comprehensive and robust collection for all levels of academic inquiry in Irish studies the areas of history, art, architecture, and literature.

Resources have been strengthened through the acquisition of newspaper microfilm sets and the addition of some rare travel accounts of Ireland. Some examples are Irish history materials (published in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries) including biographies and autobiographies, reminiscences, and works on regional history, immigration history, Irish Catholicism, Irish women, and social and economic history. In the Irish Fiction Collection there are digital copies of Catholic Youth Literature. Also, rare prints have been added to the valuable Cuala Press collection.

Other endowments supported by the family include the Thomas and Rosemary Gibbons and James and Helen Moore Library Endowment, the John F. and Kathleen L. Gibbons Endowment in American Catholic Studies, and the John F. and Kathleen L. Gibbons Endowment for the Enrichment of Studies in American History.