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Irish Social Club closes doors forever

As members died, nobody was replacing them, West Roxbury Patch reports.

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Comments

Will there be a wake?

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As an American of Irish descent, I always got a chuckle at how Ted Kennedy was venerated by the Irish diaspora both in life and death, despite the devastating discrimination inflicted on the Irish by the 1965 Immigration Reform Act that Kennedy championed. In opening the floodgates to third world immigrants, legal immigration from Ireland (and other European countries whose immigrants helped build the U.S.) was reduced to a trickle. The results are obvious. By itself, the decline of the Irish Social Club isn't very significant, but to see the decline of entire cities (Lawrence, Brockton, Holyoke, etc.) in part as a result of Kennedy's handiwork, is something to behold. Much like the anecdotal frog, the Irish were placed in a cold pot of water by "friends" like Kennedy and slowly boiled to death, never sensing their imminent demise. A case study in blind loyalty.

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You mean like the Irish? Ireland had far more in common with Central American nations until about the early 1990s than it did with the "first world." But if what you really mean are non-English speaking people (ignoring the Gaelic thing here for a minute) with extra melatonin, then why not just say it?

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As an American of Irish descent...opening the floodgates to third world immigrants...European countries whose immigrants helped build the U.S....decline of entire cities...the Irish were...slowly boiled to death.

There, I took out the bloviating and superlatives and just left the core racist content so it's easier to read.

(And Massachusetts is currently 47.5% of Irish descent. Irish folks are hardly endangered.)

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If OFishL got out more, he'd know that much of the infrastructure of the middle and west was built by Chinese labor. In fact, the Chinese railway workers, brought in due to their knowledge of explosives, worked so quickly and efficiently heading east across the mountainous portion of the transcontinental line that they put their Westbound euro-immigrant counterparts (many of whom were Irish) to great shame.

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At my grandfather's funeral in Connecticut, I wound up driving a van of my (Italian-American) relatives from the funeral home to the cemetery. As we were driving through the city, they decided it was time to point out to me all the spots that "used to be nice before all the Puerto Ricans moved in". I was a little too dazed and stunned to a) point out that Puerto Rico is part of this country and b) note that the Natives probably were saying the same thing about Italians in the 20s and 30s. So thanks for that little bit of nostalgia.

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Stormfront called. They need you back
so you can continue on with Your Cause.

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But didn't Kennedy make up for it by getting an extra big allotment for Ireland in the Green Card Lottery?

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The Irish Social Club's lawyer, Paul Kilgarriff, told Patch that pressure from the Boston Fire Department and the State of Massachusetts to install a new, expensive fire detection and sprinkler system influenced the club to close.

Whoa whoa whoaaaaaa there. It was years ago that BFD *shut down* the Milky Way in JP and forced them to hire a 2-3 firefighter detail every night until a sprinkler system was installed (granted, it was the Milky Way's own fucking fault for purposefully stalling on the issue for years.)

How is it that this drinking club escaped that wrath?

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Maybe the sprinkler deadline was later for private clubs?

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Members weren't informed that the club was closing. It was just by word of mouth that people found out last Sunday's dance was the last. They were never informed of the financial situation and have been told by the leadersthip that the building will be sold and proceeds donated to "some" charity.

Isn't there anyway to match them up with the Y or the Roche Center? this seems like the loss of what could be a huge resource for West Roxbury.

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to bands and local organizations for events and concerts? Wouldn't that bring in enough money to keep it open? It works pretty well for the Davis Square VFW post.

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Bands? What are those?

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I doubt the local people will be hiring babysitters to go out to see a band at the Irish Club in W.R.

Holy Name already has a Bingo just up the street, so that's out.

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If we can help it.

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I agree entirely with you, Ron! Our non-profit rented the Irish Social Club last year for a fundraiser and we were astonished (and of course very pleased, too) when they insisting on charging us only $150 for the entire night. ALL of the other venues of a similar size, (which was a dance for 550 people), charge upwards of $1,500 for one night. Some of them charge A LOT more.

Our entire group LOVES the Irish Social Club and we were very sad to hear that they were closing. We were looking forward to renting the dance hall again next fall, and we would have been more than pleased to pay $1000 for the privilege. Between the great size of the space, the friendly people, the ease of parking, the close proximity to public transportation, the dance floor, the kitchen, the stage, and all of the available seating, this place has a HUGE amount going for it as a rental facility, they simply need to charge what they are actually worth!

What I would propose is that the building stay open as a rental facility, for all sorts of different events, including fundraisers, dances, weddings, cultural events, mini-trade shows, quinceaneras, birthday parties, bar or bat mitzvahs and so forth. Perhaps organizations who wanted to teach different kinds of weekly classes could rent the facility, knowing that they would have ample space. It would be particularly appealing to any other groups like ours that are very DIY minded, who wish to do their own catering, or their own decorating, or their own music or show.

Many of the places that we looked into as possible venues either charged ridiculous rental amounts or they had some sort of compulsive and extremely expensive catering. Or they couldn't hold enough people, or parking was going to be an issue...

I can see the Irish Social Club as having the possibility of being a very popular rental venue for SO many reasons, though it would certainly need to be marketed far more broadly then perhaps it has been. The Irish Social Club could be marketed far beyond the Irish community, serve a great many diverse people extremely well, and, as a result of becoming more financially sound, it could then continue its wonderful work in serving the Irish community.

The event that we held there was our annual Noche de Fiesta event, complete with salsa dancing lessons, two raffles, a magician, dinner and dessert. It was an absolutely wonderful experience, our best year yet out of five consecutive years of holding this event! It was the best year BECAUSE of the space and the friendliness of the Irish Social Club. We could not have asked for a more perfect match to our group's needs. If the Irish Social Club were to continue on, as I and ALL of the other members of my group sincerely hope that it will, we would be absolutely delighted to rent the facility in future years, this time for what it's actually worth! Please feel free to forward this to all of the members of the Irish Social Club. Perhaps it will provide a slightly different perspective. There are a lot of great possibilities here!

One additional thought, perhaps the Irish Social Club could hold a big fundraising event in their own facility (just like we did), making money from the entrance fee, donations, some different raffles and so on. It could be a fundraiser to make enough money to put in a new sprinkler system. Perhaps licensed plumbers could volunteer their time or donate their materials, which would then offset the cost of the entire sprinkler system. Perhaps people could make pledges in terms of feet of copper tubing needed, or they could sponsor a sprinkler head. Get prominent citizens of Irish descent involved, Mayor Menino for one! Ask Irish businesses (or for that matter, ANY businesses) for tax-deductible donations. We have had many wonderful donations from businesses, which have included plane tickets, computers and Red Sox and Celtics tickets. (We work very hard at all of this! It's not easy, but it's always worth it!!!!) Perhaps prominent Irish artists could be approached to donate pieces of artwork that could then be sold in a silent auction. Or an Irish illustrator could offer use of their work on T-shirts, posters, greeting cards or posters that could be sold to benefit the Irish Social Club. For that matter, perhaps it could be any artists, politicians or businesses that care about this cause.

To give you an idea, we are a small group of highly dedicated parents, working as part time volunteers when we hold our fundraiser, and we raised around $12,000 in ONE night last year!!! (And similar amounts for the previous four years) This money supplements our children's education and also helps to fund the arts in our school, for which there is no budget whatsoever. It also offsets the rising budget cuts of the public schools.

So in conclusion, if the Irish Social Club stayed open as a rental facility, they could charge $1,000 on Friday and Saturday nights, $500 on weeknights, (to a diverse community) and continue their $10 a night Irish dances on Sundays. Then, let's say they hold a one time fundraiser, with the proceeds building the new sprinkler system. Could be enough to stay in business and also have enough money to create other events which will appeal to young Irish people and re-build their membership numbers, such as special Irish dance classes for children or adults, Irish music festivals, Irish art festivals, etcetera.

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I've wondered about letting more bands use the space as well- wow what a crazy idea for West Roxbury!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_14396363...

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