History & Heritage
Photo Courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command On June 12, 1775, the first naval battle of the American Revolution took place off the coast of Machias, Maine. That is the day when Jeremiah O’Brien (1744-1818) his four brothers and fellow townsmen from Machias created the “first act of Colonial piracy” in the war by…
A National Rededication Ceremony for the Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial took place on June 1, 2022 on Boston Common. The restoration of the bronze memorial, started in summer 2020, was led by sculptor Robert Shure at Skylight Studios in Woburn, MA. The restoration initiative was spearheaded by a unique partnership that included the National Park…
On June 1, 1847, Mary Nelson became the first Irish immigrant to die at the new quarantine hospital at Deer Island. She died of typhus fever and was six years old. During the first ten days of June, 1847, other deaths included: Mary Connelly, age one on June 3; Mary Flaherty, age 21, on June…
On Sunday, May 30, 1913, Massachusetts Congressman James Michael Curley laid the corner stone for the new Hibernian Building on Dudley Street in Roxbury, before a crowd of over 5,000 people. Curley was joined by numerous Irish leaders from the city, state and nation, including members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which organized the project in 1906 to create…
Three years ago today, a memorial commemorating 800+ Irish immigrants buried on Deer Island in Boston Harbor was unveiled on Saturday, May 25, 2019, several miles off the coast of Boston. Speakers included Boston Archdiocese Sean Cardinal O’Malley and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Gene O’Flaherty was the master of ceremonies, City of Boston’s Chief Archivist…
The magnificent Swan Boats at the Public Garden lagoon were created in 1877 by two Irish immigrants, Robert Paget and his wife Julia (Coffey) Paget. A boatbuilder by trade, Robert developed a catamaran propelled by foot pedals to sail around the quarter mile lake. He designed a swan to cover the captain pedaling the boat,…
She may be gone but she is certainly not forgotten. Rose Kennedy Fitzgerald (1890-1995), who held the Kennedy family together through tragedy and triumph for much of the 20th century, is permanently enshrined along Boston’s waterfront. Born in Boston’s North End, Rose was the daughter of Boston’s gregarious Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald and Mary Josephine Hannon. The mother of President John F. Kennedy,…
July 23, 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the Cambridge Irish Famine Memorial, unveiled on Cambridge Common in front of 4,000 people. Ireland’s President Mary Robinson spoke at the ceremony, equating the process of “looking back and remembering” the Irish famine with an equally passionate resolve to solve “modern famine and hunger and inequalities in…
The City of Cambridge has a long and illustrious history of Irish settlers, dating back to the 19th century when Irish immigrants settled in East Cambridge, Cambridgeport and in North Cambridge. Here are some significant landmarks and institutions that reflect the strong Irish presence over generations. Irish Famine Memorial On Wednesday, July 23, 1997, Ireland’s…
One of America’s most acclaimed sculptors of the 19th century was actually an Irish immigrant. Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was born on March 1, 1848 on Charlemount Street in Dublin at the height of the Irish Famine, when millions of Irish were fleeing Ireland to places like Boston, New York, Montreal, St. John and other eastern port cities….
The town of Milford Massachusetts has its own iconic Irish Round Tower, built in the 19th century by Irish immigrants who came to the Blackstone Valley Region to work in the rock quarries and on railroad construction. The Milford tower is about 65 feet high and 16 feet in circumference. Early media reports suggest that the…
On January 24, 1776, 25 year old Boston bookseller and American revolutionary war hero Henry Knox reported to General George Washington in Cambridge that he and his volunteers had just transported 59 cannons and artillery 300 miles, from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to eastern Massachusetts, in the dead of winter. Image Courtesy of Marching the Knox Trail The plan was to position…
Timothy Deasy (1839-1880), Civil War soldier, Irish rebel and elected official, died on December 10, 1880 in Lawrence, MA. Deasy emigrated with his family from Clonakilty, County Cork to Massachusetts in 1847 to escape the Irish Famine. The family settled in Lawrence 35 miles north of Boston, the nation’s first planned industrial city where immigrants and…
On November 17, 1918, more than 30,000 people gathered in Lowell to honor a favorite native son, William Henry Cardinal O’Connell, who was at that time the Cardinal of the Boston Archdiocese. Officials unveiled and dedicated a fountain of granite and bust of O’Connell along a parkway in front of City Hall. The fountain and…
On November 16, 1988 Boston City Council officially proclaimed Goody Glover Day in tribute to Goodwife Ann Glover, an Irish immigrant woman who was falsely accused of being a witch and hung from the gallows in 1688. Puritan leader Rev Cotton Mather and other town leaders were involved in the trial and execution of Glover. Glover was an Irish…
After the Revolutionary War, the Puritan’s strident objections to Catholics living in the Bay Colony had lessened, thanks in part to the bravery of French, Polish and Irish soldiers fighting alongside the colonists during the colonial war against Britain. But it wasn’t until November 1818 that the Town of Boston’s Board of Health gave “that…
In one of his final acts as Mayor of Boston, James Michael Curley dedicated a bronze memorial on Boston Common to Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry, on October 16, 1949. A few weeks later, Curley lost his final bid for re-election to a fifth term as mayor, losing to John B. Hynes. Barry, a naval…
One of Boston’s most prominent Irish-Americans was Maurice Tobin (1901-53). Born in Roxbury’s Mission Hill, he was the son of immigrants from Clogheen, Tipperary. He had an illustrious political career, which culminated in his serving as US Secretary of Labor under President Harry Truman. Tobin became Massachusetts’ youngest state representative at age 25, and in 1937 made…
Here are the Mayors of Boston Claiming Irish Heritage: Hugh O’Brien 1885–88 Patrick Collins 1902–05 John F. Fitzgerald 1906–07, 1910–13 James M. Curley 1914–17, 1922–25, 1930–33, 1946–49 Frederick W. Mansfield 1934–37 Maurice Tobin 1938–41, 1941-44 John Kerrigan 1945 John B. Hynes 1950–59 John Collins 1960–68 Kevin H. White 1968–83 Raymond L. Flynn 1984–93 Martin J. Walsh 2014- 2021 The lineage of Boston mayors with Irish ancestry…
THE IRISH came bearing gifts on March 17, 1961, John F. Kennedy’s first St. Patrick’s Day in the White House. It’s a practice that has spanned 50+ years to this day. Online digital archives at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library which have been recently made available to the public, contain a wealth of information on President Kennedy’s…
Clockwise from top left: Sculpture by Margaret Foley; Poet Louise Guiney; Teacher Annie Sullivan, Labor Leader Margaret Foley, Matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Labor Leader Mary Kenny O’Sullivan; Special Olympics Founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver; and Teacher/Astronaut Christa Corrigan McAuliffe March is Irish Heritage Month and also Women’s History Month in Massachusetts. In honor of both, here…
In 1977, a Celtic Cross was placed in O’Connell Park on Merrimack Street across from Lowell City Hall, as part of America’s Bicentennial Celebration. The granite monument was carved by local artisan Adian Luz. The text on the back of the monument reads: The Irish community of Lowell was the first ethnic group to inhabit…
Photo Courtesy of Boston National Park Service Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), the famous 19th century writer of short stories and novels, was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, to parents who were actors at the Federal Street Theatre in Boston. On his father’s side, “The poet’s ancestors were of the same Scotch-Irish stock that…
David I. Walsh, the first Irish Catholic elected as Governor of Massachusetts, received the largest plurality ever for a Democratic candidate for the office, winning by over 53,000 votes, getting 180,000+ votes. He defeated three other candidates: Charles S. Bird, Augustus Gardner and Eugene Foss. Walsh had to plan a larger inaugural reception than originally…
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