Irish Boston History & Heritage

Colonel Thomas Cass Statue, Boston Public Garden Boston Civil War hero Thomas Cass, commander of the  Massachusetts Ninth Regiment , was born on June 4, 1821 in Farmleigh, Queen's County (now County Laois).  His family immigrated to Boston when he was an infant, and settled in the North End, at that time a heavily Irish neighborhood. Cass was a member of the Boston School Committee and a successful businessman.  During the 1850s, he organized a local militia unit of Irish immigrants known as the Columbian Artillery but the group was dismantled by the nativist Know-Nothing movement in 1855.  When the Civil War broke out, and with the encouragement of  Governor John Andrew , Cass gathered his men to form Boston's first Irish troop, the Ninth Regiment. Colonel Cass reported with the regiment of 1,022 men at the State House on Tuesday, June 25, 1861, to receive the state flag and to be reviewed by Governor Andrew.    Fellow Irish immigrant  Patrick S....

John Fitzgerald Kennedy , 35th president of the United States, was born at about three o'clock in the afternoon on May 29, 1917 at 83 Beale Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.  John was the second son of  Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy , named in honor of his maternal grandfather,  John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald .  In the book, Rose Kennedy's Family Album, published in 2013, Rose Kennedy writes: "When a mother holds her first baby in her arms, what awe-inspiring thoughts go fleeting through her mind and fill her heart. A child has been bestowed upon her to mold and to influence - what a challenge, what a joy! ...On her judgement he relies, and her words will influence him, not for a day or a month or a year, but for time and for eternity - and perhaps for future generations. A grandmother, an aunt, a teacher may guide the child temporarily, but when the mother enters the room, it is to her he turns for the final judgement. "A mother knows that...

Citizen Soldier at Forest Hills Cemetery Martin Milmore 's Citizen Soldier bronze statue was unveiled at Forest Hills Cemetery on May 30, 1868, which was the first national commemoration of Memorial Day in the United States.  It was also known as the Standing Soldier,  and Roxbury Soldier, and was a homage to the local foot soldiers who fought in the Civil War. The Town of Roxbury commissioned the statue to the young, 24-year old sculptor after it "purchased a lot in the Forest Hills Cemetery upon recovering the bodies of 8 local soldiers from the Antietam Battlefield in 1862," according to a National Portrait Galley exhibit in 2006.  Clay Model of Roxbury Soldier in Milmore's Studio on Tremont Street Image Courtesy of Library of Congres s In February, 1868, just prior to the unveiling, the statue went on temporary display at Boston City Hall on School Street, across from the statue of Ben Franklin.   A notice in the Boston Evening Transcript, dated Febru...

On Sunday, May 24, 2009, Ireland's President Mary McAleese was the commencement speaker to the 172nd graduating class at Mt. Holyoke College in Holyoke, a small women's college in western Massachusetts. She spoke to 570 women graduates and an audience of 4,000 people. Tus maith is Leath na hoibre , she told the graduates in Irish, meaning: a good start is half the work.  "Here at Mount Holyoke College you’ve got a good start. You’ve given your very best here. You’ve been tested. You've been challenged. You know yourself a lot better now.”  The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported, "she said there is plenty of work ahead — especially in the advancement of women who in most parts of the world are still regarded as second class and second best." The announcement of President McAleese to address the graduating class was made by US Congressman Richard Neal , a trustee of the college and by Mount Holyoke College President Joanne Creighton, who said, “We are honored...

A number of Irish immigrants and Irish-American sculptors created some of the most distinctive Civil War Monuments of the 19th Century.   Here are three of their monuments in Boston and Cambridge worth visiting on Memorial Day Weekend: The Shaw Memorial , atop Boston Common and facing the Massachusetts State House, was officially unveiled on May 31, 1897, a homage to the 54th Black Infantry Regiment of Boston. It is considered one of America’s most significant Civil War memorials, and was the first public monument to accurately depict black soldiers in military uniform. The memorial was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), who was born in Dublin Ireland on March 1, 1848, to a French father and Irish mother. They landed in Boston in September 1848, fleeing the Irish famine, and later moved to New York. It took Augustus 14 years to complete the monument.  The Twin Lions  in the foyer of the Boston Public Library in Boston's Back Bay were unveiled in 1891, a tribut...

Image courtesy of Canadian-American Club On May 19, 1937, a group of Canadian expatriates living in Massachusetts came together to form the Canadian-American League. The Boston Globe reported that the group was "seeking 1,000 charter members....(and) more than 200 attended" the first meeting. Three weeks later, on June 16, 1937, the group met again at Intercolonial Hall on Dudley Street in Roxbury, which was a regular gathering spot of Canadian immigrants. Attorney Joseph S. O'Neill, the organizer and first president of the Canadian-American League, was originally from Charlotteville, Prince Edward Island, according to his obituary in The Boston Globe published on August 20, 1938. He worked at the Dolan, O'Neill and Balch law firm in Boston. Other officers included Alexander C. Chisholm, treasurer; Mrs Colin W. MacDonald, secretary and Jeannette C. Chisholm, assistant secretary. "The purpose of the organization is to unite the great number of Canadi...