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It’s more than any four year period, though every four year period is important. It’s a journey that reminds us that we’re all in this together. This belief has sustained me during the darkest and brightest days as mayor of Baltimore, the city I love. I pray it will do the same for you.” Michael E. Lamb, Controller for the City of Pittsburgh, with Connemara roots, believes “Marty’s blue-collar, working class, labor union background will be enormously helpful. He understands the value of family sustaining jobs and the important role of public education. His background has naturally instilled in him a sense of social and economic justice.” His brother Jim Lamb, president of the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh and a longtime Northern Ireland peace advocate, likes Walsh’s approach to building coalitions. “The unfortunate reality is that city politics – whether its in Belfast or Dublin, Pittsburgh or Boston – is all about turf and loyalty,” he says. “The only way to get anything done is to reach out and build those alliances with elected officials and other leaders, regardless of party.” Speaking of Belfast, Walsh visited the city in 2010 to view the city’s new ice hockey arena, where the Boston Bruins played the Belfast Giants. Walsh met community organizers and discussed economic development. Lord Mayor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir recently sent Walsh a congratulatory message and invited him to visit Belfast again. Irish-American leaders also hope Walsh takes an active role in the nation’s immigration reform movement. “One of the first things you’ll see Marty address in the City of Boston is immigration,” says Bill McGowan, who helped create Boston’s immigration movement in the 1980s that led to the Donnelly Visa. As a child of Irish immigrants, McGowan says Walsh has a special understanding of how immigrants contribute to American society. Bruce Morrison, former U.S. Congressman and a leading advocate for immigration reform in D.C., says, “Marty Walsh is the kind of grass roots political leader that gives voice to the needs of real people. One of those needs is to remake our immigration system so that it allows immigrants to contribute to the growth and prosperity of communities like Boston without undermining the job opportunities of those already here. “Marty can speak up…for a system of future flows that keep the door open to tra38 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2014
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Mayor elect Wlash and Dr. John Lahey, President Quinnipiac University at the Irish Heroes of New England Awards in Nov. 2013.
ditional communities like the Irish, while welcoming newcomers from places that are new to the American experience,” says Morrison, who authored the Morrison Visa bill in 1992.
Rekindling the ConnemaraBoston Connection A side benefit of Walsh’s heightened profile is that it shines a light on the deeprooted connections between Connemara and Boston. While crediting Dorchester as the place that nurtured and shaped him, Walsh also speaks lovingly of his ancestral home of Connemara, a place that still fills him with pride and joy. “Every summer I’d go over as a kid to my grandparents’ house in Rosmuc, where my mother is from,” Walsh told Boston Globe travel writer Thomas Breathnach. I loved it there: planting cabbage or sowing potatoes in the fields, feeding the chickens or fishing on the pier.” Today, the people of Connemara are proudly claiming Walsh as a native son. The headline in the Galway Advertiser read, “Marty Walsh victory in Boston heralded as ‘great day for Galway,’” while the Connacht Tribune announced, “Connemara man elected mayor of Boston.” Colm Gannon, an All-Ireland button accordion champion from Dorchester who moved back to Spiddel and opened his own music store, says that Walsh’s candidacy has filled Connemara with “the sense of pride and anticipation (that) is overwhelming. The place is
filled with Marty Walsh bumper stickers and Marty for Mayor tee shirts. I can honestly say that the buzz throughout the whole campaign was electric.” Likewise, a special bond exists in Boston for Connemara, as immigrants stayed true to their cultural traditions even as they assimilated into American life. Johnny Joyce, from Innishbarr in Lettermore, came to Dorchester in 1955, followed by several of his sisters who settled in Boston and Pittsburgh. Joyce’s home sickness promoted him and Martin O’Donnell to form the Boston Irish Rowing Club, where immigrants could gather to race their prized currach boats on Boston Harbor and socialize afterwards. Dorchester’s publisher Paul Feeney, whose parents came from Spiddel, wrote in his weekly Boston City Paper that Walsh’s victory was a testament to that immigrant community. “How proud we are of our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles from the old country who have inspired us all with their love of America, their deep religious faith, their hard working nature and the pride in their culture.” Walsh’s cousin Joe O’Malley says, “When I was growing up in Dorchester, you were either from Connemara or Kerry. Whether it was the currach races in Boston Harbor, or the ceili dances at the Irish Social Club, the Connemara community always came together. When Marty was running for state representative in 1997, everyone came out of the woodwork to help.” It was the same with the mayor’s race, when local notables like boxing champ Sean Mannion, Irish speaker Michael Newell, and sean nos singer Mairin Ui Cheide all volunteered on the campaign. Mayor Walsh has a full agenda right now, but still, the nagging question around Boston is: Will he be going to Ireland anytime soon? It certainly seems so. Days after his November victory, Walsh spoke to Raidió na Gaeltachta, greeting the audience in Irish. He promised to visit Connemara in 2014, and rumor is that that trip will take place in April. When he returns, Walsh will be assured of a royal welcome befitting a native son who has done Connemara proud. And meanwhile, here in Boston, it is apparent that there is no Last Hurrah for the Irish IA coming to this town anytime soon.