Ray Flynn

By RAY FLYNN The Port of Boston will forever hold a special place in my heart. I’ve worked those docks. Watched troop transports and passenger ships pull out into the harbor. Our fishing industry calls it home. It’s also home for me — it’s where my grandparents came from Ireland searching for the American dream. When I reflect on my life, going back 76 years, I could think of no better place to be named after than this cherished port. When our parents and grandparents first arrived from Ireland by ship, it was South Boston they first stepped foot on. It’s where thousands and thousands of immigrants from all over Europe came full of hope and craving opportunity. They worked in the wool houses, cleaned [...]

By RAY FLYNN About halfway through the funeral Mass for longtime Hub firefighter and union leader Mike Mullane, police Commissioner William B. Evans could be seen hurriedly making his way through the capacity crowd. As Evans, who had been sitting in the front of Dorchester’s St. Brendan Church with Mayor Martin Walsh and fire Commissioner Joe Finn, made his way for the door, I whispered to my wife: “A cop must have been shot.” I don’t know how many other people in the church had the same thought, but in understanding the extreme dangers of being a police officer in today’s day and age — it was sadly the first thing I thought of. Just before the final message, Fr. Richard O’Donnell requested that we all say a prayer for the Boston police officer who was just shot a short distance away in Dorchester. After the moving service, [...]