Irish Boston History & Heritage

As part of its Irish Theatre Festival this season, ArtsEmerson presents The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Paramount Theatre in Boston on February 2-6, 2001.  The play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has been described as a comic masterpiece. Tickets to the play range from $25 to $79 and are available for purchase online . For a full schedule of shows presented by ArtsEmerson, click here .  For year round Irish cultural activities in greater Boston, visit IrishBoston.org .

The Gaelic Roots program at Boston College is presenting a free concert of traditional Irish music on Thursday, February 3, 2011 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The featured performers are flutist Shannon Heaton , harpist Maeve Gilchrist , and percussionist Paddy League. The concert takes place at the Center for Irish Programs, located at Connolly House, 300 Hammond Street, in Chestnut Hill.  For directions, click here . BC's Gaelic Roots program was initiated in 1993 by fiddle master Seamus Connolly , a native of County Clare who won the All-Ireland Fiddle Championship a record ten times.  Since then the program has brought some of the world's best Irish, Scottish, Celtic, Appalachian and Cape Breton musicians to campus to play, instruct and discuss traditional music.  Connolly is the Sullivan Artist in Residence at the university. For year-round Irish music in greater Boston visit IrishBoston.org

ArtsEmerson is kicking off its Irish Festival series in Boston this evening, January 27, 2011, at 7:30 p.m,  with The Color of Rose by Katherine Bates.  The play looks at the early years of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and the joys and sorrows that shaped her life.   The show runs through February 6, 2011.   Tickets are $39 and are available online . For a full schedule of Irish theatre presented by ArtsEmerson this winter, click here . For year round Irish cultural activities, visit IrishBoston.org

For the past nine years, Travel + Leisure Magazine has asked its readers to select their favorite hotels around the world.     Now the latest results are in! Joining the exclusive list this year is Hotel Commonwealth in Boston’s Kenmore Square, one of the city’s most interesting and alluring small luxury hotels. Travel + Leisure describes Hotel Commonwealth as a “Retro-looking but tech-savvy French Empire-style property next to Fenway Park" and cites "the Baseball Suite and Island Creek Oyster Bar” as two recent additions to the hotel The hotel is nestled perfectly between iconic Fenway Park , home of the Boston Red Sox , the fashionable Back Bay and the bustle of Boston University and other universities. Congratulations Hotel Commonwealth .

Harpist Maeve Gilchrist  A line-up of great Celtic and Irish traditional musicians are performing at the David Friend Recital Hall at Berklee College of Music in Boston on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.  Admission is free. Berklee instructor and champion mandolin player John McGann leads an all star line-up that includes Sean Gannon, All-Ireland champion on the button accordion.  Born and raised in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Sean learned his music from his father John, who comes from Connemara, Galway. Joining McGann and Gannon are George Keith and Oisin McAuley on fiddles, Matt Heaton on guitar, Shannon Heaton on flute and Scottish-born harpist Maeve Gilchris t, who studied at Berklee. Joe Nugent , professor of Irish at Boston College, will read Irish poetry and selections from Finnegan's Wake by novelist James Joyce . The evening is presented by FUSION : A Magazine of Literature, Music, Art and Ideas.  For more information contact Joseph

Today's Boston Globe has  an excellent article on Ray Flynn , former Mayor of Boston and US Ambassador to the Vatican during the Clinton Administration. The story by reporter Akilah Johnson concerns Flynn's grandson four-year-old grandson Braeden, who suffers from a rare neurological disorder, and the Flynn family's ongoing efforts to find a cure. Raymond L. Flynn was mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993, then was appointed by President William J. Clinton as the US Ambassador to the Vatican.  Since returning from Rome he has written several books and has been active in national discussions on Catholic and Irish issues. For profiles of Irish-American leaders in Massachusetts, click here .

Irish Film Festival Boston was included in the list of "20 Coolest Film Festivals" of 2010 by MovieMaker, a New York City-based resource for artistic and business matters pertaining to film making.  Formed in 1999 in Boston by Irish film scholar Peter Flynn, IFFB has introduced American audiences to a whole new generation of contemporary Irish filmmakers specializing in feature films, documentaries, shorts and animation. In presenting the award, Moviemaker noted "There is no better city to experience Ireland in America than Boston."  The 12th annual Irish Film Festival Boston is slated to take place on March 24-27 in Boston and nearby Somerville, according to festival co-director Dawn Morrissey. For more information on this year's festival, including sponsorship opportunities, contact info@irishfilmfestival.com or visit it on Facebook . For year-round information on Irish cultural activity in Boston and Massachusetts, visit IrishBoston.org .

(January 13) - Caroline Kennedy, president of the John F. Kennedy Foundation and daughter of President John F. Kennedy, joined David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the U.S. National Archives , in unveiling the nation's largest online digitized presidential archives at the National Archives in Washington DC.  The new archive provides "unprecedented global access to the most important papers, records, photographs and recordings of President John F. Kennedy's thousand days in office," according to Rachel Day, spokesperson at the John F. Kennedy Library & Museum in Boston. "My parents believed that history is one of our greatest teachers," said Caroline Kennedy.  "As young people increasingly rely on the internet as their primary source of information, it is our hope that the Library's online archieve will allow a new generation to learn about this important chapter in American history." The John F. Kennedy Foundation , a 501 c3 non-profit