The Eire Society of Boston was founded in 1937 to promote Irish culture and to bring it to a wider audience particularly in the United States. Each year the Society bestows the Gold Medal Award to individuals they feel have greatly contributed to their goals. Recipients have included film-makers John Ford and John Huston, Irish actresses Siobhan McKenna and Maureen O'Hara, Irish poet Seamus Heaney, U.S. Ambassadors to Ireland William V. Shannon and Jean Kennedy Smith, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John W. McCormack and President John F. Kennedy.