A Walk Through Irish Boston

by DAVID D. HASKELL, United Press International (UPI)

BOSTON, March 14, 2001 -- The Irish Heritage Trail is not just another tourist attraction in Boston, but a reminder that oppressed people can turn tragedy into triumph.

The trail tells the story of the Boston Irish through a 3-mile walk that visits parks, memorials, cemeteries and public buildings.

"The trail reveals a succession of Irish leaders who excelled in their chosen field, be it politics, literature, art, music, entertainment or sports," said Michael P. Quinlin, who runs the Boston Irish Tourism Association.

With 26 percent of its residents claiming Irish ancestry, Massachusetts is the most Irish state in a nation in which there are some 44 million people of Irish heritage.

Boston, the state capital, is also considered by many to be the capital of Irish-America for a variety of reasons, and not just because 22 percent of its residents are of Irish descent.

It is the closest U.S. port to Ireland. It had a steady, uninterrupted flow of Irish immigrants in the 19th century, and still has many cohesive Irish neighborhoods -- including South Boston, which stages its annual St. Patrick's Day parade on March 18.

The city is also known for the ascension of Irish politicians, most notably the Kennedy clan, and the fact that the Irish held the city's mayor's office for 86 years in the 20th century, including an uninterrupted stretch from 1929 to 1994.

When viewed in the context of the city's other walking trails -- the Freedom Trail, Black Heritage Trail and the Women's Trail -- the 2-year-old Irish Heritage Trail "offers an important chapter of the city's diverse history," Quinlin said.

The trail begins appropriately at the Irish Famine Memorial in downtown Boston, and ends at the Boston Public Library. There are other Irish sites throughout eastern Massachusetts that are not on the walking tour because they require some other form of transportation to visit.

The Irish Famine Memorial at the corner of School and Washington streets was officially unveiled on June 28, 1998, to commemorate the anniversary of the potato crop failure that caused one million Irish to die of starvation or disease from 1845 to 1849 and forced nearly 2 million to flee the island, with many going to North America. The famine is considered one of the greatest catastrophes of the 19th century.

The famine began with a potato crop blight that left Irish farmland covered with black rot. As a result, subsistence-level Irish farmers could not feed their families or use their crops to pay their rent to British and Protestant landlords. They were consequently evicted.

The famine spurred new waves of immigration, as symbolized by the Irish Famine Memorial.

The memorial depicts two families -- one in Ireland dying of hunger and a second in Boston, filled with both sadness for past sufferings and optimism for the future in America.

There are eight narrative plaques around the memorial, representing the difficult odyssey all immigrants make crossing oceans and continents to get here. The final one reads:

"The conditions that produced the Irish Famine -- crop failure, absentee landlordism, colonialism, weak political leadership -- still exist around the world today. Famines continue to decimate suffering populations. The lessons of the Irish Famine need to be continually learned and applied, until history finally ceases to repeat itself."

When Ireland's President Mary McAleese visited the memorial in 1998, she called it "a place for reflection and learning, not just for the Irish people, but for many other nationalities as well."

The 100,000 Irish refugees who came to Boston during the famine years received help and compassion from many, but were also victims of ethnic discrimination, as illustrated by signs commonly reading: "No Irish Need Apply."

Despite this prejudice, the Boston Irish transformed themselves from impoverished immigrants to successful citizens, and their struggles were validated when a descendant of the famine generation, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, became the nation's first Irish Catholic president in 1960. A statue of JFK on the lawn of the Massachusetts Statehouse is one of the stops on the trail.

Many new immigrants to Boston are inspired by the Irish odyssey from tragedy to triumph.

"The Irish Famine Memorial is an important memorial in our city, because it reminds us that history is more than just a memory," Quinlin told United Press International. "The memorial connects what happened in the 19th century with what is happening in African and Asian countries today, and appeals to our conscience to do something about famine and hunger in the world today."

Quinlin said the BITA was formed in 1999 to promote Irish cultural activities and businesses throughout Massachusetts, and created the Boston Irish Heritage Trail as a way for visitors and residents to understand and appreciate the historical contributions the Irish have made in the Boston area.

He said the idea was first introduced by Jim Ford, retired bibliographer for the Boston Public Library.

Quinlan said visitors can follow a map to the 15 sites that mark the trail, and that guided tours are in the planning stage for later this year. There are also plans to expand the trail to cover other Irish landmarks throughout the state.

he route goes through Boston's downtown; North End; Beacon Hill; and Back Bay, and all of the sites are in accessible public spaces.

In addition to the Famine Memorial and JFK's statue, other stops on the trail include the Rose Kennedy Garden; Cardinal Cushing Park; John Hancock's tombstone; and statues and memorials to Mayor James Michael Curley; Col. Robert Gould Shaw; Commodore John Barry; Col. Thomas Cass;, Maurice J. Tobin; David Ignatius Walsh; Patrick Collins; John Boyle O'Reilly; and monuments on Boston Common honoring soldiers and sailors, and the five victims of the Boston Massacre. Also included are the Boston Public Library, the oldest municipal library in the country.

Mayor Hugh O'Brien, the city's first Irish mayor, helped lay the cornerstone for the central library at Copley Square in 1888. Generations of post-famine Irish credited the library with providing them the education whic helped them turn their difficult situations into success stories.

A bust in the library honors John Boyle O'Reilly, whose story is particularly extraordinary.

O'Reilly, who died in 1890, had been sentenced to life in prison in Australia for fighting British rule in Ireland. But he escaped and came to Boston in 1870. O'Reilly started as a reporter, and subsequently became editor of the Pilot, the leading Catholic newspaper in America. He is credited with facilitating a dialogue between Boston's Irish and black communities, who, he often said, waged a mutual struggle against oppression.

O'Reilly exemplified this country's democratic ideals by reaching out to Yankees, African-Americans, and newly-arrived Jewish and Italian immigrants.

At the time, the Yankee establishment was reluctant to grant full rights of citizenship to people who were not white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

O'Reilly used the Pilot as a forum to challenge the assumptions of the establishment and the media.

In an 1885 speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall, O'Reilly said: "So long as American citizens and their children are excluded from schools, theaters, hotels or common conveyances, there ought not to be among those who love justice and liberty any question of race, creed, or color; every heart that beats for humanity, beats with the oppressed."