The Hibernian Hall is a historic building at 182-186 Dudley Street in the
Roxbury neighborhood of
Boston, Massachusetts. The four story brick building was designed by Edward Thomas Patrick Graham, and built in 1913 for the
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH; ) is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be male, Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New ...
, an
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...
fraternal organization. It was the first of several Hibernian halls to be built in Roxbury, it is now one of only two Irish dance halls from the period to survive. Its ground floor was originally occupied by storefronts, with offices of the organization and a banquet hall on the second floor, and a large hall (capacity 600) on the third floor, which included a fourth-floor balcony. It remained a gathering place for local Irish residents through the 1960s, and was taken by foreclosure in 1960. It was then taken over by a non-profit focused on job training for local African Americans, which operated there until 1989. The building interior has suffered due to neglect and vandalism, but the basic form of the upper concert hall has survived.
Madison Park Development Corporation obtained the building in 2005, renovated and reopened it in 2005. The grand ballroom, which sits 250 people, serves the community as the Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall, a venue for theater, concerts, dances, visual art fairs, film screenings, and private parties. The performance space is used by a variety of Boston-area groups, including Praxis Stage,
Celebrity Series of Boston
The Celebrity Series of Boston is a non-profit performing arts presenter established in Boston, Massachusetts by Boston impresario Aaron Richmond in 1938 as Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series. Since its founding the Celebrity Series has evolved i ...
Neighborhood Arts,
The hall was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2004.
See also
*
References
External links
Hibernian Hall 100th Anniversary Video
Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures in Boston
Hibernian buildings
Irish-American culture in Boston
Roxbury, Boston
National Register of Historic Places in Boston
Catholic Church in Massachusetts
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