Irish Boston History & Heritage

John Fitzgerald Kennedy , 35th president of the United States, was born at about three o'clock in the afternoon on May 29, 1917 at 83 Beale Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.  John was the second son of  Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy , named in honor of his maternal grandfather,  John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald .  In the book, Rose Kennedy's Family Album, published in 2013, Rose Kennedy writes: "When a mother holds her first baby in her arms, what awe-inspiring thoughts go fleeting through her mind and fill her heart. A child has been bestowed upon her to mold and to influence - what a challenge, what a joy! ...On her judgement he relies, and her words will influence him, not for a day or a month or a year, but for time and for eternity - and perhaps for future generations. A grandmother, an aunt, a teacher may guide the child temporarily, but when the mother enters the room, it is to her he turns for the final judgement. "A mother knows that...

Citizen Soldier at Forest Hills Cemetery Martin Milmore 's Citizen Soldier bronze statue was unveiled at Forest Hills Cemetery on May 30, 1868, which was the first national commemoration of Memorial Day in the United States.  It was also known as the Standing Soldier,  and Roxbury Soldier, and was a homage to the local foot soldiers who fought in the Civil War. The Town of Roxbury commissioned the statue to the young, 24-year old sculptor after it "purchased a lot in the Forest Hills Cemetery upon recovering the bodies of 8 local soldiers from the Antietam Battlefield in 1862," according to a National Portrait Galley exhibit in 2006.  Clay Model of Roxbury Soldier in Milmore's Studio on Tremont Street Image Courtesy of Library of Congres s In February, 1868, just prior to the unveiling, the statue went on temporary display at Boston City Hall on School Street, across from the statue of Ben Franklin.   A notice in the Boston Evening Transcript, dated Febru...

On Sunday, May 24, 2009, Ireland's President Mary McAleese was the commencement speaker to the 172nd graduating class at Mt. Holyoke College in Holyoke, a small women's college in western Massachusetts. She spoke to 570 women graduates and an audience of 4,000 people. Tus maith is Leath na hoibre , she told the graduates in Irish, meaning: a good start is half the work.  "Here at Mount Holyoke College you’ve got a good start. You’ve given your very best here. You’ve been tested. You've been challenged. You know yourself a lot better now.”  The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported, "she said there is plenty of work ahead — especially in the advancement of women who in most parts of the world are still regarded as second class and second best." The announcement of President McAleese to address the graduating class was made by US Congressman Richard Neal , a trustee of the college and by Mount Holyoke College President Joanne Creighton, who said, “We are honored...

A number of Irish immigrants and Irish-American sculptors created some of the most distinctive Civil War Monuments of the 19th Century.   Here are three of their monuments in Boston and Cambridge worth visiting on Memorial Day Weekend: The Shaw Memorial , atop Boston Common and facing the Massachusetts State House, was officially unveiled on May 31, 1897, a homage to the 54th Black Infantry Regiment of Boston. It is considered one of America’s most significant Civil War memorials, and was the first public monument to accurately depict black soldiers in military uniform. The memorial was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), who was born in Dublin Ireland on March 1, 1848, to a French father and Irish mother. They landed in Boston in September 1848, fleeing the Irish famine, and later moved to New York. It took Augustus 14 years to complete the monument.  The Twin Lions  in the foyer of the Boston Public Library in Boston's Back Bay were unveiled in 1891, a tribut...

Image courtesy of Canadian-American Club On May 19, 1937, a group of Canadian expatriates living in Massachusetts came together to form the Canadian-American League. The Boston Globe reported that the group was "seeking 1,000 charter members....(and) more than 200 attended" the first meeting. Three weeks later, on June 16, 1937, the group met again at Intercolonial Hall on Dudley Street in Roxbury, which was a regular gathering spot of Canadian immigrants. Attorney Joseph S. O'Neill, the organizer and first president of the Canadian-American League, was originally from Charlotteville, Prince Edward Island, according to his obituary in The Boston Globe published on August 20, 1938. He worked at the Dolan, O'Neill and Balch law firm in Boston. Other officers included Alexander C. Chisholm, treasurer; Mrs Colin W. MacDonald, secretary and Jeannette C. Chisholm, assistant secretary. "The purpose of the organization is to unite the great number of Canadi...

Image Courtesy of Boston Public Library Special Collections On March 6, 1927 Eamon De Valera visited the United States after an absence of six and a half years. The purpose of his visit, according to the New York Times , was to testify in the Irish Republican bonds litigation being tried on March 9, 1927 before the Supreme Court of the State of New York. "The funds in question amount to more than $2,500,000 and represent the unexpended balance of the first and second external loans of the Irish Republican Government and were raised by me, in the capacity of the first President of the Irish Republic, and by my colleagues, during our visit to the United States in 1919 and 1921,” he said. During his trip, deValera visited New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles among other places.   At the end of the 7-week tour, he returned to New York City for a final farewell, in which he declared, "The republic...

Photos Courtesy of The Music of Skuabh Luachra Ellen O'Byrne DeWitt (1875-1926), an Irish immigrant from Cloontumper, Co. Leitrim,  emigrated to New York City as a teenager and in her 20s, she opened an Irish music record shop that flourished for more than half a century in New York City and Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Ellen and her husband, Dutch immigrant Justus DeWitt, had two sons, Justus Jr. (1899-1983) and James (b.1902).  They ran a small travel company for several years before Ellen decided to open the small Irish music shop at 1398 Third Avenue near 79th Street.   With the swift rise of the recording industry in the early 20th century, Ellen was among the first to recognize that the burgeoning Irish immigrant population would always be looking out for music from back home, and she convinced several record companies such as Columbia, Victor and Decca Records to add Irish artists to their catalogs. Eventually the company began seeking out New York-based immigr...

Portrait of James Sullivan, painted in 1807 by Gilbert Stuart James Sullivan (1744-1808), a heralded lawyer, orator and statesman during the American Revolution,  including two terms as Governor of Massachusetts, was born in Berwick, Maine on April 22, 1744.  He was the fourth of five sons born to Owen Sullivan of Limerick and Margery Browne of Cork, who were both indentured servants from Ireland. James and his brothers were home-schooled by their father, who had been a teacher in Ireland and spoke numerous languages. Sullivan worked for and studied law in his brother’s legal firm, and later served as a justice for the Massachusetts Supreme Court from 1776 to 1782, as well as serving as a probate judge for Suffolk County from 1788 to 1790.  Sullivan's brother John Sullivan was a general in the American Revolution and a close aide to George Washington.  His other brother,  Ebenezer Sullivan raised his own militia of soldiers and fought as a captain in the Battle ...

The Catalpa, Photo courtesy of City of New Bedford The 150th anniversary of the Catalpa rescue mission is being celebrated this month in cities around the world, including New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dublin, Ireland and Rockingham, Western Australia.  On April 17, 2026, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and the New Bedford Port Society commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Catalpa rescue mission by raising a replica of the American flag Captain Anthony hoisted during the rescue mission. The ceremony takes place at New Bedford City Hall at 5 p.m. Afterwards, author Peter Stevens gives a lecture on the Catalpa at Seamen’s Bethel. Click  here  to register. Catalpa Memorial, Rockingham, Photo Credit Chris Doyle Earlier this month, on April 6, the Australian Irish Heritage Association held " a commemoration of oration, song, theatre and verse" at the Catalpa Wild Geese Memorial at Palm Beach, Rockingham.  Image courtesy of the National ...

The Cobh of Cork from Queenstown, ca 1856 On  April 12, 1847, the USS Jamestown arrived in Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork, carrying 800 tons of supplies for the victims of the Irish Famine.  The ship had left Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston Harbor 15 days earlier, on March 28, 1847, and had encountered foul weather, with rain, sleet and fog throughout the voyage.  The humanitarian mission was led by Captain  Robert Bennet Forbes , a wealthy sea merchant living in Milton, MA. With Forbes on the journey were 38 crew members who had signed on to help. In February, Forbes had petitioned the US Congress for the loan of a naval ship to bring supplies, and permission to use the USS Jamestown had been granted. Boston newspapers enthusiastically reported on the voyage, which captured the world's imagination at the time, and ever since. Reverend R.C. Waterson later wrote, "I consider the mission of the Jamestown as one of the grandest events in the history of our country....

Irish-born sculptor Martin Milmore created a masterpiece with his signature sculpture, Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common, unveiled on September 17, 1877 as a homage to the Civil War dead.   The monument took five years to complete, and much of the work was done in Rome, Italy, where Milmore moved in late 1872 in order to gain inspiration from classical art and to escape the distractions of Boston.  His brother Joseph Milmore stayed in Boston during this period and handled the architectural and engineering portions of the project, including the base of the monument, the circular pavement around it,  and the three pathways leading up to Flagstaff Hill from the lower part of Boston Common. Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Courtesy of Daedalus Conservation According to published specifications, the granite column stands seventy feet, and has the shape of a square fort with bastions. Of the nine sculptures on the monument, two depict men and the other seven figur...

Granite Replacement Plaque on Boston Common in 1976   On April 5, 1975, a beloved bronze plaque to Revolutionary War naval hero Commodore John Barry was ripped from its foundation on Boston Common, and disappeared into the night.  It had been erected by Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, U.S. Navy officials and Boston Irish leaders on October 16, 1949, in tribute to the Irish-American war hero. The next day, Boston police speculated that thieves were stealing historical items for resale leading up to the bicentennial. "Patrolman John McLaughlin of the Government Center station told The Boston Globe that "the thieves must have used heavy tools to pry it off the granite stone on which it was mounted."  John Ruck of the Boston Parks Department later speculated that thieves were melting down the bronze to resell as valuable metal on the black market.    City officials rushed to replace the stolen plaque and in 1976 the Henderson Foundation funded a facsimile grani...

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...