The Irish Miscellany begins publishing weekly in Boston, beginning in February 1858

A new weekly Irish publication called the Irish Miscellan y was launched in Boston on February 18, 1858 by publisher and proprietor Thomas O'Neill, located at 16 Franklin Street in Boston. The price was four cents per issue or $2 per year.

The newspaper described itself as being "devoted to the interest and vindication of the Irish people throughout the world. The Miscellany republishes each week our whole number of the old Dublin Penny Journal with original and selected essays reviews poetry, etc by Irishman of first rate ability. It also contains beautiful pictorial illustrations of Irish scenery and other objects of Interest, among which may be enumerated engravings of the ancient castles and round towers, the ruins of old churches, the plundered monasteries, convents and abbeys of Ireland.

"It will also contain correct pictorial representations of works of art executed by Irishmen of the present day, as well as former times, in this country and throughout Europe."

O'Neill was the author of book advertised weekly in the Miscellany, entitled Reminiscences in the Life of a Soldier in the English and American Services.

In a letter to the newspaper, a subscriber wrote "when I saw the announcement that philanthropic Irishman Sergeant Thomas O'Neill have become proprietor, my heart left with joy, and I said that we were going to have in Boston most undoubtedly, a really enlightened and patriotic Irish vindicator. it is now incumbent on every lover of the Green Isle east and west, north and south, to come forward and make this paper what it ought to be, a leading leading Irish journal on this continent."

During this time, the preminent Irish Catholic newspaper in Boston and indeed across the country, was The Boston Pilot, published by Irish immigrant and businessman Patrick Donahoe, and also based on Franklin Street in Boston.

Read more about Irish-American newspapers published in the 19th century from Boston College Libraries.

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