It was a warm day this spring when I visited Bill Bulger at his home in South Boston. He’s a 90-year-old man now, not quite as lively as we remember him over the years at the St. Patrick Day breakfasts, at the rostrum of the state Senate or in his role bringing new life to the University of Massachusetts.

He has been back in private life for almost two decades now, and after the death in 2020 of Mary, his wife of 60 years, he has settled into his home in City Point under the watchful care of his 9 children and more than 30 grandchildren.

I joined him and his sons, Bill Jr and Jim, for a wonderful 90-minute session recollecting an assortment of old tales and stories that we had shared over the years.

One favorite memory for me is the night in 1971 that my Mary (Casey) and I “double-dated” with him and his Mary (Foley) and set out for Cleveland Circle to see the movie “Love Story.” When we arrived, the show had been as sold out, but we agreed to wait for the next screening, and as we joined the queue with a half hundred others, the then-first term state senator amused us – and, indeed, much of the gathering in the lobby – with a performance that pre-figured the St Patrick breakfast shows that he, as emcee, made so entertaining.

Some friends heard about my recent visit and asked me how Bill is doing. I tell them that for the bit of time I sat with him, he is still the man we grew to know and admire.

He spent almost 45 years in public service, and his accomplishments in the Legislature and at UMass deserve to be remembered, and publicly recognized.

Bill Bulger followed the great Joe Moakley out of South Boston to the Massachusetts House in 1961, and, ten years later, to the state Senate. He sponsored legislation that championed education, the protection of children, funding for public libraries, and state support of anti-poverty community action programs. He was an architect of a groundbreaking education reform law that reduced the funding inequities between rich and poor communities, and was a strong environmentalist, championing the effort that resulted in the cleanup of Boston Harbor.

Convinced that Massachusetts deserved a world-class public research university, as Senate president he strongly supported the bill that in 1991 created the five-campus UMass system. He led the Senate through its 1995 debate on changes to the state’s welfare system and argued for less punitive revisions: “After we have eaten, we forget there is such a thing as hunger,” he said.

During his time as UMass President beginning in 1996, his accomplishments included attracting top students to the university, increasing private and public financial support, stressing the importance of access and affordability, and winning new appreciation for the system’s impact and quality. And he was credited with significantly strengthening and elevating what had only recently (1991) become a five-campus system with the addition of institutions in Dartmouth and Lowell.

Under his leadership, UMass Medical School recruited Dr. Craig C. Mello, who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Z. Fire, a colleague from Stanford. UMass has created the William M. Bulger Presidential Scholarship, describing it this way: “During President Bulger’s tenure as leader of UMass from 1996–2003, he pursued the dual mission of excellence and educational opportunity. High-profile donors and corporations contributed generously to his mission through the William M. Bulger Scholarship Fund. Over one million dollars was raised in honor of his 70th birthday in 2004. President Bulger directed these gifts to UMass for the purpose of providing financial assistance to motivated students who are serious about their education.”

Former governor Michael Dukakis credited Bill with playing a key role in bringing reform to governance in Massachusetts. “The state government that he and I entered in 1960 and 1962 as young state legislators was one of the three or four most corrupt in America,” Dukakis has said. “Bill Bulger was the guy that brought integrity to the Massachusetts State Senate … and we’re benefitting from that now” … he is “one of the most effective presidents of the University of Massachusetts we’d ever had.”

It is right and fitting and just that the Boston Irish community will recognize the accomplishments and lifelong public service of William M. Bulger. We are proud to welcome him into the Boston Irish Hall of Honors.

Ed Forry is the co-founder and publisher of Boston Irish.