Irish Boston History & Heritage

  On April 21, 1986, city officials led by Boston Mayor Ray Flynn and Veterans Services Director Tom Lyons, along with Henry Lee of the Friends of the Public Garden, placed this plaque on the bridge crossing the lagoon on the  Public Garden , in memory of Charlestown native Second Lieutenant Michael Patrick Quinn, a US Marine who was killed in action in Vietnam on August 29,1969.   Quinn worked summers on the swan boats.  He  attended Boston Latin School and Holy Cross College in Worcester. The Michael Patrick Quinn plaque is being added to Boston's Irish Heritage Trail , a collection of public landmarks that chronicle the Irish experience in Boston from the 17th century to the present.  

  Photo courtesy of patriots.com Congratulations to legendary quarterback Tom Brady, whose larger-than-life  bronze statue  was unveiled on August 8, 2025 at  Gillette Stadium  in  Foxborough, MA , where Brady led the  New England Patriots  to six Super Bowl titles and 17 division championships in his 20 years here. Brady attended the unveiling ceremony with his parents, Tom Brady, Sr. and  Galynn , sisters and three children, and they were joined by team owner  Robert K. Kraft , former teammates, and thousands of enthusiastic fans who came out to honor their football hero. Sculptor  Jeff Buccacio  working on the Tom Brady statue Sculptor Jeff Buccacio and his team of artisans and technicians spent more than 20,000 hours on the  Tom Brady project  as they sought to create “a timeless and iconic representation of a legendary player.”  Buccacio said the Patriots provided him with “a selection of photographs to use ...

Twenty-five years ago this summer, the newly formed Boston Irish Tourism Association (BITA) launched an advertising campaign to promote Irish culture and heritage in Massachusetts to the visitor industry.  The goal was to form a coalition of local travel and tourism groups, hospitality entities such as hotels and restaurants, and cultural venues including museums, concert halls, festivals, cultural venues and universities, to brand Massachusetts as The Capital of Irish America.  The Association printed 50,000 copies of a full color, oversized brochure that featured cultural events, festivals, tall ships and other summer festivities, plus information on local Irish organizations, gift shops, museums and heritage sites.   It was distributed at hundreds of visitor and cultural outlets in New England and sent to national media, travel agencies and cultural venues across North America.  The campaign was supported with a grant from the Massachusetts Office of Travel & ...

The National Peace Jubilee, a gigantic music celebration of peace after the American Civil War, took place in Boston on June 15-19, 1869. The event was organized by Patrick S. Gilmore, celebrated cornetist and bandleader who emigrated from Ballygar, Galway to Boston in 1849.   Over 1,000 musicians and 10,000 vocalists participated in the National Peace Jubilee inside of a giant coliseum built especially for the festival.  The building itself measured 500 x 300 feet, with a height of 86 feet.  There were 12 entrances, each 24 feet wide, to accommodate the 50,000 people who attended each day.  According to newspaper accounts, two million feet of timber was used to build the stadium, and 20 tons of iron nails, bolts and bars. The coliseum was originally sought for Boston Common, but strong opposition from local residents and city leaders prevented it.  Instead it moved to the Back Bay near where Trinity Church and the Prudential Building stand today. Among...

The infamous Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, part of a widespread dissatisfaction in the American colonies about Britain's abuse of power, and also, the condescending attitude toward Bostonians and Americans in general by certain British subjects.   Flash forward to June, 1988, when a similar protest against British arrogance occurred in Boston, this time directed at one Peter Dobereiner, an English golf writer who was covering the U.S. Open Golf Tournament at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts on June 16-19,1988.  In an apparent attempt at humor, Dobereiner penned a tone-deaf and scurrilous anti-Irish essay, all in good fun as he believed, which appeared in the 96 page Golf Digest.    The publication was being distributed through The Boston Globe newspaper. The offensive story itself Entitled 'The Role of the Irish at The Country Club,' Dobereiner delved into a vile and base satire of the Irish, the kind of depiction reminiscent of...

Thomas Moore by Martin Archer Shee ca. 1817, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Born on May 28, 1779 in Dublin, Ireland, poet and lyricist Thomas Moore was so beloved in Boston  that a group of his followers formed a Thomas Moore Club in his honor on May 3, 1852, to celebrate the life and musical genius of Ireland's most famous man.  Moore had died the previous February. The first annual celebration of the Thomas Moore Club occurred at the Merchant's Exchange Hotel on State Street in Boston on May 27, 1852. The original officers included Thomas Darcy McGee, President; P.H. Powers, Vice-President; John W. Atkinson, Secretary; and Henry Dooley, Treasurer. Boston had known about Moore's work from the beginning of the writer's illustrious career. His ten-volume collection of  Moore's Melodies , published between 1808 and 1834, helped revitalize interest in Irish music that was in danger of being marginalized and forgotten.   The Melodies quickly found their way into th...