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Boston’s Celtic charm
By John Crowley
As the St. Patrick’s festivities approach, John Crowley discovers how they celebrate the big day American-style — in the Irish stronghold of Boston.
Boston is the living, breathing heart of the Irish Diaspora.
Where else in the world do 1.5million people still celebrate St. Patrick’s Day together with such wild abandon?
Despite the influx of Italian and Hispanic emigrants in the last century, Boston edges out New York as the capital of Irish America.
Though Boston’s Irish connections are well established, it still comes as a surprise as to just how many Irish stories and events have shaped the city’s history.
There are scores of landmarks and monuments which now celebrate the social, political and cultural impact the Irish have had on the city.
Yet the ‘hub’ has not always welcomed the Irish to her bosom. When the potato famine of the mid-19th century first drove 100,000 Irish refugees to Boston, the reported life expectancy of an immigrant was 14 years.
As in the London of the 1950s, bigotry and discrimination were rife. Job posting bore the legend: ‘No Irish Need Apply’. Prejudices began to subside as the Irish political machine gathered strength at the end of the 19th century.
The election of Hugh O’Brien in 1885 — the first of many Irish-Catholic mayors — represented a turning point in how the Irish were perceived.
But there were some who earned the Irish a bad reputation.
‘Boss’ James Michael Curley, as his nickname suggests, was a character well known for his political shenanigans.
He served as a congressman, governor and mayor, and over a chequered 40-year career he bought votes, got re-elected to the position and supposedly acquired the mayoral office by threatening to expose the incumbent John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald (JFK’s maternal grandfather) for having a mistress.
Curley spent much of his last term as mayor in a federal penitentiary, charged with mail fraud.
However, millions of Irish in Boston worked hard to transform themselves from impoverished immigrants to successful citizens.
Their struggles were vindicated when John Fitzgerald Kennedy became America’s first Irish Catholic president in 1960.
The JFK presidential museum, located in Columbia Point south of the city, honours Boston’s most famous Irish son. While it is heartening to see an institution that celebrates and honours his burning idealism, I was disappointed that the museum overlooked his connections with the Mob and his affairs with Marilyn Monroe and others.
Yet, if Kennedy was alive today he would have been disappointed that 2004’s watered-down version of JFK could not repeat his same feat of 44 years before.
When I visited the city last November as John Forbes Kerry was gunning for the White House, I sensed this was a city growing in confidence.
Bostonians have, in the past, been accused by other Americans of having an inferiority complex.
The most pressing problem for the hub’s denizens is New York, the glimmering metropolis which lies some 400 miles to the south-east.
Arguably the country’s most sports-mad city, Boston has now got something to celebrate.
In 2004’s Baseball World Series the victory of the Red Sox, the country’s unluckiest team, finally lifted the 86-year ‘curse’ hanging over their hometown club.
It finally allowed Bostonians to harangue fans of their fierce rivals, the New York Yankees, whose purchase of the legendary Babe Ruth from the Red Sox initiated the curse and led to decades of Yankee success over them.
And in American Football, local side the New England Patriots earned their place in history by winning their third Superbowl title in four years.
Sports aside, there is already much to captivate you in this historically rich city.
Founded in 1630, it is America’s first city, the “Cradle of Liberty”, where
the faltering steps were taken to free the American colonies from the yoke of the British crown.
Waves of English Puritans, Irish Famine refugees, Italians and Hispanics have made Boston their home throughout its history. It has always been an immigrants’ city — and still is.
Boston has several distinct ethnic, but friendly, enclaves. Probably the best known is the Italian, restaurant-laden North End, which you can smell before you see.
Copley Square, the city’s main square, is a great launch pad to explore the city. You can marvel at the Old Boston Library at one end of the square and the gothic gargoyles that guard the entrance to Trinity Church at the other.
Historic Faneuil Hall and The Institute of Contemporary Art are a short ride away on the city’s efficient ‘T’ tube system. Don’t be confused if the station attendant doesn’t give you a ticket when you ask for one — a little gold coin is all you need.
Across the Charles River lies Harvard University, America’s most famous academic institution. Close by, Newbury Street brings together Boston’s most trendy boutiques.
Downtown, the bargains at Filene’s Basement lure locals as well as tourists. The “Running of the Brides” — where designer wedding dresses are sold off to a scrum of battling women for a few hundred dollars — is legendary. And just for the record, there are Irish pubs galore — as you can see from the box on the left.
Should you want to venture further afield, there is an embarrassment of riches all within an hour’s drive.
To the north lies Salem, where the 17th century witch trials gave the town its fearsome reputation.
Lexington and Concord, half an hour to the west, are the hamlets where the first shots were fired and battle took place in the American War of Independence.
To the south is Plymouth, the first landing rock for the 102 pilgrims who sailed to the New World from England in 1620.
Boston itself is known as America’s walking city — and for good reason. Most of these landmarks can be traversed by foot if you start in the centre of town — as well as an official walking tour there are walks dedicated to the Irish and black contribution to the city’s history.
Michael P. Quinlin, the author of a book on Boston’s Irish history, is also the man behind the Boston Irish Tourism Association which sells the city as The Capital of Irish America.
BITA created the city’s first ever Irish Heritage Trail, a self-guided walking tour which takes in statues, memorials, parks and cemeteries that illustrate Irish history.
Without doubt the most striking one is the Irish Famine Memorial in the heart of downtown Boston.
The monument, made by Robert Shure, was unveiled in 1998 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine.
With its rich past and vibrant present, Boston is a city that will make all Irish feel very welcome indeed.
The Best Irish Bars
Brendan Behan Pub,378, Centre Street, at Sheridan Street, Jamaica Plain.
The atmospheric pub which kick-started the craze back in the day. Thankfully, this one with its black interior walls has no ‘theme’ to it. A pub in need of a wash under the armpits, the Brendan Behan is off the tourist beaten track and all the better for it.
Doyle’s, 3484 at Washington Street, at Williams Street, Jamaica Plain.
One of the oldest boozers in Boston where Irish-American politicians come to strike deals and chew the fat.
Hennessy’s, 25 Union Street, at Quincy Market, Government Centre.
A welcome pitstop on the city’s walking ‘Freedom Trail’, Hennessy’s is a large, brightly-lit pub which caters for tourists. There was an Irish session in full flow here when I stopped on a Saturday afternoon.
The Phoenix Landing, 512 Massachusetts Avenue, at Brookline Street, Cambridge.
Located a 15-minute walk from the dreaming spires of Harvard, this is the first watering hole to turn itself into a nightclub. Catering for a young, groovy crowd, expect to hear anything from rap to folk of an evening. You may have to pay to enter.
JJ Foley’s, 21 Kingston Street at Summer Street, Downtown Crossing.
A city institution. Businessmen and bums rub shoulders here. Apparently, every Bostonian of a certain age has met or broken up with someone here. The jukebox is to die for with Irish classics from the 60s to the 90s.
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