Irish Massachusetts: Northern Ireland is Showcased at Grand Central Station

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Irish-born Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's Master Sculptor in the 19th Century

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Courtesy of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH Acclaimed as America's greatest sculptor of the 19 th century, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was born on March 1, 1848 on Charlemount Street in Dublin at the height of the Irish Famine, when millions of Irish were fleeing Ireland to places like Boston, New York, Montreal, St. John and other eastern port cities.    His father Bernard Saint-Gaudens was a French cobbler who had "a wonderfully complex mixture of a fierce French accent and Irish brogue."   His mother, Mary McGuinness, was born in Bally Mahon, County Longford, to Arthur McGuinness and Mary Daly. According to his son Homer, when Augustus was six months old, "the famine in Ireland compelled (the family) to go to America."   They landed in Boston in September 1848, where they lived for six weeks until the father found work in New York City and sent for them.   Augustus apprenticed as a cameo cutter, and in ...
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John 'Honey Fitz' Fitzgerald, Grandfather of John F. Kennedy, Dies in Boston on October 2, 1950

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    John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston and grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, died on October 2, 1950 at the Hotel Bellevue in Boston after a long illness. At his bedside were his wife Josephine, two sons, John and Thomas, and their wives, along with his nurse. His daughter Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was in Paris and was notified, according to the Boston Globe. Fitzgerald was an audacious, colorful politician whose melodious singing voice earned him the nickname Honey Fitz. Born in Boston's North End on February 11, 1863, he was the son of Irish immigrant Thomas Fitzgerald of Limerick and Mary Josephine Hannon of Acton, MA. His daughter, Rose Fitzgerald , married Joseph P. Kennedy from East Boston, spawning the Kennedy political dynasty that dominated Boston for most of the 20th century. Fitzgerald's political career happened quickly. He worked his way up from the Boston Common Council in 1892 to state senate in 1893. In the congressional primary held in Sept...
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Boston's Purple Shamrock, James Michael Curley, died on November 12, 1958

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Twin Curley statues at Union Park on Congress Street, Boston James Michael Curley , the larger-than-life political figure who dominated Boston and Massachusetts politics for half a century, died on November 12, 1958.   Over 100,000 people passed by his coffin at the Hall of Flags in the Massachusetts State House, according to a story in  The Boston Globe .  “The rich and the humble, Democrats and Republicans, bared the depth of their tribune in whispered prayers and unrestrained tears,” wrote the  Globe . Then a final process drove Curley's body through the streets of Boston and then to Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End, where his son, Reverend Francis S. Curley, S.J., celebrated mass along with Richard Cardinal Cushing of  South Boston .   Curley is buried the  Old   Calvary   Cemetery  in  Boston .  Born on November 20, 1874 on Northampton Street in Roxbury, Curley's political career was unparalleled. ...
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