Charles River Esplanade Honors Two Boston Irish Politicians, David I. Walsh and Maurice Tobin, at the Hatch Shell

-



On the Charles River Esplanade running alongside Beacon Hill and Back Bay along the Boston side of the river is the famous Hatch Memorial Shell, the site of the free annual Boston Pops Concert & Fireworks Spectacular held each year on July 4, Independence Day.  The Boston Pops is led by maestro Keith Lockhart.

There are two statues in front of the Hatch Shell that pay tribute to Boston Irish politicians in the 20th century who each made notable contributions to Massachusetts. 



David I. Walsh (1872-1947) was the first Irish Catholic elected as Governor of Massachusetts, where he served from 1914-1916.  Prior to that, he was Lieutenant Governor in1913-14.

 A native of Clinton, Walsh was best known as an “ardent supporter of women’s suffrage and fought hard for a voting-rights amendment to the state constitution,” according to historian Thomas H. O’Connor. 

In 1918 Walsh won a Senate seat, becoming the state's first Irish Catholic to win, as well as the first Democratic Senator from Massachusetts since the Civil War. He lost one re-election bid before regaining his seat, which he held for 25 years.

Walsh was an ardent nationalist.  In 1919 he was keynote speaker at a Fenway Park rally for Irish leader Eamon DeValera, which was attended by 60,000 people.

The Walsh statue was created by artist Joseph A. Coletti in 1954. Above the figure of Walsh is the inscription Non Sibi Sed Patriae, which translates Not for himself but for his country.



Maurice Tobin (1901-53) was born in Roxbury’s Mission Hill,  the son of immigrants from Clogheen, Tipperary.  He became Massachusetts’ youngest state representative at age 25, and in 1937 made a surprise run for mayor against his mentor, James Michael Curley. Tobin defeated Curley in 1937 and again in 1941, serving through 1944. 

Tobin then won the race for Governor of Massachusetts and served as Governor from 1944-46. As governor, he advocated for the Fair Employment Practices Bill and helped increase unemployment insurance and benefits for workers. 

After he actively campaigned for President Harry S. Truman, he was appointed Tobin as US Secretary of Labor from 1948 to 1953, where he continued to advocate on behalf of America’s working people.

Sculptor Emilius R. Ciampa created the Tobin Memorial Statue in 1958, which is at the Boston Esplanade, next to the Hatch Shell. In 1967 Massachusetts named the Mystic River Bridge the Maurice J. Tobin Memorial bridge in his honor.


Both statues are part of the Boston Irish Heritage Trail, a three mile walk through 300+ years of Boston Irish history, 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Irish-born Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's Master Sculptor in the 19th Century

-
Image
Courtesy of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH Acclaimed as America's greatest sculptor of the 19 th century, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) was born on March 1, 1848 on Charlemount Street in Dublin at the height of the Irish Famine, when millions of Irish were fleeing Ireland to places like Boston, New York, Montreal, St. John and other eastern port cities.    His father Bernard Saint-Gaudens was a French cobbler who had "a wonderfully complex mixture of a fierce French accent and Irish brogue."   His mother, Mary McGuinness, was born in Bally Mahon, County Longford, to Arthur McGuinness and Mary Daly. According to his son Homer, when Augustus was six months old, "the famine in Ireland compelled (the family) to go to America."   They landed in Boston in September 1848, where they lived for six weeks until the father found work in New York City and sent for them.   Augustus apprenticed as a cameo cutter, and in ...
Read more

The Boston Celtics : The Story Behind Their Irish Green Theme

-
Image
Bill Russell played for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1959 (This story was updated in March 2024) Many people wonder why the  Boston Celtics  wear shamrocks on their green uniforms and have a giant leprechaun smoking a cigar as their team logo. And why is the team mascot a guy named Lucky who looks like he stepped out of a box of Lucky Charms? According to the Boston Celtic’s official web site, the name came about in 1946 when owner Walter Brown started the team. He and his public relations guy, Howie McHugh, were throwing out potential nicknames, including the Whirlwinds, Unicorns and Olympics. It was Brown who had the epiphany, saying, “Wait, I’ve got it – the Celtics. The name has a great basketball tradition from the old Original Celtics in New York (1920s). And Boston is full of Irishman. We’ll put them in green uniforms and call them the Boston Celtics.” Red Auerbach , the now legendary coach of the early Celtics, then commissioned his brother Zang, a graphic d...
Read more

Irish Indentured Servants on the Run in 18th Century Boston

-
Image
  New England Courant, February 8-15, 1725 Thousands of Irish men and women, boys and girls  came to America in the 1700s as indentured servants. Some of them came voluntarily, while others were kidnapped by marauding British soldiers and sent over as cheap labor in the colonies. As indentured servants, many Irish and Scots gained passage to America by agreeing to work in servitude for up to seven years. But once they got here, many of them quickly absconded from their masters, as evidenced by numerous classified ads in the first half of the 18th century, like this ad for Mary Farrel in the New England Courant on January 29, 1725. Little is known about Mary Farrel, apart from a New England Courant advertisement on January 29, 1725, describing her as a ‘runaway Irish servant maid’ with a reward for her return. When she ran away from her servitude on a cold winter night, Farrel was wearing only ‘a black Griffet Gown, an old grey Petticoat, and a pair of Ticken Shoes with red hee...
Read more