Catherine O’Neill to stage her second play, ‘The Fence’

By Eliza Dewey
March 2, 2015
Eliza Dewey

Catherine O’Neill will stage her second play in Boston next month.Catherine O’Neill will stage her second play in Boston next month.

Beginning on March 6, Dorchester playwright Catherine O’Neill will invite audiences to the Boston Center for the Arts see her most personal work yet. In “The Fence,” O’Neill recounts how her father built a chain-link fence for her brother as an act of love – only for the son to ask to tear it down because of its ugliness and negative reactions from neighbors. The ensuing drama unearths what she describes as “a world full of hate and secrets” that highlights “the heart of ageism, socioeconomic growth, and acceptance among first-generation Bostonians.”

By using her family as her inspiration, O’Neill gave herself a chance to reflect on the journey they took from Ireland to Boston. She is the youngest of seven children and the only one born in the United States.

“My parents and my 6 brothers emigrated to this country,” she says. “I never considered how brave that was, for a long, long time.

COME TO THE CEILI: Doyle’s in JP hosts the fun once a month

By Sean Smith
March 2, 2015
Sean Smith

Doyle’s Café is a Boston institution – and more to the point, a Boston Irish institution, as anyone who has seen its Irish and Irish-American memorabilia and décor can testify. So there aren’t many more appropriate venues around for a good old-fashioned Irish ceili than the nearly 135-year-old Jamaica Plain establishment.

Sharing ‘A Little Bit Of Ireland’ at Reagle in Waltham: 17th St. Patrick’s revue set for March 14 and 15

By R.J. Donovan
March 2, 2015
R.J. Donovan

Students from the Harney Academy of Irish Dance in “A Little Bit Of Ireland” at Reagle Music Theatre, March 14 and 15. Photo courtesy of Reagle Music Theatre / Herb Philpott Photo.Students from the Harney Academy of Irish Dance in “A Little Bit Of Ireland” at Reagle Music Theatre, March 14 and 15. Photo courtesy of Reagle Music Theatre / Herb Philpott Photo.

It all began with a backstage “hello” more than a decade ago following a performance of Hal Prince’s acclaimed revival of “Showboat” when leading lady Sarah Pfisterer met Bob Eagle, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Waltham’s Reagle Music Theatre.  That brief greeting has led to an enduring personal and professional connection that lasts to this day.

A Metropolitan Opera semi-finalist with a master’s in Music from Northwestern University, Sarah has become a mainstay at Reagle in recent years, regularly appearing in summer musicals such as “Carousel,” “The Music Man,” “The Sound of Music” and ”My Fair Lady.”  She has also performed in the company’s annual Christmas production.  

And later this month she will return to Waltham to sing in Reagle’s 17th annual St. Patrick’s Day revue, “A Little Bit Of Ireland,” on March 14 and 15.

‘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.

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