More Irish than Philly?
It’s heresy to say it in Philly, but Boston may be even more Irish than we are. It is so Irish it has its own Boston Irish Tourism Association that promotes all things Irish in Beantown and an official Irish Heritage Trail that takes visitors to over 20 sites in a three-mile radius that reflect the city’s Celtic heritage.
Among them: The Irish Famine Memorial; the Commodore Barry Memorial; the Rose Kennedy Garden; the Boston Massacre Memorial (Irish patriot Patrick Carr was the last to die in this clash between colonists and the British); the Old Granary Burying Grounds (where you’ll find Carr; two signers of the Declaration of Independence, including one descended from the O’Neills of Tyrone and John Hancock, whose ancestors came from County Down); and Fenway Park (home of the Red Sox and built by an immigrant from County Derry).
So would you like to find out how to be Irish in Boston? New Jersey-based Trad Tours is offering a bus trip from Philadelphia to Irish Boston and Cape Cod October 21-24. The $799 price tag includes roundtrip motorcoach transportation to New England, three nights lodging, breakfast, two dinners, and guided tours of Boston’s Heritage Trail, the JFK Presidential Museum and Library and a harbor tour of Hyannisport, which takes you past the Kennedy compound.
Marianne MacDonald, who runs Trad Tours, says she decided to offer the trip because she was longing to see Boston again. “I was there on tour with [singer] Annemarie O’Riordan. We had such a good time in Boston I wanted to go back,” she says. “I’ve also found that people really like our bus trips.”
MacDonald takes music-minded tourists to Ireland, Nova Scotia, and, in recent years, to Nashville, usually bringing her own musicians for nightly dancing. There will probably be a few on this trip, she says, though there’s plenty of Irish music to be found in Boston and on Cape Cod.
In fact, she’s booked rooms at the Cape Cod Irish Village, which was founded by the late Mayo musician Noel Henry and his family (his “Noel Henry Band” is still a fixture in the Boston area, headed by his brother, Tommie). Of course, the hotel in Yarmouth has its own Irish pub with traditional Irish entertainment (including dancing). Lodging in Boston is at The Onyx, a boutique, eco-friendly hotel near Bunker Hill, Faneuil Hall, and the rest of Boston’s “Freedom Trail.”
“We’re also going to go to The Druid, “ says MacDonald, referring to a popular Irish watering hole in Cambridge which has two Irish sessions every week.
For more information about the trip, contact MacDonald at (856)236-2717 or via email at rinceseit@msn.com, or Johanna Green at Mayfair Travel, (877)338-8481 or Johanna@mayfairtravel.com.
