Naming a Yankee to head an Irish organization reduced factional infighting.

Evidence

Until the demise of the Repeal movement, Boston would continue to set the pace. This was partly due to its choice of a president, John W. James, a Yankee, son of a Revolutionary War patriot, and long-time partisan of the Irish cause. Potter suggests that naming a non-Irishman to head the group reduced the intensity of factional struggles that normally plagued Irish efforts at organization. James was a Democrat in the Federalist-Whig stronghold. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 71