The Irish in Boston

The summer institute evoked Ireland with step dancers, senatorial schemers, and crackerjack fiddlers.

By Julie Rattey When the musicians struck up a reel, Francis McCrossan (CAS’73, GSM’76) thought of his father, a chemist who played in Irish bands in Boston. Audience member Anne Kennedy Ilacqua remembered buying Irish records for her grandmother Maggie, who still read the Cork Weekly Examiner decades after emigrating to the US as a teen. And Shirley Knowles (Wheelock’71) was transported to her cousins’ Brooklyn apartment in the 1950s. On Friday nights, in a kitchen crammed with family and friends and redolent with the smell of fresh soda bread, someone would bring out a concertina; another, a tin whistle. For hours into the evening, Knowles and the other children would dance jigs, while the adults played, sang, and sipped tea. “It was like going back in my childhood,” says Knowles of the performance. “I have all these wonderful memories of a happy time.” The music that sparked these memories was a collection of Irish tunes performed by Boston University Associate Professor Sally Sommers Smith and several musician friends at The Irish in Boston, a weekend institute hosted in July at BU’s College of General Studies. The event, run by the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning (CITL), drew approximately 40 alumni and community members to enjoy Irish music and dance performances, dinner at The Burren Irish pub in Davis Square, and lectures from CGS professors on Irish music, poetry, society, and politics in Boston.

Claire Schenkel (CAS’13, SAR’13), Kathleen Hamilton (CAS’13), Meghan Farrell (Questrom’14, CAS’14), and Bridget Daly (CGS’16), members of BU’s Step About Boston Irish dance group, perform at the summer institute. Video by Julie Rattey

A Mini CGS Experience

The goal of the institute, which is in its second year, is to bring alums and area residents together to explore a subject of widespread interest from an interdisciplinary perspective. Since that perspective is what many alums loved about CGS, says Interim Dean Natalie McKnight, “this is a way to come back and not just have a drink and shake some hands—although people do that too—but to have a mini College of General Studies experience.” The idea attracted alums like McCrossan and his wife, Patricia (Wheelock’75). “The integration that the institute provides on the topic of the Irish in Boston—the music, the politics—it’s a nice package,” he says. When planning the annual event, CITL staff choose a topic that spotlights faculty expertise and draws on the culture of Boston. Last year’s theme was baseball, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park; the 2014 institute will explore Victorian Boston. Irish Americans made up the majority of the attendees of this year’s institute. For them, the event was a chance to learn more about their roots. CITL Director Megan Sullivan’s presentation on “Bridget in Boston: Irish Domestic Servants and the Culture of Work” was of special interest to alums whose immigrant grandparents had worked in domestic service. “We only had family stories,” several people told her; the talk gave historical and social context to their lore. Some attendees had a professional as well as personal interest in the subject. Medical anthropology student Kellan McNally (CGS’05, CAS’07, MED’14) is researching how immigrants’ experiences helped shape the now-defunct state-run hospital system. Mary Downes, an audience member who heard about the institute online, traveled from New Hampshire to gather information for a book she’s writing about her Irish immigrant ancestors.

Making History Come Alive

Lively performances and lecturers’ humorous anecdotes kept attendees entertained throughout the weekend. Smith and a small group of musician friends played as part of a presentation on Irish music in Boston. Step About Boston, BU’s Irish dance group, performed several numbers, and Associate Professor Meg Tyler recited poems by Fanny Howe and the late Seamus Heaney. Associate Professor Thomas Whalen’s lecture on John F. Kennedy (Hon.’55) and Massachusetts politics, which gave an eye-opening tour of showdowns and shenanigans, elicited frequent chuckles. When the talk was over, Knowles turned to her neighbor and said, “Well, he certainly made history come alive, didn’t he?” Meal breaks gave attendees a chance to share their own stories. Over a boxed lunch in the College’s sunswept lobby, alums and visitors traded tales about trips to Ireland, their immigrant ancestors, brushes with the Kennedys, and the gaps in their family histories they now feel more inspired to investigate. As the group reflected about challenges and prejudices Irish immigrants encountered, Ilacqua, who attended the event with her husband, Joseph (Wheelock’93), shared an anecdote that could have been pulled right out of Downton Abbey. Ilacqua’s great-uncle, a chauffeur, raised eyebrows when he fell in love with and married his Brookline employer’s daughter. As the story goes, the bride’s mother commented: “I always liked McCarthy, but not for a son-in-law.” It’s family history, says Ilacqua, that made this year’s institute resonate. “I think it’s important to never forget your roots, and to honor the people who were brave enough to come to America.”

Fun Facts About the Irish in Boston

Couldn’t make it to this year’s institute? Here are some of the fascinating facts that CGS professors shared with attendees:

In 1840, the Irish made up about half of all immigrants to the United States.
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy helped her son John F. Kennedy win the 1952 Massachusetts Senate race by inviting women—including working-class Irish women—to tea parties where they could personally meet the candidate. About 70,000 women attended—the same number of votes by which Kennedy won the election.
Boston played a crucial role in collecting and distributing Irish music, partly thanks to Elias Howe, a Boston-area musician and the foremost publisher of music in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Marketing to the Irish in Boston, Howe published The Hibernia Collection of Irish tunes in 1860.
Between 1895 and 1909, 109 fiction films about the Irish in America are known to have been created. Twenty-eight of them feature the Irish maid—sometimes, as was unfortunately common in cartoons and films of the period, making her the butt of the joke. In Mary Jane’s Mishap from 1903, a maid decides to light a stove with paraffin, to disastrous effect.
The late Irish poet Seamus Heaney, a former poet-in-residence at Harvard, was invited to write a poem for that university’s 350th anniversary in 1986. According to BU Associate Professor Meg Tyler, Heaney struggled to find a personal connection to the topic but finally found one in learning that Harvard Yard was once a cow pasture (Heaney’s father was a cattle dealer). The result was Heaney’s poem, “Villanelle for an Anniversary.” Though it doesn’t mention cattle, it does feature the “Yard.”

Save the Date!

CITL’s 2014 institute, tentatively slated for July 11–13, will explore Victorian Boston through events, including a walking tour, a magic lantern performance, and lectures about famous writers and the Civil War (events subject to change). CGS alumni and past institute attendees will receive further information by email as it becomes available. Attendees can reserve dorm rooms for a fee, and some meals are provided. For more information about CITL and the annual institute, click here.

State Street in Victorian Boston, 1801, by James Brown Marston. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons