‘Adventurous’ is the driving spirit at ‘Celtic Sojourn’

By Sean Smith
March 2, 2015
Sean Smith

The annual “St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn” celebration hits the magic 10-year mark this year in characteristically adventurous fashion, with performances by Irish folk-roots trio The Henry Girls, hot Cape Breton quintet Còig, New England singer-guitarist (and the show’s music director) Keith Murphy, and a special appearance by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mick McAuley, a member of Irish super group Solas.

Also featured will be Irish dancer Sarah Jacobsen and members of the Harney Academy of Irish Dance.

High school students kick the tires at EMK Institute

By Lauren Dezenski
March 2, 2015
Lauren Dezenski

The best museums give their visitors a take-away message, something that can stick with them long after they leave the building. At the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate – slated to open on the 31st of this month on Columbia Point in Dorchester – that message will be participation, according to Museum Director Billie R. DeWalt.

SEE YOU ON BROADWAY — South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade steps off at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 15.

By BIR News Room
March 2, 2015

Above, a painting by South Boston’s own Dan McCole captured the colors of an earlier Southie parade.Above, a painting by South Boston’s own Dan McCole captured the colors of an earlier Southie parade.

In a sure sign of spring despite this winter’s whallop of snow, the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day festivities will be a jam-packed Sunday, March 15, so long as mother nature cooperates.

As of this paper’s publication, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, put on the South Boston Allied Veterans Council, will be held on Southie’s snow-clogged streets on Sunday, March 15.

This is the first year an LGBT-affiliated ground has been allowed to march in the parade’s 114 year history. As such, more groups and elected officials will march in the parade, including St. Patrick’s Day breakfast host State Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry.

In December, the veteran’s council voted 5-4 to allow LGBT veterans organization OutVETS to march in this year’s parade.

Book details Cullinane’s success as a software pioneer

By Bill O'Donnell
March 2, 2015
Bill O'Donnell

After reading software entrepreneur John Cullinane’s fascinating book – “Smarter Than Their Machines: Oral Histories of Pioneers in Interactive Computing” – I did some research into John’s career and his passion for jobs, peace, and prosperity in Ireland. We have been casual, stay-in-touch friends for some 25 years and I have been an admirer of John Cullinane and of the enormous success story he crafted with his creation of the Cullinane Corporation, later Cullinet, the software giant.

Happy 100th to the ‘house with the shamrock shutters’

By Peter F. Stevens
March 2, 2015
Peter F. Stevens

On St. Patrick’s Day of 1915, a monument began to take shape in Jamaica Plain

The city of Boston owns the “house that James Michael Curley” built on the Jamaicaway in Jamaica Plain. Construction on the Curley mansion began on St. Patrick’s Day, 1915. Image courtesy Jamaica Plain Gazette/Rebeca OlivieraThe city of Boston owns the “house that James Michael Curley” built on the Jamaicaway in Jamaica Plain. Construction on the Curley mansion began on St. Patrick’s Day, 1915. Image courtesy Jamaica Plain Gazette/Rebeca Oliviera

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more fitting but controversial symbol of Boston Irish success this or any St. Patrick’s Day. As a recent drive past the site affirmed, it still stands in Jamaica Plain – exactly one century since the grand structure first began to take shape on St. Patrick’s Day of 1915. Fittingly so, as the house’s owner was no less than “Himself,” James Michael Curley. In this scribe’s view, the house merits a look, so to speak, as the Boston Irish High Holy Holiday of 2015 looms a few weeks hence.

One hundred years ago, Mayor James Michael Curley decided to build a new house for his family. The home, however, was not just any dwelling. Rising on a verdant two-acre tract that offered a panoramic view of Frederick Law Olmsted’s “green necklace” along the Jamaicaway, Curley’s mansion soon evoked collective questions among his political enemies, the press, and even some of his supporters.

Recalling life with my Uncle Gordon

By James W. Dolan
March 2, 2015
James W. Dolan

He was the oldest of three boys, one of ten children brought up on Wrentham Street in Dorchester. My mother Mary was the oldest, born in 1907. Their parents were Irish immigrants who met in Waterbury, Connecticut and later moved to Boston where their father, Bert Ward, got a job as a bus driver for the MTA.

In those days the husband worked and brought home a paycheck but almost everything else was left to the wife. Child rearing was considered woman’s work. The oldest daughter was expected to help.

Partnership prepares for the road ahead

By Joe Leary, Special to the BIR
March 2, 2015
Joe Leary, Special to the BIR

A dramatically successful 2014 has inspired the Boston- headquartered Irish American Partnership to rejuvenate and modernize its operation and prepare for substantial growth in the years ahead.

Although audited figures are not yet finalized, at this writing the non-profit charity estimates that 2014 brought in over $1.1 million in revenue, with 85 percent going to its mission in Ireland. Donations were received from more than 30 states throughout the United States.

Where’s the Irish beef? On its way, they’re saying

By Ed Forry
March 2, 2015

Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney TD, spoke during a luncheon at Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in the Back Bay last month. Photo by Ed ForryIreland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney TD, spoke during a luncheon at Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in the Back Bay last month. Photo by Ed Forry

Where’s the beef? That’s the refrain from an old TV hamburger chain commercial that’s gone down in American folklore. But for connoisseurs of natural, grass-fed steaks and roasts from Ireland, that question is amplified: “Where’s the Irish Beef?”

For the last 15 years, as far as the American market is concerned, the answer has been: “Nowhere to be found.”

It has been that long – a full decade and a half – since the USDA banned the importation of Irish beef in the wake of the so-called “Mad Cow disease” epidemic that raged through parts of Europe in 1999-2000. But this past January, the food agency gave the all-clear to Irish beef, and so the product will soon be re-introduced to America, perhaps as soon as this spring.
And so it was that Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney TD, was joined by officials from the Irish Food Board (Bord Bía) and Irish meat industry officials on a whirlwind three-day visit to New York, Washington, DC, and Boston to launch a campaign hailing the return of Irish beef to the American market.

At a luncheon at Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in the Back Bay, Coveney was ebullient about the campaign: “We’re here to tell a story about a product that we’re very proud of,” he said. “Accessing the US market for Irish beef is a big deal in Ireland. We are the largest beef exporter in Europe, and we are the largest net exporter in the western hemisphere despite the fact that we come from a very small country.

“We have been aspiring for quite some time to build a reputation as a county that produces the best beef in the world, and if you’re not in the biggest market in the world, and you have that aspiration, well, then, there’s something seriously wrong.”

Coveney was speaking to a luncheon gathering of some 40 local restaurant owners and food buyers, as S&W chefs prepared a sumptuous meal. Featuring a Bord Bía menu entitled “Irish Beef – the flavor shows where the best grass grows,” the guests were served a three-course meal featuring a 20- ounce Irish Beef Rib-eye Steak with whipped potatoes, duck-fat roasted root vegetables, a Wollensky Salad and the restaurant’s famous chocolate cake.

“For us this has been a big effort to work with the USDA to be the first European country to be back in the US market following the banning of European beef,” Coveney said. “Millions of Americans can trace their roots back to a time where their families came from small family farms that are still intact today. But instead of now relying on potato crops, we now have an almost complete reliance in terms of how we produce food on grass.

“And it’s grass that makes Irish beef different, it’s what makes Irish beef taste different; it’s about small family-sized farms with relatively small herds that don’t use any growth promoters or hormones; they simply rely on green grass that grows in abundance in Ireland to produce top quality beef that tastes great and is absolutely natural. And we think that makes our beef quite different.”

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