While the historians usually give all the credit to England and to Englishmen for the early colonization of New England, whose results have been attended with such important consequences to America and the civilized world, Ireland and her sons can also claim a large part in the development of this territory, as is evidenced by the town, land, church, and other colonial records, and the names of the pioneers, as well as the names given to several of the early settlements.  That the Irish had been coming to New England almost from the beginning of the English colonization is indicated by an “Order” entered in the Massachusetts record under date of September 25, 1634, granting liberty to “the Scottishe and Irishe gentlemen who intend to come hither, to sitt down in any place upp Merimacke river.”  This, doubtless, referred to a Scotch and Irish company which, about that time, had announced its intention of founding a settlement on the Merrimac.  It comprised in all 140 passengers, who embarked in the Eagle Wing, from Carrickfergus in September, 1636, bringing with them a considerable quantity of equipment and merchandise to meet the exigencies of their settlement in the new country.  The vessel, however, never reached its destination and was obliged to return to Ireland on account of the Atlantic storms, and there is no record of a renewal of the attempt.  In the Massachusetts records of the year 1640 (vol.  I, p. 295) is another entry relating to “the persons come from Ireland,” and in the Town Books of Boston may be seen references to Irishmen who were residents of the town in that year.

From local histories, which in many cases are but verbatim copies of the original entries in the Town Books, we get occasional glimpses of the Irish who were in the colony of Massachusetts Bay between this period and the end of the century.  For example, between 1640 and 1660, such names as O’Neill, Sexton, Gibbons, Lynch, Keeney, Kelly, and Hogan appear on the Town records of Hartford, and one of the first schoolmasters who taught the children of the Puritans in New Haven was an Irishman named William Collins, who, in the year 1640, came there with a number of Irish refugees from Barbados Island.  An Irishman named Joseph Collins with his wife and family came to Lynn, Mass., in 1635.  Richard Duffy and Matthias Curran were at Ipswich in 1633.  John Kelly came to Newbury in 1635 with the first English settlers of the town.  David O’Killia (or O’Kelly) was a resident of Old Yarmouth in 1657, and I find on various records of that section a great number of people named Kelley, who probably were descended from David O’Killia.  Peter O’Kelly and his family are mentioned as of Dorchester in 1696.  At Springfield in 1656 there were families named Riley and O’Dea; and Richard Burke, said to be of the Mayo family of that name, is mentioned prominently in Middlesex County as early as 1670.  The first legal instrument of record in Hampden County was a deed of conveyance in the year 1683 to one Patrick