State officials and community leaders came together this fall to celebrate the renovation of Michael Joyce Memorial Playground in South Boston. The park commemorates the life of Galway native Michael Joyce, a champion boxer in the Irish Army who emigrated to Boston in 1949, settled in Dorchester, and became a volunteer who helped scores of immigrants from Ireland find work and a place to live. He died of cancer in 1989 at age 66.

The park officially opened in 2010, and since then his family and friends have worked with the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) to raise the funds needed to renovate the facility.

Former Mayor Ray Flynn and former UMass and State Senate President Bill Bulger joined Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Maeve Bartlett, DCR Commissioner Jack Murray as about 75 persons gathered at the site on Nov. 21 for the brief ceremony. Congressman Stephen Lynch and Mayor Martin Walsh, and South Boston electeds, state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, Rep. Nick Collins, and City Councillor Michael Flaherty also spoke at the event.

The finished project is the life’s dream of Joyce’s children, including Mary Joyce Morris who offered remarks at the event.
“Since his death in 1989, often times you would hear someone say, ‘Mike Joyce should be remembered.’ Finally this committee was formed to bring to reality this long overdue memorial. Michael Joyce was a gift to all who knew him. To his wife and their six children, he was a good provider and a wonderful role model. He worked three, sometimes four jobs to make a better life for them in Dorchester. To those who knew him in the halls of the State House, City Hall, JFK Immigration Building, the Court House and agencies too numerous to mention, he was a trusted and reliable representative who would always do his best for those needing assistance.

“To those in this community, he was our ‘shining star,’ a man who helped so many and never asked for anything in return.
We thank you for your support and turnout today in helping to make possible a permanent memorial in the city of Boston for Michael Joyce, A Man to Remember. He worked for the immigrants, Irish, and Polish, and German. Today there are new immigrants that come with the same wish, looking to make a better life and home for their families

“Thank you all for being here today to remember Michael Joyce, just a very nice man.”