Irish Boston History & Heritage

Mrs. Muriel MacSwiney, widowed wife of Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney, visited Boston two months after her husband died on October 20, 1920, after a 74-day hunger strike protesting British rule in Ireland.   She came here to express her gratitude to the Boston Irish for their steadfast support of her husband during his imprisonment and subsequent hunger strike.  She was accompanied by Harry Boland, secretary to Ireland's President Eamonn deValera, and her sister in law, Miss Mary MacSwiney. During her visit, MacSwiney met with William Cardinal O'Connell, and later attended a dinner in her honor at the Copley Square Hotel, attended by numerous Boston Irish leaders. The following day, the visitors went to the State House, where she was received in the Hall of Flags, and invited to address the Massachusetts Senate.  Addressing the senate, Mrs. MacSwiney said, "It gives me great pleasure to thank you for the greeting that has been extended to me today. I never made a pu...

A new era in city government took hold on  Monday, January 5, 1885, when  Hugh O'Brien became  Boston's first Irish-born mayor.  O'Brien's victory at the polls in December finally  broke the hegemony of old-line Yankees who had run local government since Boston was incorporated as a city in 1822.  O'Brien defeated incumbent mayor Augustus Pearl Martin by 3, 124 votes, with more than 52,000 citizens casting their votes.  Once Mayor Martin heard the news, he sent a note to O'Brien cordially congratulating him on his victory.  O'Brien said in a statement that evening:  “As I have been elected, I am ready to assume the responsibilities of the position fearlessly and in good faith. In this connection I will say emphatically that there is no ring behind me, and there never will be. The nomination was tendered to and accepted by me without pledges of any kind, or of any name or nature. After living In Boston for upwards of half a century, being educ...

Charles E. Logue at Fenway Park Charles E. Logue (1858-1919), an Irish-born contractor from County Derry who build Fenway Park and dozens of churches, government building and schools throughout greater Boston, died suddenly on December 5, 1919 while working on the roof of St Mary's Catholic Church in Dedham, Massachusetts. According to news reports, Logue was about 100 feet above ground on staging, when he "seemed to stagger" and was helped by workmen before he fell to the ground. "Heart failure, caused by the exertion of climbing the ladder, was given as the cause of death," according to The Boston Globe. Logue had climbed the ladder with his son John, to inspect repair work being done on the church cupola. Logue and his wife Josephine were the parents of thirteen children, and lived at 24 Baker Place and later at Barry Street in Dorchester. In addition to his contracting career, Logue was appointed Schoolhouse Commissioner and a member of the Tenement House C...

On December 5, 1770, nine months to the day after the  Boston Massacre , two of the nine soldiers in the British regiment,  Matthew Kilroy and Hugh Montgomery, were found guilty of manslaughter for the killing of five local Boston men; the other seven soldiers were exonerated. The verdict was a culmination of a long and contentious trial fueled  by the now famous episode that took place on a wintry Monday night on March 5, 1770, when a deadly confrontation between occupying British soldiers and local Bostonians resulted in five townspeople being shot and killed.  Between March and December, Bostonians experienced a range of emotions: rage at the British Crown for putting armed forces in Boston, anti-Catholic sentiments directed at the soldiers, and finally, recognition that the trail had to appear fair-minded and just to the eyes of the world if the colonists were ever to make a case for independence.   On the night in question, five men - Samuel Gray Samuel Mav...

  John F. Kennedy, photo by White House Photographer Jacques Lowe President Kennedy’s thousand days in office marked an epoch in the Boston Irish story. It is the story of one man stepping forth from a marginalized community, emerging victorious on behalf of a people who had struggled mightily for so many generations, a people facing hostility and surviving on the edge of society, driven to success by fear of hunger and anger at prejudice, determined to right the wrongs for the sake of the children and future generations.  John F. Kennedy personified the future generation that his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had daydreamed about as they were toiling in America, saving their pennies, getting stronger, wiser, and warier. While he represented the hopes and dreams of the world, and of the nation,  JFK represented the pinnacle of immigrant dreams for millions of Irish around the world and especially in America. Poetry Kennedy’s optimism and resolve was emblema...

(BOSTON) -- The Boston Irish Tourism Association (BITA) today released its 2025 winter issue of  Travel & Culture , a free tourism magazine highlighting cultural activities in New England and Ireland.  The magazine is  distributed  free at visitor kiosks and cultural venues throughout Massachusetts and New England. Read the  online digital magazine here .   The winter issue starts with a  Holiday Greeting , followed by a  Christmas round-up  of Celtic, classical, jazz and family venues around New England - from the Irish Tenors, Lúnasa and Chloë Agnew to jazz pianist David Benoit and the popular play,  How the Grinch Stole Christmas . Other local activities include Christmas tree lightings, holiday parades and Santa Claus visits.  A calendar of  holiday events  is included, plus details of  Spectacle Live shows  and Spectacle Live  venues  in three states. Massport offers holiday  travel t...

Many people wonder why the Boston Celtics wear shamrocks on their green uniforms and have a giant leprechaun smoking a cigar as their team logo. And why is the team mascot a guy named Lucky who looks like he stepped out of a box of Lucky Charms? According to the Boston Celtics official web site, the name came about in 1946 when owner Walter Brown started the team. He and his public relations guy, Howie McHugh, were throwing out potential nicknames, including the Whirlwinds, Unicorns and Olympics. It was Brown who had the epiphany, saying, “Wait, I’ve got it – the Celtics. The name has a great basketball tradition from the old Original Celtics in New York (1920s). And Boston is full of Irishman. We’ll put them in green uniforms and call them the Boston Celtics.” Red Auerbach , the now legendary coach of the early Celtics, then commissioned his brother Zang, a graphic designer in the newspaper business, to come up with the famous Celtics logo in the early 1950s. The logo manages to incl...

  On November 14, 1888, state and city officials and citizens from greater Boston officially unveiled  the  Boston Massacre Memorial  on the Tremont Street Mall on Boston Common.    The memorial commemorates the infamous episode in which five men were shot and killed by British soldiers in Boston on March 5, 1770, an event that helped launch the Revolutionary War.  The five martyrs were Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Jonas Caldwell, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr.  Carr was an Irishman and the last to die from his wounds.  Read more about the  Irish connections to the Boston Massacre. Governor Oliver Ames attended, along with  Mayor Hugh O'Brien , the city's first Irish-born mayor of Boston.  The chairman of the memorial committee was  William H. Dupree , a former slave who fought in the American Civil War with the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an offshoot of the famed 54th Regiment of Black soldiers....

Boston's Louise Imogen Guiney was a leading Catholic poet and essayist of her day, publishing several volumes of poetry a book on Irish hero Robert Emmet.   Born in Roxbury in 1861, Louise was the only daughter of Irish immigrants. 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.  In 1881, at age 20, Guiney began publishing poems in the  Boston Pilot . Initially she published under the initials P.O.L. with references to Latin, Greek and Medieval poetry, and readers assumed she was ‘a bright Harvard boy.’ By year's end she was publishing under her full name.  She published a number of books, including  Songs at the Start  (1883),  Goose-Quill Papers  and  The White Sail . Her final work was entitled  Happy Endings .  In 1894, Guiney and her mother moved just outside Boston to ...

Goodwife Ann Glover plaque in Boston's North End  The next time you are exploring landmarks along the Boston Irish Heritage Trail , visit the Goodwife Ann Glover plaque at St. Stephen's Church, located at 401 Hanover Street, in Boston's North End.   The plaque honors an Irish Catholic immigrant who was falsely accused of being a witch in Boston, part of a mass hysteria taking place in the Puritan community during that era.  Glover was found guilty and hung by the town elders, led by Minister Cotton Mather, on November 16, 1688.  According to 18th century accounts, Glover was an Irish indentured servant who had been sent to Barbados in the 1650s after the Cromwell invasion of Ireland. Her husband went with her, and when he died on the island, Ann and her daughter came to Boston where she worked in the Goodwin household as a servant.   The Goodwins 13-year-old daughter Martha swore she got sick shortly after discovering Goody's daughter stealing laundry. Based o...

  James Brendan Connolly Olympian and writer James Brendan Connolly was born on October 28, 1868 at 23 Bolton Street in South Boston, one of 12 children born to John and Ann (nee O'Donnell) Connolly, immigrants from the Aran Islands in County Galway, Ireland. Connolly's early claim to fame came in 1896, when he became the first athlete to win a first-place medal at the Modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. He won the triple jump, and also placed second in the high jump and third in the long jump. Then in 1900, Connolly went to Paris, France for the second Olympic Games, taking second place in the triple jump. James B. Connolly at the 1896 Olympics After his illustrious sports career, Connolly retired from competition at age 32, but stayed involved in the Olympic movement, writing astute articles especially on the 1908 Olympic Games in London. During this time, Connolly was also developing as a writer. He covered the Spanish-American War in 1898, sending dispatches from Hav...