Irish Historical Landmarks in Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

(Images: Clockwise: Widener Library, Irish Famine Memorial, Anne Sullivan Plaque, General Knox Plaque, Fanny Parnell Gravestone, Sphinx Memorial, MIT Ray Stata Center and Tip O'Neill Mural)

The City of Cambridge has a long and illustrious history of Irish settlers, dating back to the 19th century when Irish immigrants settled in East Cambridge, Cambridgeport and in North Cambridge. Here are some significant landmarks and institutions that reflect the strong Irish presence over generations. 

Irish Famine Memorial

On Wednesday, July 23, 1997, Ireland's President Mary Robinson officially helped dedicate the Cambridge Irish Famine Memorial in Cambridge Common, a tribute to the 150th anniversary of Ireland's Great Hunger, known as An Gorta Mor. Nearly 4,000+ people attended the ceremony in the iconic Cambridge Common near Harvard Square. The Cambridge Memorial was the idea of John Flaherty, an immigrant from Galway active in the greater Boston Irish-American community. It was funded by local businessman John O'Connor and supported by the city's diverse community of politicians, activists, neighborhood residents and historians, including the Cambridge Historical Society. 

The statue was created by sculptor Maurice Harron of Derry, Northern Ireland, who said the sculpture "is meant to convey the tragedy, two people dying, two people escaping, the fearful guilt of leaving loved ones behind, and the will to carry on."  

Cambridge Civil War Monument  

 Close by the Irish Famine Memorial is the Cambridge Civil War Monument, unveiled in 1870 as a homage to the Cambridge men and women who fought bravely in the war. The monument got a decidedly Irish dimension in 1910, when the statue of Abraham Lincoln, designed by Irish immigrant Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was added. Born in Dublin in 1848 to a French father and Irish mother, Augustus emigrated with his family to Boston, and became a leading sculptor of his generation. 

The statue, entitled Lincoln: The Man, was originally placed at Lincoln Park in Chicago in 1887, and immediately became popular. It has also been duplicated in New York, London and Mexico City. 

Henry Knox Plaque 

On January 24, 1776, 25 year old Boston bookseller and colonial fighter Henry Knox reported to General George Washington in Cambridge that he and his volunteers had just transported 59 cannons and artillery 300 miles, from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to eastern Massachusetts, in the dead of winter. The cannons were instrumental in the Siege of Boston that March, when colonial forces aimed the cannons at the British fleet in Boston Harbor from atop Dorchester Heights, causing the British to flee.  

In 1927, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts erected historical markers along the Henry Knox trail, including one in Cambridge, located at Garden Street and Mason Street. 

Knox came from a family of Scots-Irish who had settled in Boston in the early 18th century.  His father and uncles were original members of the Charitable Irish Society, formed in 1737 to help other Irish immigrants in need. 

 Mt. Auburn Cemetery

America’s first garden cemetery, Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge was consecrated in 1831, and is the resting place for noted persons and for notable memorials. 

Irish immigrant Colonel Thomas Cass is buried there. Born in Queen's County (Laois), Thomas Cass moved to Boston and became a local businessman and School Committee member. When the Civil War erupted, Governor Andrew asked Cass to form the 9th Massachusetts Irish Regiment of Volunteers. Cass was mortally wounded on the battlefield at Malvern Hill in 1862 and was buried at Mt. Auburn with military honors. 

Francis ‘Fanny’ Parnell, poet and leader of the Women’s Land League in the USA is buried here. Known as the Patriot Poet, Fanny Parnell was born in Avondale, County Wicklow. Her grandfather, Admiral Charles Steward, commanded the USS Constitution, and her brother, Charles Stewart Parnell, was Ireland’s most famous Home Rule leader. Fannie’s poetry appeared in The Boston Pilot. She died suddenly at age 34. 

The works of Irish sculptors are present at Mt. Auburn. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to do the Nevins Monument, and Thomas Crawford did the Binney Monument. Martin Milmore produced several important works of art: the Copenhagen Monument, described by art critic Chandler Post as “the acme of the artist’s capability in spiritual expression,” and perhaps the nation’s most unique piece of Civil War art, entitled The Sphinx: A Memorial to the Preservation of the Union.  Milmore also created the 'dog in the crate' sculpture at the William A. Wingate family plot.

 Anne Sullivan Fountain + Plaque 

Anne Sullivan, the partially-blind daughter of impoverished Irish immigrants, ultimately became known as The Miracle Worker when she taught a young girl named Helen Keller to understand sign language and to communicate for the first time. After attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Keller became a renowned leader for women’s rights and a founder of the American Foundation for the Blind. Forever grateful to Sullivan, Keller dedicated a small water fountain on the Radcliffe campus, in her teacher’s honor, with a plaque in Braille and English that reads: "In memory of Annie Sullivan, teacher extraordinary.” The fountain is located near the corner of Brattle and James Streets, close to Cambridge Common. 

 Tip O’Neill Mural 

Legendary politician Thomas P. Tip O’Neill was born in Cambridge in 1912; his grandfather and brothers had emigrated in the 1840s during the Irish Famine. The famous U.S. Congressman from North Cambridge was the 47th Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, having worked his way up the political ranks by understanding the truism he learned in his neighborhood: All Politics is Local. Tip passed away on January 5, 1994 and his legend remains intact. 

On December 9, 2012, to celebrate the centenary of Tip’s birth, the North Cambridge Neighborhood of Barry's Corner unveiled a mural to Tip O'Neill at the Mildred Anne O'Neill Branch of the Cambridge Public Library, located at 70 Rindge Avenue. The mural was designed and painted by David Fichter and Joshua Winer. 

Widener Library at Harvard

 The Widener Library at Harvard has 20,000+ books plus a considerable number of original manuscripts on Celtic Studies. Indeed, Harvard was the first American university to offer a Celtic Language course in 1896 by Frederick Norris Robinson, a Chaucer scholar who became fascinated with the Irish language from his high school teacher, Katharine O'Keeffe O'Mahoney, in Lawrence, MA. 

 The Celtic Languages and Literatures Department was formerly launched in 1940, thanks to an endowment by Henry Lee Shattuck. Today the Department offers advanced degrees in Celtic studies and prepares its students for careers in academic research, writing and teaching. 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 

William Barton Rogers, MIT’s founder in 1861, was the son of Irish immigrant Patrick Kerr Rogers of Newtown Stewart, County Tyrone. During the Irish Uprising of 1798, Patrick fled Ireland for Philadelphia at age 22 when his published articles against the British government made him a wanted man. He and his wife Hannah Blythe raised William and his three brothers in a household seeped in social liberalism and political activism. 

William B. Rogers was a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at William & Mary University, then moved to Boston in 1853, where he began advocating for a technical college that prized scientific research and engineering. His dream became a reality on April 10, 1861, when MIT was formally established. The original MIT campus on Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay moved to Cambridge in June 1916. 

 For more about Irish history and heritage in greater Boston and throughout Massachusetts, visit IrishHeritageTrail.com.

© Text written by Boston Irish Tourism Association