Events › No Irish Need Apply: The History of the Irish in Boston with Historian Chris Daley

Join us for a lecture on the history and legacy of Irish immigrants in Boston with historian Chris Daley.

The talk begins with a look at the scant evidence there is of the Irish who were brought over unwillingly as indentured servants in the late 17th Century. Then, the first real migration of the Irish in 1718, the arrival of the Scot-Irish or the "Ulster Irish," will be discussed. Next, we will examine the slow pre-famine trickle of Irish Catholic immigrants coming into Boston as well as the corresponding increase in Anti-Irish/Catholic sentiment within Boston, beginning with the notorious Pope's Day celebrations and then turning to the burning of the Ursuline Convent in 1834 in Charlestown and the Broad Street Riot of 1837.

The massive wave of immigration into Boston after the Great Potato Famine will be examined next with respect to the condition of the new arrivals, the neighborhoods they settled, how they banded together, the kinds of work they did to survive and their eventual assimilation into American culture.

Finally, there will be a discussion of the rise of the Irish within the sphere of Boston politics. Short vignettes on such Irish political leaders such as Patrick Collins, Hugh O'Brien, Martin Lomasney, Patrick J. Kennedy, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald and, of course, the old "Rascal King" himself, James Michael Curley, will be given.

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