Tourism Group is Expanding Boston's Irish Heritage Trail in 2025

      

Photo courtesy of Boston Irish Tourism Association

 

TOURISM GROUP IS EXPANDING BOSTON’S IRISH HERITAGE TRAIL

More Artists, Women & Writers Being Added in 2025

(March 12, 2025) - The Boston Irish Heritage Trail, a three mile walk covering 20 public landmarks and depicting three centuries of Irish-American history, is expanding to include more sites in 2025. 

Stretching from the city’s waterfront through downtown and Back Bay and over to Fenway Park, the Irish Heritage Trail features some of Boston’s finest public art and open spaces, including statues and monuments, public buildings and historic graveyards and state and city parks, along with the nation’s first public library and its most historic baseball park. 

Among the news sites being added this year: 

Kip Tiernan Memorial on Dartmouth Street, Back Bay, a homage to Boston’s leading homeless and hunger advocate for half a century;

The Swan Boats in the Public Garden Lagoon, created in 1877 by an Irish immigrant couple and today an iconic visitors destination;  

Edgar Allan Poe Statue outside the Transportation Building at 10 Park Plaza honors the Boston-born gothic writer whose ancestors emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland.

G. P. A. Healy, son of an Irish ship captain from Dublin, was America’s most prominent 19^th century portrait painter, as seen by his masterpiece, ‘Webster Replying to Hayne’ at Faneuil Hall.

St. Stephen’s Church, founded in 1862 for Irish immigrants settling on Hanover Street, North End, has two plaques honoring political matriarch Rose Kennedy & accused witch Ann ‘Goody’ Glover.

“By exploring  this specific slice of the city’s history, the Irish Trail adds a significant chapter about Boston from an immigrant and ethnic perspective,” says Michael Quinlin, who created the trail in summer 1994 when working at the Boston Parks & Recreation Department.  

“The Irish Heritage Trail intersects and complements the city’s other important history walks - the Freedom Trail, Black Heritage Trail and Women’s Heritage Trail – underscoring universal themes that help knit the city’s history together,” Quinlin says.  “And It helps to highlight the tragedy-to-triumph theme so common in immigrant journeys that are still taking place today.”

Managed by Boston Irish Tourism Association (BITA) since 2000, the Irish Heritage Trail is a self-guided walk for residents and visitors to enjoy.  Copies of the map with site descriptions are available in BITA’s Travel & Culturemagazine, available for free at Boston Common Visitor Information Center, and at tourist centers, museums, cultural venues and gift shops in Massachusetts.   Guided tours, which stopped during COVID, are starting up later this year.   

In the months ahead, BITA is planning to expand the Irish Heritage trail even further, adding new sites in Boston’s neighborhoods and greater Boston, and eventually producing an Irish heritage map of the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Still the largest ethnic group in Massachusetts, with nearly 20% of residents claiming Irish ancestry, Quinlin says the Irish have made enormous contributions to Massachusetts, as artists and writers, politicians and war heroes, architects and builders, and as advocates for the poor and underserved.  The Irish Heritage Trail celebrates those contributions.

Read more about additional landmarks being added to the Irish Heritage Trail across Massachusetts.  

For more information contact Irishmassachusetts@comcast.net. 

Boston Irish Heritage Trail

Public Garden Swan Boats, photo courtesy of City of Boston 

Sites Being Added in 2025

Kip Tiernan Memorial 

Dartmouth Street, Back Bay

The Swan Boats

Public Garden Lagoon, Boylston Street 

Edgar Allen Poe Statue 

Transportation Building on Charles Street 

G. P. A. Healy  ‘Webster Replying to Hayne’ 

Faneuil Hall  on Congress

St. Stephen’s Church, 

Hanover Street, North End

Existing Sites on the Irish Heritage Trail

1) Rose Kennedy Garden 

Christopher Columbus Park, Atlantic Avenue along Rose Kennedy Greenway

2) Kevin White Statue

Faneuil Hall at Congress Street

3) James Michael Curley Statues

Union Park at Congress Street

4) Boston City Hall 

Government Center at Congress Street or Cambridge Street 

5) Boston Irish Famine Memorial

Washington Street at School Street

6) Granary Burying Grounds

Tremont Street near Park Street

7) Colonel Robert Shaw Memorial 

Beacon Hill and Park Street

8) Massachusetts State House

Beacon Hill and Park Street

9) Soldiers and Sailors Memorial

Boston Common, Flagstaff Hill 

10) Commodore John Barry Plaque 

Boston Common, along Tremont Street 

11) Boston Massacre Memorial

Boston Common along Tremont Street 

12) Central Burying Grounds

Boston Common along Boylston Street

13) Colonel Thomas Cass Statue

Public Garden along Boylston Street

14) David I. Walsh Statue

Charles River Esplanade at Hatch Shell

15) Maurice Tobin Statue

Charles River Esplanade at Hatch Shell

16) Patrick Collins Memorial 

Commonwealth Avenue Mall between Clarendon and Dartmouth Streets

17) John Singleton Copley Statue

Copley Square Park, Boylston Street and Dartmouth Street

18) Boston Public Library 

Boylston Street and Dartmouth Street 

19) John Boyle O’Reilly Memorial

Boylston Street and The Fens

20) Fenway Park

Yawkey Way at Brookline Avenue

About BITA

Boston Irish Tourism celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2025 as a unique cultural tourism organization.  BITA was formed in 2000 to connect Massachusetts’ largest ethnic group with the state’s tourism industry, and to strengthen travel ties with the island of Ireland.  The group publishes three annual issues of Travel & Culture each March, June and November and is launching a new website this spring. See Partners page for complete list of our partners/

***