These videotapes are part of the larger Mick Moloney Irish-American Music and Popular Culture Collection. This sub-collection consists of VHS cassettes, Beta videocassette tapes, and U-Matic videocassettes acquired in the course of Dr. Moloney's career as a folklorist, producer, musician, and academic. The tapes include amateur and professional recordings of Dr. Moloney's performances, extensive documentation of the 1987 International Village Fair, commercial videotapes collected as teaching aids, and videotapes used as masters and safeties for recording sessions. The materials illustrate themes such as immigration and assimilation viewed through the lens of Irish-America's engagement with and expression of its own popular culture, with specific emphasis on its musical traditions. The time period most heavily documented in this subcollection (1975-2000) witnessed both a reinvestment by Irish-America in its cultural traditions and a transition of its musical traditions from the home to the stage, accompanied by unprecedented national recognition. The subcollection illustrates the shifts in policies regarding arts funding and programming; the valorization of ethnicity in the United States during the late 20th century; the rise in prominence of female performers of traditional music; and the Irish presence on and repertoire of the Philadelphia and New York music scenes.

The majority of the videotapes document Moloney's live performances, including those at Irish and folk festivals held in Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. (Glen Echo), and the Augusta Heritage Center's Irish Week at Elkins College, West Virginia. Dr. Moloney's involvement in the International Village Fair; his touring ensemble, the Green Fields of America; and his collaboration with Robbie O'Connell and Jimmy Keane, are particularly well represented. Some tapes contains audio masters and safety copies of recording sessions for Dr. Moloney and the traditional ensemble Cherish the Ladies. Other items of note include broadcasts, tapes related to Moloney's package tours of Ireland, and a recording of the ceremony at which Moloney received the National Heritage Fellowship Award in 1999.