From Limerick to Lower Manhattan, Earl Holman is reimagining Irish tourism in New York

Nearly two decades after moving to New York, Earl Holman has turned a lifelong fascination with Irish emigrant stories into a thriving tourism company that explores the city’s overlooked Irish past. Through Forty Thieves Tours, he is offering visitors a more personal and immersive way to connect with the immigrant communities that helped shape Lower Manhattan and beyond.

Long before Earl Holman launched a tourism company in New York City, he was a history-obsessed schoolboy in Limerick fascinated by stories of Irish emigrants, political rebels, and the communities they built abroad. Nearly two decades after making his own move across the Atlantic, that early passion has evolved into Forty Thieves Tours, a business bringing New York’s overlooked Irish past to life.

Like generations of Irish emigrants before him, Holman came to New York searching for opportunity. Trained as a chef and accustomed to the demanding pace of professional kitchens, he arrived in his early twenties focused on building a career in hospitality. But over time, another passion began to take shape.

Today, Holman is the founder of Forty Thieves Tours, an independent tourism business that has carved out a niche in one of the world’s busiest visitor markets by focusing on something many larger operators overlook: immigration stories, hidden neighborhood history, Irish-American identity, and the ordinary people who helped shape New York City.

Raised in Limerick and educated at JFK Memorial School on the Ennis Road, Holman says both Irish and American history fascinated him from an early age. Those interests stayed with him even as his professional life initially moved toward food and hospitality management.

Holman now works seven days a week building and running the company, but he speaks about the workload with the perspective of somebody who has spent most of his life in demanding industries.

“I’m working all the time, but I love it,” he said. “I’ve been working in kitchens since I was about sixteen, often doing sixty hours a week, so I’m not afraid of hard work or long hours.”

That work ethic has become central to the growth of Forty Thieves Tours.

From Lower Manhattan immigration landmarks to forgotten churches, prohibition-era speakeasies, dockside communities, and family genealogy experiences, Holman has built a business around a side of New York many visitors never get to experience.

The idea did not emerge from a formal business plan, but from years spent working in bars and restaurants across Manhattan. Holman noticed visitors, particularly Irish tourists and Irish Americans, often wanted something beyond the standard sightseeing routes.

“For example, a couple asked me one night about St Patrick’s Cathedral,” he recalled. “I told them the original St Patrick’s Cathedral was actually downtown, not where most people think of today. They came back the next night wanting to hear more, and I enjoyed guiding them toward different parts of the city.”

Holman says he began scribbling recommendations, historical notes, and hidden locations on the backs of envelopes during shifts.

“At some point it just clicked with me that I’d love to do this for a living,” he said. “I realized I was naturally good at it, and nobody was really doing it the way I wanted to do it.”

That idea eventually became Forty Thieves Tours. The company takes its name from the Forty Thieves, one of New York’s earliest organized street gangs, founded in the notorious Five Points district during the 1820s. Made up largely of Irish immigrants, the gang became infamous for crime, political corruption, and connections to early Tammany Hall politics.

Holman says the name immediately sparks curiosity.

“It’s a name people remember, and once they hear the history behind it, they want to know more.”

That curiosity has become the foundation of the business. Rather than presenting history as something academic or inaccessible, Holman’s tours focus on people, including laborers, immigrants, clergy, dock workers, women, and community leaders whose stories are often overlooked.

“We want people to walk away feeling like they’ve discovered something real,” he said. “Not just another sightseeing stop or something they can find online.”

Launching a tourism company in New York came with obvious challenges. The city’s tourism industry is crowded, dominated by major operators, booking platforms, and heavily marketed attractions. Holman had no corporate tourism background and no traditional business roadmap.

Entrepreneurship and innovation, however, run in the family. Holman says one of his biggest inspirations is his aunt, Celia Holman Lee, the pioneering Irish model, agent, television presenter, and businesswoman whose agency became Ireland’s longest-running model agency.

“She started from scratch in the 70s with very little and took chances,” he said. “It’s unbelievable what she achieved over her lifetime and continues to achieve.”

Celia Holman Lee (right).

From a business perspective, Holman says much of the learning came through trial and error, preparation, and relying on trusted friends during difficult moments.

“It can get daunting,” he admitted. “But I had one or two people I would call with questions on the day-to-day running of the business, and I’m learning as I go. There are a lot of moving parts.”

His passion for both history and tourism, however, is what drives the company’s growth. Before launching any new experience, Holman researches and designs routes himself, often spending weeks revisiting archives, neighborhoods, and historical sites connected to New York’s immigrant past.

“I probably do twelve to fifteen test runs before launching a new tour,” he said. “The smallest piece of feedback can completely change the experience.”

That attention to detail has helped the business grow largely through repeat customers, referrals, and word of mouth.

Today, Forty Thieves works with a small team of carefully selected local guides with a depth of experience and local knowledge, and Holman says finding the right people remains one of the company’s biggest challenges.

“You can teach facts, but you can’t teach personality or presence,” he said. “Guests remember how you made them feel as much as anything else.”

The company now offers several themed experiences across Manhattan, including Irish heritage walking tours through Lower Manhattan and Midtown, prohibition-themed experiences, food tours through Chinatown and Little Italy, and one of Holman’s newest concepts, a Guinness-inspired experience exploring the stout’s connection to New York’s Irish dockside and pub culture.

“There’s no shortage of tours in New York,” Holman said. “If you want people to choose you, you’ve got to offer something they can’t get elsewhere.”

One of the company’s most ambitious experiences centres around Ellis Island. Priced at $599 for private groups, the family history tour includes advanced genealogical research using shipping records and immigration documents before guests retrace the steps their ancestors once took through America’s most famous immigration gateway.

For Holman, it is among the most rewarding parts of the business.

“You’ll see grandparents, parents, and grandchildren standing together getting emotional looking at records of where their family first arrived,” he said. “That’s powerful.”

Among Holman’s favourite historical figures featured on his tours is Charlotte Grace O’Brien, the fellow Limerick native who fought to protect vulnerable Irish women emigrating to America during the nineteenth century.

“She was a wonderful woman who did so much for immigrants, and she’s not as well known as she should be,” he said.

That emphasis on social history has become one of Forty Thieves’ defining strengths. Rather than focusing solely on celebrities, politicians, or crime figures, Holman is more interested in the immigrants whose names rarely appear in guidebooks.

“There are so many people whose stories were never really heard,” he said. “And they helped pave the way for so many others. We also like to be able to give people an insight into the reality of immigration and the struggles and hardship people faced when they made the journey. A lot of that can be glossed over.”

After nearly two decades in New York, Holman says he still sees the city through the eyes of an immigrant. That perspective shapes both his business and his understanding of what visitors are really searching for: connection, authenticity, and stories that feel personal.

Business growth so far has come largely through word of mouth, but Holman’s ambitions continue to expand. He is now launching Forty Thieves FC, a new travel concept blending live European football with the same storytelling and cultural experiences that helped build his tourism business.

Initially operating through a waitlist model, the venture will offer small-group trips to some of Europe’s most iconic football cities and stadiums, including the Santiago Bernabéu, San Siro, and Stamford Bridge, alongside local food, music, and cultural experiences.

For now, however, Holman’s primary focus remains on New York and the stories hidden within it.

In one of the world’s most competitive tourism markets, Forty Thieves Tours has found success by offering visitors something increasingly rare: a sense of connection to the people, communities, and immigrant histories that helped build the city itself.