Irish Need Not Apply, with historian Christopher Daley

Thursday, March 20, 2014
10:30 AM
Irish Need Not Apply, with historian Christopher Daley

This program will examine the many facets of the early Irish experience in Boston. Beginning with a look at the Irish who were brought over unwillingly as indentured servants in the mid-17th century, to the massive wave of immigration into Boston that followed the Great Potato Famine, and examining the rise of the Irish within the sphere of Boston politics and the emergence of the "Ward Boss"; this lecture will examine the condition of new arrivals, the neighborhoods they settled, how they banded together, the kind of work they did to survive, and their eventual assimilation into American culture. Short vignettes will be given on such Irish political leaders  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.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Norton Public Library.
Location: Community Room