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Mary Boyle O'Reilly, Boston Irish Journalist, Social Activist and Child Labor Reformer

  Journalist, social activist and Boston native Mary Boyle O'Reilly was the eldest of four sisters born in Charlestown to Irish patriot and poet John Boyle O'Reilly and his wife, writer Agnes Smiley Murphy. Mary was born died on May 18, 1873, and died in her home in Newton on October 21, 1939 at age 66. Her passion for protecting children and young women was a hallmark of her life.  In 1901 O’Reilly helped establish the Guild of St. Elizabeth, a Catholic settlement home for Children in Boston’s South End.  From 1907-1911 she was Massachusetts Prison Commissioner.   In 1910, she went undercover under an assumed name and uncovered the infamous baby farms that housed unwed mothers and their babies under inhumane conditions.  She helped create a law to prevent abuses at these facilities.  On the labor front, O'Reilly investigated conditions for women working in canneries and also wrote about the women garment strikers in New York in 1913.   During World War I, she wrote syndica
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Northern Ireland Activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey Receives State House Citation in Boston on March 14, 1986

State Rep Marie Howe, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and former State Rep Mel King, March 14, 1986 A ‘rainbow coalition’ of Massachusetts elected officials came together on Friday, March 14, 1986, to support activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in her campaign to end British violence in Northern Ireland. McAliskey was greeted at the state house by “two Black officials, a native American, a Jewish senator, and various Americans of Irish descent,” including state representatives Marie Howe, Byron Rushing and Thomas Gallagher, senator Francis D. Doris and Jack Blackman, and former state rep Mel King, wrote the Lynn Daily Item. Other leaders including Leo Cooney of the Irish National Caucus and Boston civil rights attorney William Homans.  McAliskey was presented with an official citation signed by Senate President William M. Bulger and Speaker of the House George Keverian.  She blasted ‘misconceptions’ about the conflict in Northern Ireland, which were the result of British Government p

Patrick Collins (1844-1906): From Famine Refugee to Boston Mayor

  The Irish Echo Newspaper in New York published author Michael Quinlin's story, Patrick Collins: From Famine Refugee to Boston Mayor, in its March 13, 2024 edition of the paper.  Read more about Collins and his illustrious life in Boston.  His memorial is part of Boston's Irish Heritage Trail.  

Katharine O’Keeffe O’Mahoney (1852-1918): Irish Women of Massachusetts

Katharine O’Keeffe O’Mahoney (1852-1918)  moved with her family from County Kilkenny in Ireland to Massachusetts when she was 10 years old, living in Methuen and then settling in Lawrence.   Educated at St.Mary's School, she became a teacher  at  Lawrence High School  from 1873-92,  where one of her students was the poet Robert Frost and his future wife Elinor White.  Later Katharine made her living lecturing and writing books.   The American Catholic Directory wrote that " Mrs O Mahoney was one of the first Catholic women in New England if not in the country to speak in public from the platform, on topics including A Trip to Ireland, Religion and Patriotism in English and Irish History, An Evening with Milton and An Evening with Dante." She published several books that were popular in her life, including Catholicity in Lawrence (1882), Thomas Moore's Birthday, A Musical Allegory (1893) and   Famous Irish Women  (1907), a fascinating history of Irish women from Paga

The Guide to the New England Irish Published in Time for St. Patrick's Day, 1987

On March 16, 1987, the Associated Press wrote the following review of the "Guide to the New England Irish," published by Quinlin Campbell Publishers of Boston. "While the Cabots and Lowells were speaking only to each other Boston's Irish were taking to the streets en masse to celebrate their heritage, according to a book that has hit the streets in time for St Patrick's Day. But “The Guide to the New England Irish" turns from the myth of the hard-drinking two-fisted Irishman and focuses on how the “Sons of Erin” worked to preserve their heritage in the six-state New England region.  "The book, an expanded version of the 1985 “Guide to the Boston Irish,” includes essays by local writers who give a historical look at Irish life. "A 1986 address by Massachusetts Senate President William M BuIger to the Irish American Heritage Society takes up “Ireland's Gift to America." Bulger, a student of history who holds one of the most raucous political

Charlestown's Mary Murphy O'Reilly (1851-1897), Gifted Children's Writer and Columnist

Mary Murphy (1851-1897), the wife of famous writer Irish John Boyle O’Reilly , was a gifted writer of children’s stories and a popular columnist in the late 19th century Murphy was born in Charlestown in 1851 to John Murphy of Fermanagh and Jane Smiley of Donegal.  She attended grammar school and high school in Charlestown. She began contributing children’s stories to the Young Crusader , a Catholic Magazine that published monthly from its offices on West Street, using the pen name Agnes Smiley, her grandmother’s maiden name. Murphy was also a contributor to The Boston Pilot weekly newspaper when John Boyle O’Reilly arrived in Boston in 1870. At that time, O’Reilly was famous in Irish circles as the man who had made a daring escape from a British penal colony in Australia and found his way to America. He would become one of the most influential writers, orators and change makers in late 19th century Boston. He had read one of her stories in the Young Crusader and inquired about her.

Boston's Catherine Crowley (1856-1920), Writer of Popular Children's Books and Historical Romance Novels

Mary Catherine Crowley was part of a generation of post-Famine Boston Irish and Irish-American women who rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th century.  She and numerous other young women writers were encouraged and first published in The Boston Pilot under editors John Boyle O’Reilly and Katharine Conway .  Born in Boston on November 28, 1856, her father’s family were prominent in the Catholic history of Boston; her grandfather, Daniel Crowley, was one of the early Catholic settlers in East Boston, and her father defended the local Catholic Church against an attack by a Know Nothing mob in 1854.  On her mother’s side, she was part of the famous Cameron family of Scotland, wrote James B. Cullen in The Story of the Irish in Boston . She attended the Notre Dame Academy, Roxbury and then the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville.  Early in her career, she used a pen name, Janet Grant, when submitting writing to The Boston Globe.   Crowley first gained recogniti