64 years later, ‘Sister Evelyn’ says goodby to St. Brigid’s

By Ed Forry
February 27, 2014

BY JORDAN FRIAS
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
After 64 years of service to the St. Brigid’s Parish neighborhood in South Boston, Sister Evelyn Hurley will say goodby to the community on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, her 99th birthday, and retire to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth’s motherhouse in Kentucky where she began her journey into convent life 82 years ago.

Irish American Art and Music Foundation launches tour to the sounds of Uncle Bing

By Ed Forry
February 27, 2014
Ed Forry

BY ED FORRY
BIR PUBLISHER
The historic M. Steinert & Sons piano retail showroom at 162 Boylston Street across from Boston Common was the setting of a private musical concert last month to mark the Boston launch of the Irish American Art and Music Foundation.

OF ‘WETBACKS AND WILD BISON’

By Peter Stevens
February 27, 2014
Peter Stevens

BY PETER F. STEVENS
BIR STAFF
Once, the Boston Irish knew what it was to be “wetbacks.” Of course, the epithets that hateful, narrow-minded Nativists and “Know Nothings” of the 1840s and 1850s employed to deride Irish immigrants were “Paddies, Bridgets, and Papists,” but in the lexicon of prejudice, those terms were, and are, interchangeable because of one ironclad trait – spiteful and willing ignorance.

Mass. Cultural Council honor for BC faculty’s Jimmy Noonan

By Sean Smith
February 27, 2014
Sean Smith

Jimmy Noonan, a faculty member in the Music Department and Irish Studies Program at Boston College, is the recipient of a $10,000 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship award. The fellowships “recognize exceptional work by Massachusetts artists across a range of disciplines,” according to the MCC website. “These highly competitive awards provide artists crucial validation among their peers and the public. They catalyze artistic advancement and pave the way for creative innovation of enduring cultural value.”

For 60 years, Rita O’Shea Chaplin has been teaching Irish dance, and building a ‘family’ along the way

By Sean Smith
February 27, 2014
Sean Smith

BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
It’s a dead-of-winter Saturday, but things are quite lively inside the German International School Boston building in Brighton where some three dozen students of the O’Shea-Chaplin Academy of Irish Dance are going through their paces.

Heartbeat of Home’ sweeps Irish dance into new millennium

By R.J.Donovan
February 27, 2014
R.J.Donovan

‘BY R. J. DONOVAN
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
“Heartbeat of Home” could rightfully be called “Riverdance” for the new millennium, taking Irish dance to the next level. When the exuberant production makes its East Coast debut at the Citi Wang Theatre from March 26 to April 6, Boston audiences will be among the first to see the show The Irish Mail on Sunday dubbed “jaw dropping.”

Prayer for our union: ‘Give love a chance’

By Ed Forry
February 27, 2014

BY JAMES W. DOLAN
SPECIAL TO THE REPORTER
The president is at the podium as the applause subsides. He looks across the array of faces before him, a gathering of many of the most powerful people in the country, and he speaks.
“Ladies and gentlemen I come before you today with a different message. Not what you would expect at this forum where normally you hear a litany of problems and proposed solutions. I am one of a long line of presidents who have delivered those easily forgotten messages.

Our Irish heritage – an inspiring,yet tragic, story about a mystery chair

By Joe Leary
February 27, 2014
Joe Leary

BY JOE LEARY
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
As we celebrate the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of our Irish heritage, it is natural to reflect on the lives of our ancestors, their sacrifices that brought us to Boston, and the later sacrifices they made to make a life for themselves and those who followed them.
I hope you will forgive me; this is a very personal story.

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