Charitable Irish Society
Henry Lee, Boston’s beloved civic leader, parks advocate, teacher and historian, died on Monday, August 12, 2024, from cardiac arrest. He was 99. Lee is best admired and renowned in Boston for spearheading a grass roots movement in the 1970s to prevent the development of high rise buildings encroaching on the perimeter of the Public…
Henry Knox, a first-hand witness to American history and a hero in the American Revolution, was born in Boston on July 25, 1750, the seventh of ten children. His parents, William Knox and Mary (née Campbell), were Ulster Scots immigrants who came to Boston from Derry in 1729, part of a large exodus of Ulster-Irish Presbyterians who…
On June 12, 1937 a plaque dedicated to Captain Jeremiah O’Brien was unveiled at the Massachusetts State House commemorating O’Brien’s “distinguished services for winning the first navel engagement in the War of the Revolution and of his subsequent exploits in said war as the first regularly commissioned naval officer and commander of the Revolutionary Navy of…
The Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street in downtown Boston, nestled between Boston Common and Boston City Hall, has a number of important colonial era and Irish Revolutionary War figures buried here. Among them is James Sullivan (1744-1808), lawyer, orator and statesman. The son of indentured Irish immigrants who settled in Maine, Sullivan was a delegate to…
March 17 is a big day in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been ceremoniously observed, commemorated and celebrated going back to the 18th century. It is commonly recognized as Evacuation Day and St. Patrick’s Day, two occasions that have been entwined in Boston going back centuries. Evacuation Day March 17, 1776 is the date when British…
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…
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…
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…
America’s first great portrait artist, John Singleton Copley (1737-1815) was born in Boston on July 3, 1738. He was the son of Irish immigrants who emigrated to Boston in the 1730s. John’s parents, Richard Copley and Mary Singleton from County Clare, were married in County Limerick before emigrating to Boston. Right after their son John…
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