West End Museum Irish Heritage Month Celebration

The West End Museum will host its inaugural Irish Heritage Month
celebration on Monday, March 31, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event is
free and open to the public, and will include light refreshments. Former
Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn (1984-1993)—who left City Hall to serve
as the United States Ambassador to The Vatican (1993-1997)—will attend
as an event honoree. The Museum will also honor Martin Lomasney and
Daniel Whelton.

Before Boston’s Old West End was razed in the name of 1950s urban
renewal, displacing tens of thousands of immigrant families, the
neighborhood was home to many Irish-Americans who blended with a myriad
of other ethnic groups, giving the West End its unique character. The
Museum’s Irish Heritage Month celebrates those Irish immigrants and the
contributions they made to the West End.

“The West End was one of Boston’s first Irish immigrant communities,
dating back to the 1840s where it was a refuge for those escaping the
potato famine and economic hardships in Ireland in pursuit of a better
life,” according to Duane Lucia, West End Museum President and Curator.
“As guardians of the history and culture of the West End, it is
imperative that we formally recognize and honor the legacy of Irish
immigrants in the neighborhood.”

As Mayor, Ray Flynn worked tirelessly to knit together the
neighborhoods of the City of Boston, especially in the tumultuous years
after busing. In the West End, Flynn pressed for completion of a
long-awaited residential building at 150 Staniford Street. The building
included a number condominiums set aside for former West Enders to
purchase at below-market rates, thus enabling some displaced residents
to return to the old neighborhood. Later, the West End Museum was
chartered at the site. Now, the Museum is honoring Flynn for this
crucial contribution, along with his Irish heritage and his work on
behalf of all Boston neighborhoods and at the Vatican.

Martin Lomasney is one of the central figures in West End lore. Born
in Boston in 1859, he was the son of Irish immigrants who fled to the
U.S. during the great potato famine. Martin and his brother Joseph
started the Hendricks Club in 1885, which politically represented not
only the thriving Irish immigrant community, but also a new wave of
Jewish and Italian immigrants. Martin became the undisputed boss of
Boston’s Ward 8—which encompassed the Old West End—from about 1885 until
his death in 1933.

Daniel Whelton became the first native-born Irish-Catholic Mayor of
Boston and remains the youngest person to hold that political office to
date. While living in the West End, Whelton became an associate of
Lomasney’s, joining the Hendricks Club and beginning his political
career by registering new voters in the neighborhood. Whelton also
served as Chairman of Boston’s Board of Aldermen and on the City’s
Common Council.