Irish Boston History & Heritage

New York City Hall, 1888 Abram Hewitt, mayor of New York City from 1887-1888, doomed his re-election by refusing to fly the Irish flag over New York City Hall on St. Patrick's Day, and refusing to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. His rationale, according to the Boston Evening Transcript , was that "'the danger line has reached where we must decide if native or foreign ideas are to rule' in the great metropolis." The Transcript went on to editorialize: "How thoroughly grounded and fearless he is in his Americanism appears from the following abstract of his views: He says that as it is a part of the Irish demand for home rule that the Irish should rule Ireland, so they should concede the right of Americans to rule America. He calls attention to the fact that all foreign-born citizens have equal rights before the law with native-born Americans, and it would be manifestly wrong for a public officer to officially recognize one foreign nationality m...

Boston's 2nd Annual Irish Writers Series in March 1994 featured a number of top writers from Ireland and the United States.  The event was created by the Boston Parks Department and was a spin-off to the department's Boston Book Fair in Copley Square.  The reading events, lectures and panel discussion took place across the city, at Park Plaza Hotel, Waterstone's Bookstore in Back Bay, the Old South Meeting House, Agassiz Theater in Harvard Square, Stonehill College and UMass Boston.  Several Irish pubs also held events, including Brendan Behan's in Jamaica Plain and Mr. Dooley's Pub in downtown Boston. Among the featured speakers: novelists J.P. Donleavy, James Carroll, Thomas Flanagan, John McGahern, Chet Raymo and Peter Quinn; poets Derek Mahon, John Montague, Paula Meehan and Seamus Heaney; authors Angela Bourke, Marie Jackson and Liz Shannon and Marie Heaney; and playwrights, storytellers and filmmakers including Maggie Pierce, Marie Jackson and the cast Sugan T...

General John Sullivan, a hero in the War for Independence and a key figure in ending the Siege of Boston, was born in Somersworth, NH on February 17, 1740.    Sullivan was the third of five sons born to Owen Sullivan of Limerick and Margery Browne of Cork, both indentured servants from Ireland. He and his brothers were home-schooled by their father, who had been a teacher in Ireland.  His brother  James Sullivan  was governor of Massachusetts and his brothers Daniel and Ebenezer also fought in the American Revolution.  John became a lawyer, served in the New Hampshire legislature, and was chosen as a member of the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress in 1775.  As the Revolutionary War escalated, Sullivan was selected as one of General George Washington’s eight Brigadier Generals in the Colonial Army.  "Sullivan developed also as a military engineer and for a considerable Washington entrusted to Sullivan the c...

(l-r) State Representative Michael Flaherty, Sr., State Senator William M. Bulger and Massachusetts Governor Ed King, with house band in back, circa 19892. © Boston Irish Tourism Association  

Established in 1837 as the nation’s first public botanical garden, Boston’s Public Garden is one of the city’s most cherished open spaces, with majestic swan boats gliding across a lagoon, seasonal flower arrangements delighting visitors, statues of important Bostonians and the iconic Make Way for Ducklings statues that delight children of all ages.  The 24-acre park is maintained year-round by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department with support from the Friends of the Public Garden .  The Public Garden is a stop along the Boston Irish Heritage Trail, a collection of landmarks from the waterfront to Fenway Park that takes you on a 300+ year journey through the city's illustrious history.  In 2026-27 we are adding new stops on our original trail, including these landmarks in the Public Garden. Swan Boats  Public Garden Lagoon  The majestic swan boats in the Public Garden lagoon were created in 1877 by Irish immigrants, Robert Paget and his wife Julia (Coffe...

Illustration of Henry Knox by Alonzo Chapel Henry Knox, a  first-hand witness to American history and a hero in the American Revolution, is possibly the greatest Irish-American to ever come out of Boston, a city with a plethora of Irish legends over the centuries.  Born on July 25, 1750 along Boston's waterfront near the southwest corner of Atlantic Avenue and Essex Street, Knox was the seventh of ten children.  His parents, William Knox and Mary (née Campbell), were Ulster Scots immigrants who came to Boston from Derry in 1729, part of a large exodus of Ulster-Irish Presbyterians who were emigrating to New England beginning around 1717-1718. As a boy, Knox attended the  Boston Latin School , then at age 12, he went to work as an apprentice and clerk at Wharton & Bowes Booksellers at the corner of State and Cornhill (now Washington Street). The bookstore was right next to where the  Boston Massacre  occurred on March 5, 1770, and Knox came upon the imp...

Lambert Hollis (1840-1923) was an Irish immigrant who flourished as an illustrator and painter in Boston for half a century, creating an opus of art that has been forgotten over time.  Hollis was born in County Monaghan in 1840 and his family emigrated to Boston in the mid-1850s.   Hollis drew 'The Evacuation of Boston,' featuring General George Washington and his troops watching the British fleet leave Boston Harbor.  The illustration was expressly for the book, Lives of the Presidents of the United States of America, from Washington to the Present Time , edited by John S. C. Abbott, and Russell Conwell and published in 1881 by H. Hallett and company in Portland, ME. The Hollis illustration is part of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection at the New York Public Library . Hollis was best known for an iconic illustratration he drew of President Abraham Lincoln on his visit to Richmond Virginia on April 3, 1865, just...

  The Boston Daily Globe published a nine month chronology of the Siege of Boston in its March 17, 1910 edition of the paper. "Evacuation day is written large in the history of the United States, but the people of Boston who celebrate that day now could better appreciate what it meant to the inhabitants of Boston in 1776 if they realize the seriousness of the events which led up to the evacuation by the British," wrote the Globe. "For months, the patriots and their families had been subjected to all the horrors of war, and they lived through every kind of discomfort, from the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, until the British fleet dropped down the harbor to Nantasket roads. The siege continued for 273 days, or until the following March 17." The chronology gives a weekly and sometimes daily account of the key episodes of the Siege of Boston and the lead up to Evacuation Day on March 17, 1776, which is still celebrated annually at the Dorchester Heights Monumen...

  Eunice Shriver and Special Olympian   Eunice Kennedy Shriver , sister of President John F. Kennedy, was a leader in the field of intellectual disability and founder of the Special Olympics . Born at the Kennedy family home on Abbotsford Road in Brookline, MA on July 20, 1921, she was the fifth child and third daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy’s nine children.  She began her career as a social worker for women prisoners and juvenile offenders, and in 1957 headed up the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, dedicated to improving the way society deals with mental retardation. Her sister Rosemary had an intellectual disability, and that experience shaped Eunice's conviction that if people with intellectual disabilities had the same opportunities and experiences as everyone else, they could accomplish far more than anyone ever thought possible.  Eunice put that vision into action in 1962 by inviting young people with intellectual disabilities to a summer day camp she hosted ...

Castle Island in South Boston  Historic Castle Island dates to 1634, when early Puritan settlers built a fort with mud walls.    During the American Revolution it was called Fort William, and was a key outpost for British troops during the  Siege of Boston, which ended on March 17, 1776.   The earliest reference to the Irish occurred in the 1770s, when several Irish regiments in the British Army were stationed here.  Among them were the 14th and 29th Irish Regiment, whose soldiers were involved in the  Boston Massacre  as well as the Battle of Bunker Hill .  In 1799, U.S. President John Adams changed the name from Fort Williams to  Fort Independence .   Between 1834 and 1851, Fort Independence was rebuilt as a pentagonal five-bastioned, granite fort built. L ocated at 2010 William J. Day Boulevard, it  is open to the public for tours, and is part of a beautiful outdoor setting.  See  National Park Service  for de...

Joseph Milmore was the model for the Sailor statue on the Soldiers & Sailors Monument,  Boston Common    Joseph Milmore (1841-1886), a preeminent sculptor and expert stone carver based in Boston, died in Geneva, Switzerland on January 10, 1886 at age 46, while traveling in Europe with his wife, Mary Longfellow. He contracted pleurisy and was bedridden for several weeks before his death. His remains were sent back to Boston, where he was buried at the Milmore family plot in Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain. Born in Sligo, Ireland in October 1842, Joseph and his four brothers emigrated to Boston in 1851 with their widowed mother, where they lived on Common Street. Joseph apprenticed in Boston as a cabinet maker, took up wood carving and then began carving in marble and granite, eventually becoming an expert carver. Martin Milmore Though his career, Joseph worked alongside his famous younger brother Martin Milmore (1844-1883), who received dozens of commissio...