Consul General of Ireland David Barry had never visited Boston before he took his present assignment in 2005, but with its strong ties to his homeland, he felt immediately at home in the city.
“You already have a head start when you come here,” Barry said. “Boston is perhaps like no other place in terms of openness and camaraderie.”
More than anything else, though, it was the city’s friendly nature that struck Barry.
“Everyone was quick to invite me to an event and welcome me,” he said. “When you arrive here, for a couple of months you really think you’re a truly wonderful person who hasn’t been recognized before, but you get over that.”
Born in 1954, Barry was raised and attended primary and secondary school 85 miles southwest of Dublin in County Tipperary. He earned a bachelor of commerce degree from University College Dublin in 1978 and completed his MBA at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom 17 years later. In 1978, Barry was accepted into Ireland’s Diplomatic Corps as a full-time civil servant and diplomat. His overseas assignments brought him to locales including London, Belfast, Austria and Ethiopia, but it was the time he spent in South Africa that made perhaps the most profound impression on Barry.
Between 1986 and 1990, Barry served as the head of the consul in Lesotho, a land-locked country entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, and saw firsthand the disintegration of apartheid during this time.
“The whole transformation happened without there being any great violence,” he said. “As a bureaucrat, I just sat back and admired it.”
Prior to being named Consul General, Barry served as the temporary secondment to the Department of Trade, Enterprise & Employment in Dublin from 1991 to 1995. In this role, he handled the Economic Migration Policy – a course of action pertaining to the financial consequences of migration to and from Ireland – and was subsequently responsible for the Employment and Training Strategy Policy.
Now, as Consul General to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, Barry remains committed to fostering Ireland’s economy, as well as helping Irish companies that hope to break into business in the U.S. Through Enterprise Ireland, the country’s agency committed to industrial growth, Barry helps advise new Irish businesses in Boston on what sells and what steps need to be taken before entering the local marketplace. He can even provide them with office space at Enterprise Ireland’s Milk Street location.
Barry is also the primary contact for Irish immigrants in Boston and visitors to his homeland. His responsibilities range from helping newcomers to the country understand a local train schedule to assisting Irish immigrants who have legal problems to recommending hotels in Ireland to tourists. He also refers people in need of assistance to the area’s two Irish immigration centers.
But these days, the duty that consumes much of Barry’s time also brings him the most grief: issuing the new electronic passports to Irish citizens. With the new system that was introduced last fall, finding compatible passport photographs s a painstaking task, as many applicants discovered after their images were repeatedly rejected.
“The amount of effort producing a similar amount of passports today is out of proportion from where it was six months ago,” Barry said. “It’s just turned out to be a frustration for a number of people. It’s a frustration for us and a frustration for them in particular.”
While Barry and his wife Norma live a short walk from his Boylston Street office on Commonwealth Avenue, his work brings him to events throughout the region. (The couple children – David, 18, Kevin, 19, and Andrew, 24 – still live in Ireland but visit Boston frequently).
The weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day meant that Barry’s presence was requested at an event nearly every night, and his appearances included Tom Flatley’s 21st Annual St. Patrick’s Day Dinner at the Shrafft Center. Barry was particularly honored to be a guest of Flatley, who came penniless to the U.S. and today, as president of the Flatley Company, is undoubtedly one of Massachusetts’ great success stories. “Flatley is a classic example of the American Dream,” Barry said.
As for what lies ahead, Barry said Ireland and the Irish people are returning to the core issues.
He points to how Ireland is emerging as a real contender in the global economic landscape, adding that the U.S. edged out the United Kingdom as Ireland’s largest export market in recent years “Whatever happens, our presence here is important,” he said.
Another issue at the forefront is a reform bill for undocumented illegal aliens being championed by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.
“Can you find a way moving forward to accommodate some of these people including the Irish?” Barry asked, adding that regardless of the outcome, it would be a victory for illegal Irish immigrants who are currently in limbo. “Whatever emerges in terms of legislation will help people work freely and come out of the shadows and travel to and from Ireland,” he said.
And Barry can’t help but be reminded of the transformation of South Africa that he witnessed as a young delegate in light of this week’s agreement between Ian Paisley, a political and religious leader from North Ireland, and President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, that would grant Northern Ireland its independence from British rule.
“We’ve spent many years trying to put it back together again,” he said.

Last week, the state’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs rejected a request made by the City of Everett to examine the impact of a proposed facility on the Charlestown-Everett line that would handle catch-basin refuse, effectively ending a public battle that has pitted Everett, environmental advocacy groups and some of Charlestown’s elected officials against the Boston Water and Sewer Commission.
In a March 22 letter obtained by the Patriot-Bridge, newly-appointed EOEA Secretary Ian Bowles wrote, “I have reviewed the second Notice of Project Change submitted for this project and comments received during the two public review and comment periods and hereby determine that it does not require the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report.”
In September 2006, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission filed a second Notice of Public Change that would enable the agency to build a three-story, 34,250 square foot facility where cleanings from 35,000 catch-basins located throughout the City of Boston would be dewatered. The facility was originally proposed for Columbia Point in Dorchester in 2002 before a first Notice of Project Change filed in 2005 recommended moving it to 200-400 Frontage Road in South Boston.
The City of Everett maintained that the Alford Street site was fundamentally different than the two other proposed sites in January, and the EOEA agreed to extend the public comment period for the facility in the following month.
Bowles concluded that the project had received sufficient review and that the location of the facility didn’t substantially change the overall impact of the project, however.
“Based on review of the second NPC, I note that the proposed design, construction and operation of the facility remains unchanged since the initial MEPA review was completed for the second NPC in October 2006,” Bowles said. “Therefore, I find that although the proposed relocation of the materials handling facility to the 180 Alford St. site in Charlestown is a material change to the project by virtue of its proposed relocation, the potential and likely impacts of the project do not exceed MEPA review thresholds requiring the submission of a new [Environmental Notification Form] or a mandatory EIR.”
Meanwhile, attorney Michael Parker of Adorno, Yoss Fitzhugh, Parker & Alvaro, the Boston law firm representing the City of Everett in the matter, expressed disappointment with the outcome of the decision.
Parker said the decision didn’t take into account Chapter 91 state regulations designed to protect the public interests in the Commonwealth’s waterways, although the facility will be built in close proximity to the Mystic River.
In addition, he said that since the materials being transported to the Alford Street facility by truck contain a small percentage of sewage, this waste could potentially contaminate the Mystic River. “The Boston Water and Sewer Commission has not verified that trucks are water-tight, and they could be prone to leaking,” he said.
And with ongoing renovations to the Alford Street Bridge, Parker is apprehensive that the trucks will exceed weight limits on the bridge and subsequently be rerouted through Everett, Somerville and Medford, thereby impacting those communities.

CAPTION: Will Hamilton, operations manager for Super Duck Tours, on board one of the tour vehicles.

Following two years mired by false starts and red tape, Super Duck Tours will have its maiden voyage in the Navy Yard this spring, according to Lanny Johnson, a consultant for the venture.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the company’s proposal earlier this month, which varies slightly from the plan that the Charlestown Neighborhood Council endorsed last spring. Vehicles will still follow the truck route down Chelsea Street and enter the water at the Little Mystic Channel, but the loading area will be at Baxter Street - not the narrower Terry Ring Way, as was proposed earlier.
Unlike the converted World War II-era amphibious vehicles used by Boston Duck Tours, Super Duck Tours has obtained two 47-passenger Hydra-Terra vehicles made specifically for the tourism and transportation business. The Autoport on Terminal Street will serve as the maintenance and storage area for the vehicles. Dennis Kraez, president of Autoport-based Diversified Automotive, serves as general manager for Super Duck Tours; he previously was general manager of Super Duck Tours in Portland, Maine. Test runs will start as early as this week, but tours won’t commence until the first weeks of April.
“We expect to be up and running in a few days, but we sill have to put the ticketing infrastructure in place,” Johnson said last week.
Johnson expects the inaugural season will be slow in terms of ticket sales, since online ticketing and a company Web page are a couple of months from fruition. Although he anticipates tourists to the Navy Yard will account for a significant number of ticket sales at the Terry Ring Way ticket booth, Johnson said 50 percent of tickets are generally sold in advance for other tours.
“The thought that we’re going to be sold out day after day is probably optimistic,” Johnson said.
In contrast to other Boston tours, Johnson said Super Duck Tours will concentrate on Charlestown and seaport district history.
Super Duck Tours season will typically run from April through November. Tours are scheduled to start at 9 a.m. daily and will take between an hour and one-quarter and an hour and a half. At 100-percent capacity, it could serve 130,000 customers annually, but Johnson expects this year will be a learning experience.
“We’ll be able to judge how good the route is, the traffic impact [on the neighborhood] and the extent that the Navy Yard can produce passengers already there,” Johnson said. (Super Duck Tours won’t offer parking under the assumption that many customers will already be in the Navy Yard).
Johnson has pledged to be on hand at a fall CNC meeting to discuss any concerns about Super Duck Tours that the community might have after its first season.
Super Duck Tours was originally set for a spring 2005 launch, but that plan fell through after the City of Boston ordered a freeze on new tours until a city tourism study could be completed. Last year, Super Duck Tours didn’t begin the permit process in time for the season.

Immigration from Ireland to America through the 18th and 19th centuries was often a hit-or-miss proposition. Irish immigration patterns were, in effect, determined by shipping routes, shipping timetables and affordability of the transatlantic voyage. The exception was, of course, the mid-19th-century Famine period, when, as a matter of survival, hungry refugees fled the country by the tens of thousands, seeking passage on any vessel that would take them aboard.
The late-19th-century wave that extended well into the 1920s, brought with it a new breed of immigrant, now more knowledgeable, more skilled and more deliberate. Those “going out” to America in that period generally had a destination and a plan. Risteard MacGabhann of the University of Ulster explains, “They were, for the most part, gravitating towards the familiar – towards a district where friends were already established.” For many of those later immigrants, Charlestown was that district. The barman at Mac Tam’s Pub in Malin recalled, “It’s probably no exaggeration to say maybe 90 percent of those from here ended in Charlestown. In 1929 there were 20 who left for Charlestown on the one day.”
The Donegal Irish were among the last to leave Ireland in appreciable numbers – many emigrated in the 1880–1920 period -- and those who left, especially those who left Inishowen, boarded tenders at Derry Quay that transported them to steamers anchored in the deep waters beyond in Lough Foyle. As the liners rounded Malin Head heading for the horizon, clusters of folk gathered on Ballyliffin Strand and at Tullagh Point and Dunaff Head and waved sheets in the wind as a send-off to those departing. Many of those ships landed in Philadelphia; many others landed in Boston and Charlestown. There was and is, then, a distinct Donegal link to Boston and Charlestown that endures to the present day.
Without belaboring a long history of bigotry and privation that preceded the Great Donegal Invasion, it’s safe to say that times got better in the Town after 1880. Apart from Navy Yard and waterfront jobs, Charlestown was a thriving industrial hub that offered opportunities and possibilities.
Over time, the Town had produced a tough working-class transplant that was Irish to the core. A turbulent history, generations of isolation, and the regional make-up of its immigrants set the Townies apart. Most of the earliest immigrants came to Charlestown from Ulster, many from Tyrone, but the 19th-century brought large contingents from Cork and Kerry, as well as a mix from Sligo, Clare, Galway, Mayo and Donegal.
Many in the Donegal influx hailed from Inishowen and the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht. Over four-score years, for example, the Doherty Clan increased in number in the Town from 13 to 205 households. And, in 1908, the Dohertys and related Donegal clans – McGonigles, McLaughlins, Devlins and others -- formed an association that contributed to causes at home. In 1911, the Clonmany Association answered an appeal to help rebuild the Clonmany Chapel on Inishowen. There are scores of headstones in the parish graveyard in Clonmany attesting to the Charlestown connection.
Others from Donegal made their way from Boston’s North End across the bridge into Charlestown. Those who made that crossing – called “Dearos” (i.e., “Dear Old North Enders”) - found fast friends and relations in their new neighborhood and heard familiar regional accents with occasional hints of Ulster Irish. Elder Statesman Gerry Doherty, a staunch Kennedy ally and political powerhouse, once commented, “I think there are more Donegal people in the Town than there are in Donegal.”
The recent documentary “The Green Square Mile: Story of the Charlestown Irish” focuses on Donegal and tells this tale of immigration and settling-in. Shot in Derry and on Inishowen in April, the film had its Irish premiere in Clonmany in mid-January to an audience that remembered the long tradition of friends and relations going out to America . . . a long tradition of friends and relations going out to Charlestown.

The Navy Yard Bistro expanding northward
Since 2004, John Moore’s Navy Yard Bistro has become one of Charlestown’s most favored places to eat and to taste of a full array of better wines. His menu features three items that nearly all of us enjoy from time to time – roasted chicken breast, hanger steak and ginger sake salmon – which are all priced right at about $16.
The atmosphere at the Navy Yard Bistro is warm and cozy. Mr. Moore obviously knows what he’s doing.
Betting on the success he has known here in Charlestown, Moore is opening a second bistro in downtown Lynn where a restaurant known as the Oxford Street Grill opened with great fanfare last year. Restaurant reviews appeared in The Boston Globe and all the right publications. The local newspapers made a great fuss.
Many tried out the restaurant. Most found it interesting — a bit too high priced for the area — but impeccably appointed and immaculately run. It was the dream child of one of Lynn’s most successful Internet business gurus who made millions with an Internet hosting company.
Many who understand the local marketplace in Lynn believed the restaurant couldn’t last. In Lynn, there remains a great number of residents who have a constitutional inability to believe in success. It is so much easier to predict defeat. When defeat comes, well, that’s when the “I told you so” stories are circulated. Modern Charlestown is without naysayers.
The Oxford Street Grill was a bit before its time. It was made irrelevant by a downtown that wasn’t ready to support it. Although the restaurant closed, it can hardly be called a failure, especially now that a new restaurant with an entirely different theme is about to open in the same place.
Moore will be replicating in downtown Lynn the success he has known in Charlestown. The new restaurant replacing the former Oxford Street Grill will be called the Downtown Bistro and Wine Bar and is set to open in May.
Those of us who have eaten at the Charlestown location know what this restaurant is going to be all about. It will be more mainstream, more desirable to the finicky North Shore diner than what previously existed.
The specialty items at the Downtown Bistro and Wine Bar will be three items that have helped to define the menu at the Charlestown location – roasted chicken breast, hanger steak and ginger sake salmon. If the menu isn’t broken, why fix it?
By changing the interior décor with avant garde paintings and an open kitchen, and with great food served at moderate prices – well – what didn’t work with the Oxford Street Grill – will certainly work with the planned Downtown Bistro and Wine Bar.
We wish Mr. Moore the best of luck. He may not know much about how to make millions off the Internet, but he sure knows how to retail good food. What has been so successful in the Charlestown Navy Yard will serve him well in opening another restaurant north of here.


Congratulations to John McCullough
From those who have a lot a lot is expected. This is the approach to life that local attorney John McCullough believes in. McCullough also believes that life should be lived simply, that faith is part of life and that simplicity rules above all.
McCullough, who has been active in the Massachusetts Special Olympics serving on its board of directors and as its president, was recently awarded The Celtic Cross.
The award is given annually to those who give so much of themselves for others.
We congratulate Mr. McCullough on receiving the Celtic Cross.
If there were more John McCulloughs, the world would be a far better place.