Irish Boston History & Heritage

Two months after Jeremiah O'Brien committed the "first act of colonial piracy" by capturing the British cutter Margaretta on June 12, 1775 in Machias Bay, Maine,  the Massachusetts House of Representatives  appointed O'Brien as "Commander of the armed schooner Diligent and the sloop Machias Liberty , now lying in the harbor of Machias, fixed for the purpose of guarding the seacoast," according to records at the Massachusetts Archives . O'Brien, along with his four brothers and fellow townsmen, had led an attack on the British cutter  Margaretta  on June 12, 1775 in  Machias , Maine , defeating the British crew and taking its munitions as bounty.  Maine was part of the Massachusetts Colony until 1820.  The Massachusetts House of Representatives—functioning as a wartime legislature known as the Provincial Congress—met in Watertown, Massachusetts on August 23, 1775 and agreed to pay O'Brien "the sum of 160 pounds lawful money in this colony, for...

  On April 21, 1986, city officials led by Boston Mayor Ray Flynn and Veterans Services Director Tom Lyons, along with Henry Lee of the Friends of the Public Garden and members of the Paget family, placed this plaque on the bridge crossing the lagoon on the  Public Garden , in memory of Charlestown native Second Lieutenant Michael Patrick Quinn, a US Marine who was killed in action in Vietnam on August 29,1969.  Quinn worked summers on the swan boats on the Public Garden lagoon.  He  graduated from Boston Latin School in 1964 and attended Holy Cross College in Worcester.  Read more about Lt. Quinn, who was awarded a Purple Heart, on the Wall of Faces .  The Michael Patrick Quinn plaque, along with the Swan Boats , are being added to Boston's Irish Heritage Trail , a collection of public landmarks that chronicle the Irish experience in Boston from the 17th century to the present.  

  Photo courtesy of patriots.com Congratulations to legendary quarterback Tom Brady, whose larger-than-life  bronze statue  was unveiled on August 8, 2025 at  Gillette Stadium  in  Foxborough, MA , where Brady led the  New England Patriots  to six Super Bowl titles and 17 division championships in his 20 years here. Brady attended the unveiling ceremony with his parents, Tom Brady, Sr. and  Galynn , sisters and three children, and they were joined by team owner  Robert K. Kraft , former teammates, and thousands of enthusiastic fans who came out to honor their football hero. Sculptor  Jeff Buccacio  working on the Tom Brady statue Sculptor Jeff Buccacio and his team of artisans and technicians spent more than 20,000 hours on the  Tom Brady project  as they sought to create “a timeless and iconic representation of a legendary player.”  Buccacio said the Patriots provided him with “a selection of photographs to use ...

Twenty-five years ago this summer, the newly formed Boston Irish Tourism Association (BITA) launched an advertising campaign to promote Irish culture and heritage in Massachusetts to the visitor industry.  The goal was to form a coalition of local travel and tourism groups, hospitality entities such as hotels and restaurants, and cultural venues including museums, concert halls, festivals, cultural venues and universities, to brand Massachusetts as The Capital of Irish America.  The Association printed 50,000 copies of a full color, oversized brochure that featured cultural events, festivals, tall ships and other summer festivities, plus information on local Irish organizations, gift shops, museums and heritage sites.   It was distributed at hundreds of visitor and cultural outlets in New England and sent to national media, travel agencies and cultural venues across North America.  The campaign was supported with a grant from the Massachusetts Office of Travel & ...

The National Peace Jubilee, a gigantic music celebration of peace after the American Civil War, took place in Boston on June 15-19, 1869. The event was organized by Patrick S. Gilmore, celebrated cornetist and bandleader who emigrated from Ballygar, Galway to Boston in 1849.   Over 1,000 musicians and 10,000 vocalists participated in the National Peace Jubilee inside of a giant coliseum built especially for the festival.  The building itself measured 500 x 300 feet, with a height of 86 feet.  There were 12 entrances, each 24 feet wide, to accommodate the 50,000 people who attended each day.  According to newspaper accounts, two million feet of timber was used to build the stadium, and 20 tons of iron nails, bolts and bars. The coliseum was originally sought for Boston Common, but strong opposition from local residents and city leaders prevented it.  Instead it moved to the Back Bay near where Trinity Church and the Prudential Building stand today. Among...

The infamous Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, part of a widespread dissatisfaction in the American colonies about Britain's abuse of power, and also, the condescending attitude toward Bostonians and Americans in general by certain British subjects.   Flash forward to June, 1988, when a similar protest against British arrogance occurred in Boston, this time directed at one Peter Dobereiner, an English golf writer who was covering the U.S. Open Golf Tournament at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts on June 16-19,1988.  In an apparent attempt at humor, Dobereiner penned a tone-deaf and scurrilous anti-Irish essay, all in good fun as he believed, which appeared in the 96 page Golf Digest.    The publication was being distributed through The Boston Globe newspaper. The offensive story itself Entitled 'The Role of the Irish at The Country Club,' Dobereiner delved into a vile and base satire of the Irish, the kind of depiction reminiscent of...

Thomas Moore by Martin Archer Shee ca. 1817, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Born on May 28, 1779 in Dublin, Ireland, poet and lyricist Thomas Moore was so beloved in Boston  that a group of his followers formed a Thomas Moore Club in his honor on May 3, 1852, to celebrate the life and musical genius of Ireland's most famous man.  Moore had died the previous February. The first annual celebration of the Thomas Moore Club occurred at the Merchant's Exchange Hotel on State Street in Boston on May 27, 1852. The original officers included Thomas Darcy McGee, President; P.H. Powers, Vice-President; John W. Atkinson, Secretary; and Henry Dooley, Treasurer. Boston had known about Moore's work from the beginning of the writer's illustrious career. His ten-volume collection of  Moore's Melodies , published between 1808 and 1834, helped revitalize interest in Irish music that was in danger of being marginalized and forgotten.   The Melodies quickly found their way into th...

A three-year effort by a local Girl Scout troop to restore a neglected Civil War statue was celebrated on April 28, 2001 at a rededication ceremony  in front of the  Edgell Memorial Library  in Framingham Center. More than 100 people attended the event.  The restoration effort was spearheaded by the Framingham Girl Scout Troop 2112, which began the project in 1998 as part of a national Save our Statues initiative. Courtesy of  Framingham.com “The 13 girls and three troop leaders learned about the need to repair the statue from local conservator Rika Smith McNally,” reported  The Boston Globe . “Troop 2112 then spent the next two years raising money for the restoration.”  They collected “nearly $1,000 in pennies collected from Framingham elementary school students, and almost $5,000 in private donations from businesses and individuals,” wrote the Globe, in addition to a $1,000 grant from the Framingham Cultural Council and $9,000 from Save Our Statues....

James M.Curley with wife Gertrude  On April 13, 1950, former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley took his family on a seven week vacation to Europe for "relaxation, recreation and study." The previous fall, he had lost his mayoral bid for re-election to fellow Democrat John B. Hynes in November 1949, effectively ending Curley's political career of 50 years.  Then in February, 1950, the Curley family suffered a terrible loss when two of their children, Mary Curley Donnelly, 41, and Leo, 34, died  a few hours apart of cerebral hemorrhages.  The European vacation included stops in France, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, England and Ireland, visiting Paris, Lisbon, Rome, Naples, London and Dublin.  Before he left Boston, Curley told reporters he was taking with him a replica of the Boston Common plaque in honor of Commodore John Barry, Revolutionary War naval hero, which he planned to present to the French Ministry of Defense. He was also carrying a letter to the F...