Irish Boston History & Heritage

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...