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Cummings, Michael J., 1924-2011

 Person

Staff Only

Biographical Note

Michael J. Cummings was born August 25, 1924, and grew up in Ballygar, County Galway. He arrived in Boston in 1947 as an athlete for the Boston Galway Gaelic Football Club and quickly became a leader in the Irish community. Professionally, Cummings worked for Boston Gas Company and The Flatley Company. He formed the Patrick S. Gilmore Society and served as its president. In 1972, he helped to organize a Boston Public Library exhibit on P.S. Gilmore’s musical accomplishments and to install a plaque commemorating P.S. Gilmore in Ballygar, Ireland. Cummings became involved with U.S. immigration reform in the 1980s and the Boston Irish Famine Memorial project in the 1990s. Cummings died on October 1, 2011, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) Identifier

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Michael Cummings collection of P.S. Gilmore

 Collection
Identifier: IM-M135-2004
Abstract Collection assembled by Michael Cummings that documenting the music career of nineteenth-century American band conductor and composer P.S. Gilmore, as well as the activities of the twentieth-century Patrick S. Gilmore Society, which Cummings founded. Two events coordinated by Gilmore—the National Peace Jubilee of 1869 and the World's Peace Jubilee of 1872—are highlighted through programs, lithographs, tickets, medals, and bookmarks. Correspondence, photographs, and clippings are also...
Access Note

Collection is open for research.

Dates: 1850 - 2004

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