The Patrick A. Collins papers include correspondence, certificates, photographs, manuscripts, and printed materials related to his life and work as a lawyer, politician, and activist for Irish independence. Much of the correspondence is concerned with the operations of the American branch of the Land League (Ireland), of which Collins was president. It also documents Boston and American political life in the late nineteenth century. Notable correspondents include Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Boyle O'Reilly.