Irish Boston History & Heritage

Castle Island in South Boston  Historic Castle Island dates to 1634, when early Puritan settlers built a fort with mud walls.    During the American Revolution it was called Fort William, and was a key outpost for British troops during the  Siege of Boston, which ended on March 17, 1776.   The earliest reference to the Irish occurred in the 1770s, when several Irish regiments in the British Army were stationed here.  Among them were the 14th and 29th Irish Regiment, whose soldiers were involved in the  Boston Massacre  as well as the Battle of Bunker Hill .  In 1799, U.S. President John Adams changed the name from Fort Williams to  Fort Independence .   Between 1834 and 1851, Fort Independence was rebuilt as a pentagonal five-bastioned, granite fort built. L ocated at 2010 William J. Day Boulevard, it  is open to the public for tours, and is part of a beautiful outdoor setting.  See  National Park Service  for de...

Joseph Milmore was the model for the Sailor statue on the Soldiers & Sailors Monument,  Boston Common    Joseph Milmore (1841-1886), a preeminent sculptor and expert stone carver based in Boston, died in Geneva, Switzerland on January 10, 1886 at age 46, while traveling in Europe with his wife, Mary Longfellow. He contracted pleurisy and was bedridden for several weeks before his death. His remains were sent back to Boston, where he was buried at the Milmore family plot in Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain. Born in Sligo, Ireland in October 1842, Joseph and his four brothers emigrated to Boston in 1851 with their widowed mother, where they lived on Common Street. Joseph apprenticed in Boston as a cabinet maker, took up wood carving and then began carving in marble and granite, eventually becoming an expert carver. Martin Milmore Though his career, Joseph worked alongside his famous younger brother Martin Milmore (1844-1883), who received dozens of commissio...

  Image Courtesy of Wikipedia  On December 5, 1775, Boston bookseller and young patriot Henry Knox (1750-1806) arrived at Fort Ticonderoga in New York, to transport 59 cannons and assorted artillery and ammunition back to Boston to use against the British forces who had captured the town. Knox was the mastermind and commander of what became known as the Noble Train of Artillery, a 300 mile trek across a frozen landscape in the dead of winter. Knox and his men dragged the arsenal across hills and mountains, frozen lakes and fields, on boats and sleds, with horse and oxen, through dozens of small villages in eastern New York and across all of Massachusetts until they arrived at their destination. His younger brother William Knox, age 19, was also on the expedition. Knox and his team of patriots, which included his youngest brother John, dragged the cannons across the frozen landscape of eastern New York and western Massachusetts, finally arriving in Cambridge on January 24, 177...

Martha Clark Cured at Holy Cross Cemetery. Photo by Leslie Jones Was it the power of suggestion, or the power of faith? In1929, just as the Wall Street Stock Market Crash devastated the country's financial stability and led to the Great Depression, rumors began to spread around Boston that a gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, MA was the source of miracles taking place. It was the gravesite of Father Patrick Power, who was born in Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland in 1844. After his parents died in the Irish Famine, Power was sent to Boston to live with relatives. He was ordained a priest in 1867 at Holy Cross Cathedral and was popular among his congregation. A frail person all his life, Power died of phthisis at age 25 on December 8, 1869. Sixty years later, he became the source of hope for scores of faithful Catholics, and within days, hundreds of believers began showing up at the cemetery, hoping for a miracle for themselves or their loved ones. "From Boston, from all New....

  The committee of the Bunker Hili Monument Association issued a Request for Proposals to the Bunker Hill Monument being planned in Charlestown Massachusetts, according to an advertisement in the Vermont Journal dated November 21, 1825. The proposal offered "a premium of $100 for the best model of a monumental structure or column, 220 feet in height, to be built of hewn granite." The committee stipulated that "the proposals should contain two plans; one, the architectural plan and elevation of the work, with a suitable scale; vertical and horizontal sections of the interior; particular statements of the proportions and magnitudes of the members; and if a column, drawings of the ornamental portions of the pedestal; the other (plan) a handsomely finished prospective communications view be of the forwarded work."  Edward Everett was the signatory. But even as the request for proposals had gone out, the Committee had already decided that architect Solomon Willard was th...

  Twin Statues of James Michael Curley on Union Street, across from Boston City Hall  James Michael Curley, known as the Purple Shamrock, the Rascal King and the Mayor of the Poor, died on November 12, 1958 from pneumonia. Over 100,000 people passed by his coffin in the Hall of Flags at the Massachusetts State House to pay their respects. A dominant figure in Boston and Massachusetts politics for half a century, Curley served four four-year terms as mayor of Boston, in 1914, 1922, 1930 and 1946. He was Governor of Massachusetts from 1935-37, and served as US Congressman from 1911-14. He was born on November 20, 1874 on Northampton Street in Roxbury to Irish immigrant parents Michael Curley and Sarah Clancy from County Galway. In his autobiography, I'd Do It Again, published in 1957 by Prentice Hall Publishers, Curley conveys his humble beginnings and his rise to fame. "The Clancys and the Curleys, joined the Galway colony in Roxbury, formerly known as The Highlands," he...