Boston Irish fixture and football standout Jim O’Brien; at 84

By Bostonirish Newsroom
June 16, 2023
Bostonirish Newsroom

Longtime Irish Boston community leader Jim O’Brien, of Lowell, formerly of Scituate, died on March 1. He was 84. A native of New Haven, CT, he attended Boston College on a full football scholarship. He had a brief professional career with the Detroit Lions and the Buffalo Bills that was cut short due to injury. In the late 1960s he founded the class ring and diploma company, O’Brien and Johnson.

Prof. Richard Finnegan; led Stonehill’s Irish Studies program

By Bostonirish Newsroom
June 16, 2023
Bostonirish Newsroom

Noted professor in Irish Studies and political science Richard B. Finnegan died at the age of 80 on May 20, at Massachusetts General Hospital, his wife Joanne “Scotti” Finnegan at his bedside.

Mr. Finnegan was born in Boston an attended BC High and Stonehill College, where he earned his bachelor of arts. Masters degrees followed from Boston College and Harvard University and a PhD from Florida State University.

As a young professor, he returned to Stonehill, where he spent a long and distinguished career as one of the college’s most prolific and respected Professors.

Former Bay Stater Natalya Kay is thriving in the eye of Gaelic Storm

By Sean Smith, Boston Irish Contributor
June 16, 2023
Sean Smith, Boston Irish Contributor

Understand: It’s not as if Massachusetts native Natalya Kay pined and prepared for years to be the fiddler for Gaelic Storm.

The 27-year-old Kay, who grew up in Lowell and spent time in Boston before moving to Nashville, joined the popular Celtic rock group a year ago, becoming the newest member of “that band from ‘Titanic’” – the cameo appearance in the 1997 blockbuster a particularly notable chapter in their 26-year story.

It’s Celtic music and dance day and night at Summer BCMFest on July 2 at Passim

By Bostonirish Newsroom
June 16, 2023
Bostonirish Newsroom

A full day and evening of Celtic music is in store at the annual Summer BCMFest, which takes place July 2 at Club Passim in Harvard Square.

This year’s festival includes free outdoor concerts and participatory ceilidh outside Passim in Palmer Street, and a ticketed evening performance in the club.

Screenwriter Michael JP Reilly, co-writers craft ‘a weapon for good’ in the film ‘Till’

By Peter F. Stevens, Boston Irish Staff
June 16, 2023
Peter F. Stevens, Boston Irish Staff

This past February, the movie “Till” was screened at the White House for President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and their guests. Among the team that brought the powerful true story of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to the president’s home that evening was the 42-year-old screenwriter and producer Michael JP Reilly, formerly of Massachusetts and the son of local Boston Irish luminary William “Bill” Reilly.

Professing Seamus Heaney

By Thomas O’Grady, Special to Boston Irish
June 16, 2023
Thomas O’Grady, Special to Boston Irish

During my long and rich teaching career (1984-2019) at UMass Boston, I had the rare good fortune of being able to offer, multiple times—both as a graduate seminar and as an undergraduate senior seminar—a course centered on Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. As the tenth anniversary of his death, on August 30th of 2013, looms large, I’ve been thinking about the various iterations of that course. Heaney was only 74 years old when he passed away, but he made a lasting mark not just on the Irish literary landscape but also globally—a mark that I tried to take the expanding measure of with my s

Courtney O’Connor & her vision for the Lyric Stage Company

By R. J. Donovan, Special to Boston Irish
June 16, 2023
R. J. Donovan, Special to Boston Irish

Courtney O’Connor has a solid history in the Boston theater community as a director, educator and arts administrator. Having directed several shows at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston over the years, she joined the full-time staff at Lyric in 2018 and was named artistic director in 2020.  (She partners with Executive Director Matt Chapman in operating the theater.)

Curley Center (aka L Street) has opened for the public

By Bill Forry, Editor
June 16, 2023
Bill Forry, Editor

The doors of the Curley Community Center on Columbia Road in South Boston swung open to the public on June 9 for the first time in more than three years, welcoming residents eager to get their first look at the renovated beachfront amenity that has been completely modernized at a cost of $31.2 million.

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