Irish Boston History & Heritage

Courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections General Henry Knox   (1750-1806)  played a key role in the revolutionary War, and helped to end the British siege of Boston .  The 25 year old Bostonian hatched a plan to capture the cannons at Fort Ticonderoga in New York and  wheel them 300 miles to Boston .  His plan was to position the cannons atop Dorchester Heights in South Boston and aim them at the British fleet in Boston Harbor . General George Washington gave him the go-ahead, despite objections from his senior command, and Knox set off with a group of men and captured 59 canons in December, and dragged them across the frozen landscape of western Massachusetts , finally arriving in Cambridge on January 24, 1776. On March 5, British General Howe saw the guns aiming down at his fleet, and by March 17, 1776, the British troops, along with their sympathizers, evacuated Boston .  George Washington later named Knox the first U.S...

Photo courtesy of Lives of the Pipers The first concert of the newly-formed Irish Pipers' Club of Boston was held at Wells Memorial Hall on Tuesday, January 11, 1910, part of a cultural explosion of Irish music, dance, language and arts taking place in Boston in the early 20th century.     The concert was significant for Irish music historians because it included notable uilleann piper  William Hanafin  and John Nolan.  And guests in the audience were identified as Sergeant James Early of the Irish Music Club of Chicago and  Patsy Touhey , who was born in Galway and grew up in South Boston. Touhey was considered by many to be the finest piper of his generation. Other performers at the concert included Michael Hanafin - William's brother - on the fiddle, singer Peter O'Neill, Irish step dancer James Cahill and the Irish Choral Society, led by director Charles F. Forrester, according to the Republic Newspaper, an Irish Catholic paper  owne...

Molly & Erskine Childers aboard the Asgard, a gift on their wedding day English-born Irish rebel  Robert Erskine Childers  married  Mary (Molly) Alden Osgood  at  Trinity   Church  in  Boston  on Tuesday, January 5, 1904.  They met at a state dinner hosted by the  Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company  at Faneuil Hall and were married after a three-week courtship. The Boston Globe called the wedding "One of the most interesting events of the social season in Boston....In the distinguished gathering which filled the auditorium of the church was quite a delegation of Londoners, all friends of Mr. Childers, who is clerk of the house of commons and a personal friend of Lord Denbigh." Both were idealists from upper class families whose passions turned toward  Ireland .  Childers was a gifted writer whose book,  Riddle of the Sands , published in 1903, is considered the first spy-novel thriller...