Church Gifts & Windows

For more than a century, Ancient Order of Hibernians and Ladies AOH divisions gave gifts to the Catholic churches that anchored their communities — most famously the stained-glass windows recorded here, but also altars, statues, Stations of the Cross, bells, and chalices. Many carry an inscription naming the division that donated them.

The Hibernian Windows project began as a documentary effort: an early survey (May 2008) recorded 314 windows across 34 states, Ireland, and Canada, with Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York leading the count, and thirty-two windows attributed to the Ladies AOH (established 1898). Historians have estimated that more than five hundred such windows once existed. This catalog draws on the July 2010 survey spreadsheet, extending that record church by church.

It is a race against time. Parishes are consolidating and closing, and many of these gifts are now well over a hundred years old. Documenting where they are — and what their inscriptions say — preserves the memory of the Irish Catholic immigrants who gave them. If you know of a gift not listed here, or can add to a record, please contact the AOH National Historian.