The Capital of Irish America

“Look for the Golden Stairs.” That’s what immigrants to Boston were told as their ships docked at the pier. So many Irish climbed the steps to Immigration Hall in the 19th century that Boston became known as the Capital of Irish America. Hardworking Irish enlivened the city with traditional food, music, and a help-your-neighbor spirit. Because they also brought poverty and Catholicism, though, Boston’s Irish suffered almost as much discrimination in their new land as they had in the country they had fled.

Irish began moving to Boston before the American Revolution. Some came for economic opportunities. Thousands of others were deported by the British to populate the colonies. Boston’s Irish held the colonies’ first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1737. When General Sullivan drove the British fleet from Boston on March 17, 1776, he used “St. Patrick” as his code word.

The largest numbers of immigrants arrived between 1845 and 1850. These were the Famine Irish. Fleeing the Great Hunger, about 75,000 desperate refugees paid about $15 to board leaky “coffin ships” that could take a month to cross the Atlantic. So many people died on the journey, the ocean was called The Bowl of Tears. Many who survived fell onto the docks, their tongues swollen with ship fever. Others were quarantined and died on Deer Island, never reaching the mainland.

Yet poor, uneducated, and starving immigrants kept coming. In 1850, one-third of Boston’s population was Irish, and local citizens feared their town, called the Dublin of America, would become the “poor house of the world.” Mobs attacked Catholic churches. While the Boston Pilot ran notices to help family and friends find each other, another newspaper demanded that the “miserable gang be sent back at once.” Want ads seeking workers stated, “No Irish need apply.”

The newcomers worked hard in dangerous conditions. For 50 cents a day, they laid Boston’s roads, tunnels, and subway tracks. Many died, leaving poverty-stricken widows and children. Women cleaned wealthy Bostonians’ homes and tended their babies. Irish laborers did jobs others refused and expanded the town into a major city. Gradually, they moved from tenements near the wharves to suburbs.

Because they were also loyal Americans, they began to gain the respect of native Bostonians. The Irishmen of the Ninth Regiment fought so bravely for the Union in the Civil War, their regimental flag hangs in the Massachusetts State House. Irish-American musicians wrote patriotic songs, including “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

Still, traditional Bostonians, called Brahmins, worried. Irish politicians were becoming powerful by providing jobs and charity to constituents in their neighborhoods in exchange for votes. One candidate even told his supporters on Election Day, “Vote early and vote often!” As Brahmins feared, local neighborhood bosses eventually controlled city government, and the first Irish Catholic was elected mayor in 1885.

When the son of a Famine Irishman became the city’s third Irish mayor in 1906, a journalist wrote, “Boston, not Dublin or Belfast, is the greatest Irish city in the world.” This mayor, John F. Fitzgerald, was the grandfather of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy.

Boston’s Irish still enliven the city. Thousands of kids march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, which attracts a million observers. The Boston Irish Reporter and the Boston Irish Tourism Association announce events, such as plays, concerts, storytelling, and festivals. The Boston Irish Heritage Trail highlights historic sites, including the Irish Famine Memorial and the JFK Library. Neighborhood pubs serve Dublin coddle (sausage and potatoes). Bakeries sell traditional soda bread. The Irish Culture Center in nearby Canton has a traditional thatched-roof cottage and offers lessons for kids in Irish language, legends, Celtic artwork, and dancing.

Ten-year-old Celia Dolan, whose mother is from Ireland, studies step and céilí (KAY-lee) dancing. She likes soft-shoe reels but her favorites are the hard-shoe hornpipe and travel jigs. Celia also has played Irish football, which is like soccer with hands, and hurling. She plays instruments, too, including the tin whistle and the hand-held, one-sided bodhrán (B-OW-raan) drum.

Like many Boston Irish, Celia says, “I’m proud of my culture!”