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
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