Irish Boston History & Heritage

Mayor Kevin White, Mayor of Boston from 1968-1984, passed away on Friday, January 27, 2012, at age 82. He had suffered from Alzheimer's Disease since 2003. A public wake took place on January 30 at the Parkman House on Beacon Hill, the mayoral mansion where Mayor White held court for his three terms in office (1968-84).  His former press secretary George Regan, handled the logistics of the wake, which was attended by thousands of people, from ordinary citizens to elected officials.  A funeral mass was held at St. Cecilia Church in Boston's South End, and White was buried at St Joseph's Cemetery in West Roxbury. The Irish bagpipe band, Boston Police Gaelic Column of Pipes and Drums , performed at the wake. On November 1, 2006 the city of Boston unveiled a statue of White on the plaza between Boston City Hall and Faneuil Hall. Read profile on Mayor White and the ceremony here.  White was one of 12 Irish-American mayors elected in Boston, the first being Hugh O'Brien,

On January 13, 1919, Massachusetts State Senator George E. Curran of Roxbury entered a resolution to the state's Foreign Relations committee calling for Irish Independence.   George Edward Curran was a Boston democrat, born on January 28, 1873 in Roxbury. He was a member of the Charitable Irish Society, Theatrical Mechanics Association, and the Ward 18 Democratic Club. In the senate, Curran represented District No. 18—Ward 18, and served on several committees, including military affairs, federal relations (clerk) and taxation. The resolution read in part:  No people are better deserving of the blessings of the right of self determination than the people of Ireland, the service of whose sons in the colonization of America, in the winning of its independence, in the founding of its institutions and the creation of its health and prosperity, has placed America and democratic government everywhere in its everlasting debt. The proposed resolution was part of a larger effort by Irish-Ame

Image Courtesy of Louise Imogen Guiney Blog     Irish-American poet and essayist Louise Imogen Guiney, a widely respected poet, essayist and scholar, was born in Roxbury on January 7, 1861, the only daughter of Irish immigrants Patrick and Jenny Guiney. Her father, General Patrick Guiney of the Massachusetts Irish Ninth Regiment, was a war hero in the American Civil War. As a child, Louise traveled with her mother to Virginia, where her father was stationed. General Guiney was wounded in battle and lost an eye, and in 1877 collapsed on the streets of Boston and died, greatly affecting his wife and daughter, who was just 16. She was a pupil at the Notre Dame Academy, the Everett Grammar School, and the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Providence, RI.  At age 20, Guiney began publishing poems in the Boston Pilot when John Boyle O'Reilly was editor. Initially she published under the initials P.O.L. with references to Latin, Greek and Medieval poetry, and readers assumed she was ‘a brig