Irish Boston History & Heritage

The Catalpa, Photo courtesy of City of New Bedford The 150th anniversary of the Catalpa rescue mission is being celebrated this month in cities around the world, including New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dublin, Ireland and Rockingham, Western Australia.  On April 17, 2026, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and the New Bedford Port Society commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Catalpa rescue mission by raising a replica of the American flag Captain Anthony hoisted during the rescue mission. The ceremony takes place at New Bedford City Hall at 5 p.m. Afterwards, author Peter Stevens gives a lecture on the Catalpa at Seamen’s Bethel. Click  here  to register. Catalpa Memorial, Rockingham, Photo Credit Chris Doyle Earlier this month, on April 6, the Australian Irish Heritage Association held " a commemoration of oration, song, theatre and verse" at the Catalpa Wild Geese Memorial at Palm Beach, Rockingham.  Image courtesy of the National ...

The Cobh of Cork from Queenstown, ca 1856 On  April 12, 1847, the USS Jamestown arrived in Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork, carrying 800 tons of supplies for the victims of the Irish Famine.  The ship had left Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston Harbor 15 days earlier, on March 28, 1847, and had encountered foul weather, with rain, sleet and fog throughout the voyage.  The humanitarian mission was led by Captain  Robert Bennet Forbes , a wealthy sea merchant living in Milton, MA. With Forbes on the journey were 38 crew members who had signed on to help. In February, Forbes had petitioned the US Congress for the loan of a naval ship to bring supplies, and permission to use the USS Jamestown had been granted. Boston newspapers enthusiastically reported on the voyage, which captured the world's imagination at the time, and ever since. Reverend R.C. Waterson later wrote, "I consider the mission of the Jamestown as one of the grandest events in the history of our country....

Irish-born sculptor Martin Milmore created a masterpiece with his signature sculpture, Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common, unveiled on September 17, 1877 as a homage to the Civil War dead.   The monument took five years to complete, and much of the work was done in Rome, Italy, where Milmore moved in late 1872 in order to gain inspiration from classical art and to escape the distractions of Boston.  His brother Joseph Milmore stayed in Boston during this period and handled the architectural and engineering portions of the project, including the base of the monument, the circular pavement around it,  and the three pathways leading up to Flagstaff Hill from the lower part of Boston Common. Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Courtesy of Daedalus Conservation According to published specifications, the granite column stands seventy feet, and has the shape of a square fort with bastions. Of the nine sculptures on the monument, two depict men and the other seven figur...

Granite Replacement Plaque on Boston Common in 1976   On April 5, 1975, a beloved bronze plaque to Revolutionary War naval hero Commodore John Barry was ripped from its foundation on Boston Common, and disappeared into the night.  It had been erected by Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, U.S. Navy officials and Boston Irish leaders on October 16, 1949, in tribute to the Irish-American war hero. The next day, Boston police speculated that thieves were stealing historical items for resale leading up to the bicentennial. "Patrolman John McLaughlin of the Government Center station told The Boston Globe that "the thieves must have used heavy tools to pry it off the granite stone on which it was mounted."  John Ruck of the Boston Parks Department later speculated that thieves were melting down the bronze to resell as valuable metal on the black market.    City officials rushed to replace the stolen plaque and in 1976 the Henderson Foundation funded a facsimile grani...

New York City Hall, 1888 Abram Hewitt, mayor of New York City from 1887-1888, doomed his re-election by refusing to fly the Irish flag over New York City Hall on St. Patrick's Day, and refusing to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. His rationale, according to the Boston Evening Transcript , was that "'the danger line has reached where we must decide if native or foreign ideas are to rule' in the great metropolis." The Transcript went on to editorialize: "How thoroughly grounded and fearless he is in his Americanism appears from the following abstract of his views: He says that as it is a part of the Irish demand for home rule that the Irish should rule Ireland, so they should concede the right of Americans to rule America. He calls attention to the fact that all foreign-born citizens have equal rights before the law with native-born Americans, and it would be manifestly wrong for a public officer to officially recognize one foreign nationality m...

Boston's 2nd Annual Irish Writers Series in March 1994 featured a number of top writers from Ireland and the United States.  The event was created by the Boston Parks Department and was a spin-off to the department's Boston Book Fair in Copley Square.  The reading events, lectures and panel discussion took place across the city, at Park Plaza Hotel, Waterstone's Bookstore in Back Bay, the Old South Meeting House, Agassiz Theater in Harvard Square, Stonehill College and UMass Boston.  Several Irish pubs also held events, including Brendan Behan's in Jamaica Plain and Mr. Dooley's Pub in downtown Boston. Among the featured speakers: novelists J.P. Donleavy, James Carroll, Thomas Flanagan, John McGahern, Chet Raymo and Peter Quinn; poets Derek Mahon, John Montague, Paula Meehan and Seamus Heaney; authors Angela Bourke, Marie Jackson and Liz Shannon and Marie Heaney; and playwrights, storytellers and filmmakers including Maggie Pierce, Marie Jackson and the cast Sugan T...