Illustration of Martha Foley, Courtesy of New York Times Boston-born editor, writer and adventurer Martha Foley (1897-1977) led an eventful and exciting literary life. The daughter of physician Dr. Walter James Foley and Margaret Mary McCarthy of Ohio, whose parents were Irish immigrants, she and her brother Walter were raised in Dorchester. Martha attended Girls Latin School in the South End and Boston University. Martha Foley is on the far right, wearing glasses. Photo courtesy of Historic New England As a teenager and young woman, Martha was an ardent suffragist and was arrested on Boston Common in 1919 for protesting with a group of women during President Woodrow Wilson’s visit to Boston. She married fellow writer Whit Barnet and they embarked on adventure, travel and writing, living in Greenwich Village, Vienna and Paris. She worked as a city copy desk for newspapers in New York and Los Angeles, one of the first women to hold that position. She managed the book review pag
John Barry, a naval hero in the American Revolution, was born on March 25, 1745 in Ballysampson in Tacumshane Parish, County Wexford. His parents were James Patrick john Barry and Mary Ellen Cullen. According to historian Martin I. J. Griffin, Barry was “born in the townland of Ballysampson and lived his boyhood in the townland of Rostoonstown, both in the parish of Tacumshane.” Some stories suggest that Barry’s father was a tenant farmer who was evicted by a British landlord and had to relocate to nearby Rosslare, about four miles away. Griffin’s book, The Story of Commodore John Barry, Father of the American Navy , published in 1908, notes that “Tacumshane Parish covers 3,000 acres and is situated between two townland locked gulfs with very narrow openings - Lake Tacumshin and Lady's Island Lake. Possibly these lakes gave young Barry the inspiration for the sea and upon both he in youth oft pulled the oar,” Griffin writes. Barry’s uncle Nicholas Barry was a ship master