Dorchester to host Irish Heritage Festival

By Matthew Crow

The festival will take place next to the historic Eire Pub in Adams Corner.

Dorchester is set to play host for the first time ever to an Irish festival. Adams Corner will close down for the entire day October 11 to celebrate Dorchester's Irish heritage.

“We have one of the highest concentrations of people that can claim Irish ancestry here in Dorchester, and we’re trying to highlight all those positive aspects that make this community what it is,” said festival co-chair John O’Toole. “It can really lay claim to being the epicenter of Irish activity in Boston.”

Already the outpouring of support has been immense. Local businesses have jumped on board and the mayor’s office has helped expedite cutting through the red tape, giving one day outside licenses to the neighboring bars.

“We were essentially going to try to do this next year, but the interest was so great that we basically said, ‘We’re going to be able to pull this off this year,’” O’Toole said. “We have a wonderful, cohesive, tight-knit community, the majority of which boasts Irish ancestry.”

The all-day event will shut down Adams Corner from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., next to the historic Eire Pub, where presidents have long been coming for photo ops. Already the festival has had more applications from performers than it can accommodate, and O’Toole expects over two thousand people to attend.

It will mark the beginning of an annual fall tradition in Dorchester, and every year the festival intends to honor someone from the Irish American community. This year’s honoree is Michael Joyce, a longtime Dorchester resident and Irishmen from Connemara who dedicated his life to helping others.

“He was such a great humanitarian,” said his daughter Mary Joyce Morris. “Our house was always filled with people coming to talk to him, coming to get advice from him. He never said no to anyone.”

Joyce passed away in 1988 of stomach cancer at the age of 66.

“His roots were in Connemara, his heart was in Dorchester, and his life was at the State House,” she said.

He was well recognized, not only in the Irish community but by people of all ethnicities.

A judge recently came up to Mary and told her, “I knew your father. Your father was a diplomat without a portfolio.”

The city plans to erect a permanent monument to Joyce, but no plans have yet been finalized.

The festival will host the finale of the Shamrock Idol at 5 p.m., a local version of American Idol with an Irish twist.

“We also have a couple of surprise performers coming in, that haven’t signed on the dot yet, but there will be a surprise or two,” said O’Toole.