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Holliston - Local Town Pages

Holliston & Medway Libraries Present

Irish Need Not Apply, Sunday, October 4th

The Holliston Public Library will present a 90-minute “Irish Need Not Apply; The History of the Irish in Boston, presented by Christopher Daley, on Sunday, October 4, 2020, at 2 p.m. The event will take place virtually by Zoom. Register at  http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/friend.cfm?curOrg=HOLLISTON&tEvt=6528448&tfPopup=1

The event is sponsored by the Friends of the Holliston Library, the Medway Public Library and the Holliston Historical Society.

The Lecturer:

Christopher Daley has been lecturing all over New England for over 25 years on historical topics of interest; at libraries, historical societies, schools and all sorts of clubs and organizations!

A history teacher in the Silver Lake Regional School System in Kingston, Mass., Mr. Daley has written several articles on varied historical topics for local publications and has written his first book entitled Murder and Mayhem in Boston: Historic Crimes in the Hub. Mr. Daley was formerly the President of the Pembroke Historical Society, Chairman of the Pembroke Historical Commission and also a docent at the John Alden House Historical Site. He has also served as historical consultant on the Sacco-Vanzetti Case for the Travel Channel's program "Timetraveling with Brian Unger,” as well as appeared in two episodes of the Travel Channel's "Kindred Spirits" as a historian regarding the Lizzie Borden Case.

Daley’s new lecture; Irish Need Not Apply: The History of the Irish in Boston. The Presentation is a 90-minute slide lecture in which the many facets of the early Irish experience in Boston are examined. 

The lecture 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, followed by the slow pre-famine trickle of Irish Catholic immigrants coming into Boston and the corresponding increase in Anti-Irish/Catholic sentiment within Boston beginning with the notorious Pope's Day celebrations 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. 

For more information on Mr. Daley’s Irish Need Not Apply and other historical presentations please visit:

www.daleyhistory.com