Irish Boston History
Many people wonder why the Boston Celtics wear shamrocks on their green uniforms and have a giant leprechaun smoking a cigar as their team logo. And why is the team mascot a guy named Lucky who looks like he stepped out of a box of Lucky Charms? According to the Boston Celtics official website, the name came…
A number of Irish immigrants and Irish-American sculptors created some of the most distinctive Civil War Monuments of the 19th Century. Here are three of their monuments in Boston and Cambridge worth visiting: 1. The Shaw Memorial, atop Boston Common and facing the Massachusetts State House, was officially unveiled on May 31, 1897, a homage to…
On Saturday, May 30, 1914, Massachusetts Governor David I. Walsh joined officials from the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies Auxiliary to unveil a granite Celtic Cross in memory of Irish immigrants who perished during a storm off the Massachusetts coastline in 1849. 7000 Hibernians from all over Massachusetts attended the ceremony, according to a story…
Ancestors of the early Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony discouraged Jews and Irish Catholics from burying their congregations in local cemeteries the first half of the 19th century. Boston had long been known as a place where outsiders were considered with suspicion and hatred, due to their religion or ethnic backgrounds. According to Mass Moments,…
Days before President Abraham Lincoln’s April 15, 1861 proclamation seeking 75,000 volunteers to join the Union Army, men from Boston’s Irish community met on April 10 to “express unflinching devotion to the Federal Government.” Irishman Thomas Cass of Boston’s North End immediately began recruiting Irish immigrants to form the Massachusetts 9th regiment. The volunteers came largely from…
In 1729, Scots–Irish Presbyterian Reverene John Moorhead, formerly of Newtonards, County Down, established the Church of the Presbyterian Strangers, initially with a congregation of thirty parishioners,. They built an Irish Meeting House in a converted barn at the corner of Berry Street and Long Lane (now Channing and Federal Street). As church historian Harriett E….
On Monday, April 6, 1896, James Brendan Connolly of South Boston became the first medalist in the modern Olympic Games when he won the triple jump on the opening day of the Games in Athens, Greece. Connolly won the event – back then it was called the Hop, Skip and Jump – by jumping 44 ‘ 9…
The Garden of Remembrance commemorating Ireland’s uprising of 1916 was officially unveiled at Forest Park in Springfield, MA on Sunday, May 15, 2016. It was the first memorial in the United States to recognize the 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising of April, 1916, where Irish rebels attempted to overthrow British forces occupying Ireland. Congressman Richard…
In February, 1924, the Irish National War Memorial Committee in Dublin donated eight beautifully decorated folio volumes, containing information on Irishmen who died in World War I to the Boston Public Library central branch in Copley Square. Published in 1923 by the Committee of the Irish National War Memorial, the the massive project was undertaken…
Blacks and Irish have often, though not always, faced similar experiences in how they were depicted, considered and treated in New England over the past four centuries. When the Puritans settled in Boston in 1630, they believed fervently that they were the chosen ones, destined to build “a city upon a hill, with the eyes…
John Boyle O’Reilly and Frederick Douglass were natural allies in 19th century New England, where they aligned on pressing issues of liberty and justice for all. In the early part of their lives, both men were fugitives, on the run from their captors as they tried to make their way to freedom. Both became writers…
Boston’s Logan International Airport hit a major milestone, thanks to significant improvements and the modernization of Terminal E, the airport’s international gateway, with an iconic red roof. This fall, Massport leaders and public officials gathered to celebrate the completion of these upgrades, which began in 2019, making a more efficient, secure, comfortable and enjoyable experience for international…
In the 18th century, the annual Pope’s Day holiday in Boston every November 5 was a chilling demonstration of the deep-seeded anti-Catholic sentiments prevalent in New England in the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War. One of those bizarre and archaic pastimes that measure a lack of progress in the human condition, Pope’s Day…
America’s oldest commissioned ship, the USS Constitution, was first launched on October 21, 1797, and is berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard. The USS Constitution is operated by the US Navy, a partner of the National Historic Parks of Boston. Known as Old Ironsides for its durability during battle, the USS Constitution has some important Irish connections. During the War of…
United States President Jimmy Carter joined numerous elected officials, political dignitaries and members of the Kennedy family to formally dedicate the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum at Columbia Point in Boston on October 20, 1979, before seven thousand people. In addition to President Carter, participants at the ceremony included Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, John…
Eugene O’Neill, one of the great American playwrights and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, died of bronchial pneumonia at the Hotel Shelton on Bay State Road in Boston on November 27, 1953, at age 65. His wife Carlotta Monterey was by his side. O’Neill is buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plains, a…
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) today celebrated the upgrade and expansion of Terminal E, the airport’s international terminal at Boston Logan International Airport, and also marked the airport’s 100-year anniversary with a new exhibit. Read press release. The improvements were made in part thanks to a $62 million grant by the FAA as a part of the new Airport…
This week the U.S. Census Bureau released detailed information about the 2020 US census, revealing that 38,597,428 Americans identified themselves as having full or partial Irish ancestry. Read the press release here. Previously, the Census Bureau released 2020 Census data on the Hispanic or Latino population and major race groups such as White, Black or…
The Catalpa whaleboat out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, pulled off one of the most daring rescues of the 19th century when it retrieved six Irish prisoners from a British penal colony in Freemantle, Australia. The escape plot was hatched for months by Irish leaders in America including Fenians John Devoy and John Breslin, who masterminded…
On August 11, 1834, the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a Catholic-run boarding school for girls of all denominations, was set afire by workmen furious about the growing presence of Catholics in the town. About a dozen frightened nuns and some 57 young female boarding students, still in their nightclothes, rushed from their beds onto…
An event to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Boston Irish Famine Memorial took place on Wednesday, June 28 at the memorial park at the corner of Washington and School Streets. US Congressman Stephen Lynch provided a Congressional Proclamation in Honor of the Boston Irish Famine Memorial, copies of which were distributed at the event….
Here is the program book for the 25th Anniversary event at Boston Irish Famine Memorial at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. The Irish Famine Memorial is part of the Boston Irish Heritage Trail.
On Sunday June 28, 1998, more than 7,000 people attended the unveiling of the Boston Irish Famine Memorial, including Ireland’s Minister of State Seamus Brennan, Massachusetts Acting Governor Paul Cellucci, Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and leaders for numerous Irish organizations in Massachusetts. Stonehill College President Rev. Bartley MacPhaidin gave the invocation, and music was provided…
Bostonians are gathering at the Irish Famine Memorial on Deer Island in Boston Harbor at 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 17, 2023. (The initial date of May 20 has been postponed because of the weather.) A memorial mass is taking place at the memorial, led by Father Dan Finn of the Irish Pastoral Centre of Boston. The…
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