Irish Boston History & Heritage

  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 ...