Irish Boston History & Heritage

Kindred Spirits in County Cork,  Photo courtesy of  Gavin Sheridan Irish rebel John Boyle O'Reilly arrived in Boston in January 1870, and almost immediately he became a powerful voice for the oppressed, including his own people of Ireland who were trying to break free of Britain, but also in the United States, Blacks, Chinese immigrants and Native Americans. O'Reilly saw the British conquest of the Irish and Native Americans as similar episodes of colonialism and exploitation. Native land had been stolen in both Ireland and America by the British, and O'Reilly's  sympathies were always with the oppressed and dispossessed.  Like everyone in Boston's Irish community, O'Reilly was aware of the extraordinary act of kindness that happened in 1847, when the Choctaw people raised more than $170 ($5000 today) to send to the people of Midleton, County Cork, during the height of the Irish Famine, a five-year potato crop failure that devastated the island. The Choctaws th

The  Color Bearer Civil War Monument in Pittsfield, MA Irish-born Launt Thompson (1833-1894) was a consequential American sculptor of the 19th century whose monuments of the Civil War and classical themes were hailed during his lifetime.  Born in Abbeyleix, County Laois, Ireland in 1833, he emigrated in 1847 with his widowed mother and settled near Albany, New York.  Like the other Irish sculptors such as Martin Milmore, Thompson had a remarkable natural talent for drawing and visualization, which was noticed early when he was working in the office of an anatomy professor. "He was endowed with an intuitive grasp of the sculptural side of things, and with an artistic conscience," wrote Lorado Taft in his influential book, The History of American Sculpture. Thompson received several Civil War commissions, including The Color Bearer, which honors the fallen soldiers of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.   The 10.25' high bronze sculpture of a Civil War color sergeant is standing upr

The fountain today, Photo Credit:  Fairmont Park Horticultural Cente r Margaret F. Foley (1827-1877) was a highly-praised 19th century cameo artist and sculptor, who lived in Vermont, Lowell and Boston, Massachusetts before moving to Rome, Italy where she spent the final 17 years of her life. She was widely known for her exquisite and intricate cameos of leading personages from singer Jenny Lind and poet Henry Longfellow to Senator Charles Sumner and Julia Ward Howe. She was born in Dorset, Vermont to a working class family and lived in the town of Vergennes near Middlebury College. Her father was a farm hand, and she worked as a maid, then taught art at a local grammar school. At age 14, she moved to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in the spinning mills, where she continued carving cameos. According to a story in the Boston Evening Transcript, "One day the overseer, Walter Wright, discovered her whittling an acorn out of chalk. He stopped and asked where her model was. "In m

  The debut of Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre took place on September 23, 1911 at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston, with three plays, "The Shadow of the Glen" by J. M. Synge,"Birthright" by T. C. Murray  and "Hyacinth Halvey" by Lady Gregory. The theatre group was embarking on a six-month North American tour to promote the new Irish National Theatre of William B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and others.  The Boston Evening Transcript  framed the historic occasion this way, "Mr. Yeats, Lady Gregory and the players of the Irish National Theatre will land in Boston for their first visit to America, for their first outside the British Isles, for their first lengthy absence in the season from their own house in Dublin....at the opening of the new Plymouth Theatre, they will act for the first time on this side of thr Atlantic."  "Yeats, the Irish poet and dramatist, and Lenox Robinson, manager of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and the author of several co

Photo Credit: Digital Commonwealth For the second time in a decade, a resplendent bronze statue honoring Irish-born Civil War Colonel Thomas Cass was unveiled on the Public Garden in Boston on September 22, 1899. Cass was commander of the 9th Irish Regiment, and died in July 1862 from wounds at Malvern Hill, VA. An Illustration of the new statue appeared in The Boston Globe Several thousand people attended the unveiling, including Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy along with Mrs. C. B. Craib, the daughter of Colonel Cass, who unveiled the statue to great applause. Major Daniel G McNamara, a member of the 9th who served with Cass in the 9th Regiment, was the orator for the day. The bronze statue by sculptor Richard Edwin Brooks was hailed as a brilliant and fitting depicting of Cass, a larger-than-life leader who was beloved by his men. Mayor Quincy called the sculpture "a work of art as well as a memorial to the brave colonel, and must be considered by all as such." The statue, Qui

  Photo Credit: National Park Service/ Nathan King On Saturday, September 20, 1924, the Nuns of the Battlefield Memorial was unveiled in Washington, DC before thousands of people who attended the ceremony from around the nation. The monument is listed on the National Mall and Memorial Parks of the National Park Service  The memorial honors the Catholic nuns who worked in the battlefields and on floating ships during the Civil War to aid wounded and dying soldiers regardless of what side the fought on. By the time it was unveiled in 1924, the memorial was also relevant to those caregivers who served during World War I. The 12 orders of nuns represented on the relief include Sisters of St. Joseph, Carmelites, Dominican Order, Ursulines, Sisters of the Holy Cross, Poor Sisters of St. Francis, Sisters of Mercy, Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, an