Irish Boston History & Heritage

  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 ...