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On May 30, 1914, Hibernians Unveiled a Memorial in Cohasset to Irish Immigrants who Perished off the Coast in 1849


On Saturday, May 30, 1914, Massachusetts Governor David I. Walsh joined officials from the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies Auxiliary to unveil a granite Celtic Cross in memory of Irish immigrants who perished during a storm off the Massachusetts coastline in 1849.

7000 Hibernians from all over Massachusetts attended the ceremony, according to a story in the Boston Globe. Teresa St. John, a relative of the only survivor of the wreck, was chosen to unveil the Cross.

"The words "St John" occupy an oddly prominent place in the story of this memorial," wrote the Boston Globe, "for it was the brig St John, bound for St John, New Brunswick, which was wrecked; one of the survivors, a woman, married Mr St John of Cohasset, and it is their descendant, Terea St. John, who unveiled the monument."

Michael Sweeney was credited with starting the movement for the memorial, wrote the Globe. "He took up the work because his father's dying injunction commanded it. Sweeney interested Dennis Slattery of Weymouth, State treasurer of the AOH, who in turn placed the idea before State President Patrick F. Cannon."

Governor Walsh, the first Irish Catholic governor of Massachusetts, addressed the audience, saying, "While all the American world today is honoring its heroic dead, and strewing with flowers and garlands the grassy tenements of their dead kith and kin, we are gathered here on this occasion to perform a duty so unique and pathetic that it has few, if any, parallels in our annals. Under the sun of this beautiful May, we are placing here a memorial to a band of pitiful exiles, doubly exiled. Since fleeing out of their house of bondage into this land of opportunity, they were snatched out of life in sight of these shores, drowned in the engulfing seas at the very nadir of their anticipation, dying in the vigor of their years and the valor of their youth."

Walsh quoted the words of Massachusetts writer Henry David Thoreau, who happened upon the tragic scene in 1849. Thoreau wrote, 'These bodies! Their owners were coming to the New World, as Columbus and the Pilgrims did; they were within a mile of its shores; but before they reached it they emigrated to a newer world than ever Columbus dreamed of.' 

The memorial is in the form of a Celtic cross, 19 feet in height, according to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald.  It was designed by Francis J. Markham of Quincy and cut and erected by Patrick J. Tagney, also of Quincy. The memorial consists of a base, a sub­ base and a die surmounted by the cross, elaborately carved on front and back. On the front of the pediment is a shield containing the emblem of the AOH. On the back is a shield with the emblem of the Ladles’ Auxiliary to the A. O. H. Below the shield, on the front die, is carved the following inscription: “This cross was erected and dedicated May 30, 1914, by the A.O. H., and the L. A., A. O. H., of Massachusetts"

Each year, the AOH holds an annual commemorate service at the Cohasset Central Grave Yard, the first Sunday in October.  The Celtic Cross in Cohasset is part of the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail.

Research + Text, Michael Quinlin


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