Irish Boston History & Heritage

Image courtesy of Poem Analysis Boston's Louise Imogen Guiney was a leading Catholic poet and essayist of her day, publishing several volumes of poetry a book on Irish hero Robert Emmet.   Born in Roxbury in 1861, Louise was the only daughter of Irish immigrants. Her father, General Patrick Guiney of the Massachusetts Irish Ninth Regiment, was a war hero in the American Civil War. As a child, Louise traveled with her mother to Virginia, where her father was stationed.  In 1881, at age 20, Guiney began publishing poems in the  Boston Pilot . Initially she published under the initials P.O.L. with references to Latin, Greek and Medieval poetry, and readers assumed she was ‘a bright Harvard boy.’ By year's end she was publishing under her full name.  She published a number of books, including  Songs at the Start  (1883),  Goose-Quill Papers  and  The White Sail . Her final work was entitled  Happy Endings .  In 1894, Guiney and her mot...

John E. Powers, circa 1945 John E. Powers (1910-1998) was born on November 1, 1910 in South Boston, the son of irish immigrants. As a boy, he worked as a clam digger, messenger and machinist. He entered politics and served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing Ward 6, South Boston, from 1938 to 1946. He was Democratic floor leader from 1941 to 1942. Mr. Powers served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1948 to 1964. He was Senate Democratic floor leader in 1949 and from 1951 to 1960. He was president of the Senate from 1959 to 1964. He represented the 4th Suffolk District. He ran for mayor of Boston twice, losing to Mayor John Hynes in 1955 and to Mayor John Collins in 1959, which ended in a longstanding feud with Collins that lasted 17 years. In 1964, he became Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County. He retired in 1988. Powers retired to Hyannis, Cape Cod and died on August 1, 1998. He is buried at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Centerville on Cape...

Goodwife Ann Glover plaque in Boston's North End  The next time you are exploring landmarks along the Boston Irish Heritage Trail , visit the Goodwife Ann Glover plaque at St. Stephen's Church, located at 401 Hanover Street, in Boston's North End.   The plaque honors an Irish Catholic immigrant who was falsely accused of being a witch in Boston, part of a mass hysteria taking place in the Puritan community during that era.  Glover was found guilty and hung by the town elders, led by Minister Cotton Mather, on November 16, 1688.  St. Stephen's Church, North End According to 18th century accounts, Glover was an Irish indentured servant who had been sent to Barbados in the 1650s after the Cromwell invasion of Ireland. Her husband went with her, and when he died on the island, Ann and her daughter came to Boston where she worked in the Goodwin household as a servant.   The Goodwins 13-year-old daughter Martha swore she got sick shortly after discovering Goody's da...

  James Brendan Connolly Olympian and writer James Brendan Connolly was born on October 28, 1868 at 23 Bolton Street in South Boston, one of 12 children born to John and Ann (nee O'Donnell) Connolly, immigrants from the Aran Islands in County Galway, Ireland. Connolly's early claim to fame came in 1896, when he became the first athlete to win a first-place medal at the Modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. He won the triple jump, and also placed second in the high jump and third in the long jump. Then in 1900, Connolly went to Paris, France for the second Olympic Games, taking second place in the triple jump. James B. Connolly at the 1896 Olympics After his illustrious sports career, Connolly retired from competition at age 32, but stayed involved in the Olympic movement, writing astute articles especially on the 1908 Olympic Games in London. During this time, Connolly was also developing as a writer. He covered the Spanish-American War in 1898, sending dispatches from Hav...

French Minister of Culture André Malraux’s visit to the White House was attended by the nation’s leading artists, writers and musicians.  Photo Credit JFK Library   "John F. Kennedy’s optimism and resolve was emblematic of the American mind of the twentieth century, but he also brought a new level of sophistication to public life. Louis M. Lyons wrote, “The elevation of the tone of the national life may be John Kennedy’s most enduring contribution to his country.”  Poet Robert Frost Speaking with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy "Along with his beautiful, stylish wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, JFK brought a  savoir faire  to the White House and created a magical mood that later moved Jacqueline to use the word “Camelot” to refer to her husband’s presidency. Both the president and his wife were lovers of the arts, and they surrounded themselves with singers, poets, dramatists, artists, and dancers. In a well-deserved nod to the power of poetry, Kennedy invit...

Photo courtesy of  National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans Henry Knox , one of the prominent heroes of the American Revolution, died on October 25, 1806 at his home in Thomaston, ME.  A notice in the Boston Gazette read:  “It is with the deepest regret, I have now to inform you, that the great and good Gen. Knox, departed this life yesterday morning. He was confined about six days. It is supposed that the cause of his death was his swallowing a sharp chicken bone which perforated his bowels, and produced a mortification. The event was very sudden, and unexpected by his physicians till a very short time before his death. It has covered us all with the deepest gloom. The funeral will be tomorrow, when every testimony of respect will be paid by all classes of people." His funeral three days later was attended by 2,000 people who traveled there to pay their final respects. The Wiscasset Repertory Newspaper in Maine reported, "The sorrow discovered by his neighbors a...

On October 15, 1995, Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.” He accepted the award on December 7, 1995 in Stockholm, Sweden. Read his Nobel lecture here . Heaney became the fourth Irish writer to receive the coveted Nobel Prize, following William Butler Yeats , George Bernard Shaw , and Samuel Beckett . Born in the village of Bellaghy, County Derry in 1939, Heaney’s family was engaged in farming and selling cattle. He was a pupil at the acclaimed St. Columb's Secondary School in Derry, attended by other literary figures including Brian Friel and Seamus Deane and by musicians Phil Coulter and Paul Brady. He studied at Queen’s University in Belfast and lectured there after graduating. In describing his work, the Nobel Committee wrote, “Seamus Heaney’s poetry is often down-to-earth. For Heaney, poetry was like the earth—something that must be plowed and turned. Often, he pa...