See You at the Hall

See You at the Hall PDF

Author: Susan Gedutis

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 2005-07

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9781555536404

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An engaging look at Boston's golden era of Irish traditional music

Rogues and Redeemers

Rogues and Redeemers PDF

Author: Gerard O'Neill

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0307405362

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From the bestselling coauthor of Black Mass, a behind-the-scenes portrait of the Irish power brokers who forged and fractured twentieth-century Boston. Rogues and Redeemers tells the hidden story of Boston politics--the cold-blooded ward bosses, the smoke-filled rooms, the larger-than-life pols who became national figures: Honey Fitz, the crafty stage Irishman and grandfather to a president; the pugilistic Rascal King, Michael Curley; the hectored Kevin White who tried to hold the city together during the busing crisis; and Ray Flynn, the Southie charmer who was truly the last hurrah for Irish-American politics in the city. For almost a century, the Irish dominated Boston politics with their own unique, clannish brand of coercion and shaped its future for good and ill. Former Boston Globe investigative reporter Gerard O'Neill takes the reader through the entire journey from the famine ships arriving in Massachusetts Bay to the wresting of power away from the Brahmins of Beacon Hill to the Title I wars of attrition over housing to the rending of the city over busing to the Boston of today--which somehow through it all became a modern, revitalized city, albeit with a growing divide between the haves and have-nots. Sweeping in its history and intimate in its details, Rogues and Redeemers echoes all the great themes of The Power Broker and Common Ground and should take its place on that esteemed shelf as a classic, definitive epic of a city.

The Boston Irish

The Boston Irish PDF

Author: Thomas H. O'Connor

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13:

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"The best recounting of the contemporary scene that I have seen." -- New York Times Book Review

Irish Boston

Irish Boston PDF

Author: Michael Quinlin

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1493004530

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The fascinating story of the Irish in Boston unfolds in this engagingly written history-cum-guidebook. Full of heroism and romance, politics and brawls, it tells the stories behind the well-known history and vividly portrays what life was like for the Harrigans, Gallaghers, Kelleys, Finnegans and others who made their home in Boston over the past three centuries. From the days of "No Irish Need Apply" in the 1850s to the inauguration in 1960 of the first Irish Catholic president, the Boston Irish have molded the history of the city--and the nation--in all areas of culture and society, and their spirited tale is told in these pages. The cast of characters includes such larger-than-life personalities as *Hugh O'Brien, Boston's first Irish Catholic mayor (1885) *John Singleton Copley, America's first great portrait painter *Louis Sullivan, the father of American Architecture, born in Boston's South End in 1856, *Brendan Connolly, the first top medalist in the modern Olympic Games (1896) *John L. Sullivan, world heavyweight boxing champion *Patrick Kennedy and Bridget Murphy, progenitors of the Kennedy political dynasty Those who want to do more than just read about the saga of the Irish in Boston will also find information on dozens of Irish-related historic and cultural sites, such as the Irish Famine Memorial, the Civil War Monument, St. Augustine's Cemetery, the Irish Cultural Centre, the JFK Library, and the pub where Seamus Heaney and his buddies frequently enjoyed a pint. Also included is a directory of Irish gift shops, annual events, genealogical resources, Irish organizations, and Irish-related academic courses. This one-of-a-kind guide is a complete source for the total Irish experience, both past and present.

Street Soldier

Street Soldier PDF

Author: Edward J. Mackenzie Jr.

Publisher: Steerforth

Published: 2010-04-20

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1586421824

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Featuring all the trappings of a Scorsese film, this first-hand account from one of Whitey Bulger’s enforcers is “one of the best” insider accounts of life inside the mob (Washington Post) During the 1980s, Edward J. MacKenzie, Jr., “Eddie Mac,” was a drug dealer and enforcer who would do just about anything for Whitey Bulger, the notorious head of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang. In this compelling eyewitness account—the first from a Bulger insider—Eddie Mac delivers the goods on his one-time boss and on such former associates as Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi and turncoat FBI agent John Connolly. Eddie Mac provides a window onto a world rarely glimpsed by those on the outside. Street Soldier is also a story of the search for family, for acceptance, for respect, loyalty, and love. Abandoned by his parents at the age of four, MacKenzie became a ward of the state of Massachusetts, suffered physical and sexual abuse in the foster care system, and eventually drifted into a life of crime and Bulger’s orbit. The Eddie Mac who emerges in these pages is complex: An enforcer who was also a kick-boxing and Golden Gloves champion; a womanizer who fought for custody of his daughters; a tenth-grade dropout living on the streets who went on, as an adult, to earn a college degree in three years; a man, who lived by the strict code of loyalty to the mob, but set up a sting operation that would net one of the largest hauls of cocaine ever seized. Eddie's is a harsh story, but it tells us something important about the darker corners of our world. Street Soldier is as disturbing and fascinating as a crime scene, as heart-stopping as a bar fight, and at times as darkly comic as Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

Hidden History of the Boston Irish

Hidden History of the Boston Irish PDF

Author: Peter F. Stevens

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2008-03-28

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1614232415

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Peter F. Stevens offers an entertaining and compelling portrait of the Irish immigrant saga and pays homage to the overlooked episodes of the Boston Irish experience. When it comes to Irish America, certain names spring to mind - Kennedy, O'Neill, and Curley testify to the proverbial "footsteps of the Gael" in Boston. However, few people know of Sister Mary Anthony O'Connell, whose medical prowess carried her from the convent to the Civil War battlefields, earning her the nickname "the Boston Irish Florence Nightingale," or of Barney McGinniskin, Boston's first Irish cop, who proudly roared at every roll call, "McGinniskin from the bogs of Ireland - present!" Along with acclaim or notoriety, many forgotten Irish Americans garnered numerous historical firsts.

A Journey Through Boston Irish History

A Journey Through Boston Irish History PDF

Author: Dennis P. Ryan

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 1999-06-01

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738589848

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A Journey through Boston Irish History, the first comprehensive photographic record of Boston's most conspicuous immigrant group, is the fruit of years of tireless research by prize-winning author Dennis P. Ryan. Within these pages are rare and handsome images unearthed from innumerable local libraries, historical societies and museums, parish rectories and Catholic charitable institutions, the archives of religious congregations, major Boston and diocesan newspapers, private family collections, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Beginning with the horrifying famine of the 1840s in Ireland and concluding four generations later with the election of John F. Kennedy as president, A Journey through Boston Irish History is a sweeping, poignant portrait of the children of the Gael and the city they transformed politically, socially, and culturally. Ryan takes us through the corridors and wards of hospitals and orphanages that were established by the Irish to care for their own. Powerful images supplied by the Mathew Brady Collection at the Library of Congress recount the exploits of the celebrated Massachusetts Ninth Irish Regiment during the American Civil War. Within these pages, we are also invited to discover the vibrant personalities of pugilist John L. Sullivan, William Henry Cardinal O'Connell, as well as the irrepressible Mayor James Michael Curley.

Untold Tales of the Boston Irish

Untold Tales of the Boston Irish PDF

Author: Peter F. Stevens

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2021-02-15

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1439672032

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When it comes to the Boston Irish, names such as Bulger and Curley have long shaped the local turf. But most people are probably unaware of some of the most amazing and forgotten Irish men and women who helped mold this city. There was Patrick Gilmore, America's first famed bandleader. Louis Sullivan was the "Father of the Skyscraper." Other colorful characters included Patsy Donovan, the man who discovered Babe Ruth, and Ann "Goody" Glover, whose horrifying ordeal launched the Salem Witch Trials. Although each played a noteworthy role in his or her era, all have been unjustly forgotten. Local author Peter Stevens uncovers the missing pieces of the Irish experience in Boston.