Walk the Boston Irish Heritage Trail Tours March 17,18

By BIR Newsroom
March 11, 2018
BIR Newsroom

This St. Patrick’s Day weekend, learn the true history of Boston’s Irish community dating from the 17th century by taking a guided tour of the Boston Irish Heritage Trail. Organized by the Boston Irish Tourism Association, the 75 minute tours are led by seasoned guide and local historian Ted Kulik, covering 10 sites in downtown Boston that mark the Irish odyssey from the Revolutionary War through the present.

‘YOU WALKED RIGHT IN’ ‘Illegal’ and ‘Undocumented’ Irish immigrants in historical reality

By Peter F. Stevens
March 2, 2018
Peter F. Stevens

When it comes to the immigrants of yesteryear – especially Irish immigrants to America’s shores – historical distortions and outright lies abound. A huge number of Irish Americans refuse to accept any comparisons between their sacred ancestors from the old sod and the undocumented immigrants of today. Today’s Nativists hurl the argument that in the grim years of the Potato Famine, the waves of Irish streaming into America from “coffin ships” or across the Canadian border were not ever officially branded “illegal immigrants.”

‘Open the Door for Three’ will strut their music at St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn (March 15-17)

By Sean Smith
March 1, 2018
Sean Smith

Open the Door for Three, a trio of Irish musicians whose penchant for scholarship complements their talents for arrangement and performance, will be a featured act in the 13th annual “A St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn” production, which takes place March 15-17 with shows at The Cabot Theatre in Beverly, the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center in New Bedford, and Sanders Theatre at Harvard University.

March 17: thoughts of a patron saint, milestones for Boston’s Irish heritage

By Peter F. Stevens, BIR Staff
March 1, 2018
Peter F. Stevens, BIR Staff

As St. Patrick’s Day 2018 nears, the “wearing of the green” will hold sway in Boston and environs. Still, amid all the genuine or faux pride on display in pubs, along parades, and as part of all other manner of revelry, it’s a sure bet that a great many celebrants are unaware that March 17 teems with uniquely Boston milestones.

The Big Parade: Landmark Tradition
“The Parade.” In Boston, the phrase means one thing – South Boston’s annual St. Patrick’s Day event. The 2018 march marks the event’s latest incarnation in a tradition that began in 1901.

Enjoying Longueville House in Cork near Mallow; Elegance, comfort now; turbulence in the long ago

By Ed Forry
March 1, 2018
Ed Forry

Our ten-day motor tour of the south coast of Ireland last summer included two wonderful days in County Cork, the ancestral county of my mother’s family. Eleanor Toomey Forry’s father, Timothy Toomey, was born in Macroom, and her mother, Norah (Downing), came to America from Skibbereen. I had been in Cork just once before, fully 25 years ago, but it was only for a quick six-hour drive through Kerry and Cork, with a brief stop at Blarney Castle before returning to my hotel outside Limerick.

March CD Reviews

By Sean Smith
March 1, 2018
Sean Smith


The Jeremiahs, “The Femme Fatale of Maine” • As the folk revival has gone on, there has been a gradual proliferation, especially in more recent years, of bands that utilize the architecture of traditional music in presenting their original music – close to the tradition yet at a certain remove. The list is extensive, and would certainly be open to argument (Kila? Enter the Haggis? LAU? RUNA?), but Dublin’s The Jeremiahs is a solid, and quite creative, entry.

‘Victory at Arnot’ – where Mother Jones and her ‘pot-and-pan brigade won the day for the miners

By Sean Smith
March 1, 2018
Sean Smith

Irish-born Mary “Mother” Jones, one of America’s most famous labor activists, is the subject of a production featuring Tony nominee Maureen Brennan, with a score by Berklee College of Music faculty member Eleanor Aversa, to be presented this month at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England and at Berklee.

Adversity, determination, humor mark ‘The Irish...And How They Got That Way’

By R.J. Donovan
March 1, 2018
R.J. Donovan

by R.J. Donovan
Frank McCourt is perhaps best known for his gripping 1996 memoir, “Angela’s Ashes.”  Detailing the harshness of his upbringing in Limerick, the book remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 100 weeks and was honored with multiple awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. 

The following year, McCourt created the book for the musical “The Irish…And How They Got That Way,” celebrating the Irish-American humor, determination, and struggles over the previous century and a half.

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