10/04/2025
The Irish Benevolent Society
It was not uncommon in the 1830s for larger cities to form Aid Societies to help the poor especially during winter when the cost of buying fuel could mean the difference between life and death. By this time Lowell had reached that point and many of the Protestant churches took up collections to assist Lowell’s needy. It was noted in local papers that the Irish were by far the recipients of the society’s resources. In 1835 Reverend Peter Connolly, curate at St. Patrick Church, is commended by the Lowell Fuel Society for helping raise money to buy wood for the Irish poor.
Also by this time a small, but influential group of middle class Irish were beginning to take their roots. While the great majority worked in the building of the canals and red brick mills, a few started becoming tradesmen and land owners. Whether by guilt or altruism, the Hibernian Moralizing and Relief Society was formed in 1833. Made up mostly of tradesmen and those with growing finances, from its name one can assume that the group would do much to help their own. How much they helped the poor is unknown though the town does grant them the use of a meeting space because of their good works. It seems the Society was as much of a social club as a relief group.
The name was changed to the Irish Benevolent Society about 1835. The idea of it being benevolent might not have agreed with Bishop Fenwick of Boston. Led by the likes of businessman Charles Short, liquor dealer Owen Donohoe, and real estate agent Stephen Castles, the Society tried to use its influence in church affairs. At one point they would use the weekly collection for the upkeep of the church and he only need to send a priest. The Bishop did not accept their offer. While the Society was surely a thorn in Fenwick’s side, they held the purse strings.
The Irish benevolent Society was as much a social and fraternal group as an aid society. Throughout its tenure the IBS was the organization one joined if you wanted to show you had made it in America. By the latter half of the nineteenth century the membership list would reach several hundred. It was comprised of Lowell’s most prominent politicians, physicians, lawyers, businessmen, and tradesmen. To have the name of the Irish Benevolent Society listed in your obituary meant something.
Beginning in 1835 and for almost every year until the first years of the 20th century the Irish Benevolent Society led or marched in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. They hosted dinners and dances, cake walks and variety shows. They brought in speakers promoting Irish emancipation and through their annual speeches promoted the ideal of being both Irish and American. One of their major annual events was the annual “wash out.” At dawn a parade of horns and drums would march throughout the Acre neighborhood, through downtown Lowell, and down Gorham Street announcing the trolleys were loading to go to the beach. Participants would carry American or Irish flags. For some of Lowell’s Irish citizens it was their one chance a year to have a day off and swim in the ocean.
As membership grew they had to change meeting halls to accommodate the growing numbers. Their hall on the corner of Gorham and Appleton Streets was replaced by a 5 story building on Palmer Street. Towards the end of the nineteenth century membership began to wane as the older generation died away. There were attempts of resurrecting the group, but it never regained its prominent status. Later being replaced with other societies.
(taken from Lowell Irish¬, McKean, David, 2022.)
