Along the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail
by Katie Baxter.
Did you know there’s an Irish Heritage Trail on the South Shore? Combining visits to sites along the Trail with stops for Irish food and hospitality transforms a road trip into a delicious opportunity to comprehend the resilience and impact of early Irish immigrants in this seaside region known as the Irish Riviera.
Modeled after Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, the Trail is a driving route, winding through nine coastal towns: Weymouth, Hingham, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield, Duxbury, Kingston, and Plymouth. Conceived to give people an experiential rather than a chronological journey through history, self-guided trips are easy to plan using maps and resources available on the Trail website. Whether one prefers to explore a single community or meander through several towns, the Trail invokes wanderlust in those curious about the South Shore’s connections to the traditions, dreams, struggles, and successes of generations of Irish immigrants.
Stopping at Irish eateries along the Trail enhances the experience. Creating connections to something deeply Irish over food and drink is one reason many proprietors are devoted to their establishments. The ideal cups of tea, perfect pints, slices of homemade brown bread, hearty breakfasts, an onion and tomato tart, lamb burgers, Guinness stew, and the flakiest of fish with hand-cut chips and curried peas—all of these add to the thrill of discovering Irish history on the South Shore.
Weymouth/Hingham
The Cottage Bar in Columbian Square, South Weymouth.
Venture to Weymouth on a Sunday morning for the 10 am brunch at The Cottage Bar and Restaurant. Irish-born owner Oran McGonagle has created a neighborhood pub nestled in Columbian Square. It’s a spacious restaurant, with a Sunday vibe reminiscent of Ireland’s community centers. Choose from a menu of Irish egg dishes which, as local resident Greg proclaims, “never disappoint.”
Walk off brunch along the two-mile trail of Weymouth’s Back River Reservation on Wharf Street. The 950-acre park exists thanks to the persistence in the 1970s of Weymouth-born Irish American Mary Toomey. Toomey collaborated with Woods Hole oceanographer Dr. Mary Sears to lead an environmental and land conservation movement to revitalize the river as a wildlife sanctuary.
After your walk, drive to The Snug in Hingham Square for a late lunch of shepherd’s pie or bourbon steak tips. Other favorites include bangers and mash, Guinness stew, fish and chips, or Cobb salad. Ed and Ellen Brown have owned this cherished spot for over twenty years. They replicated a snug found in Ireland. Snugs are quartered-off areas found in many pubs, accessed by a side door dating back to times before women were welcome in a bar. Hingham’s Snug welcomes all. As one family told me, “This is our local, and we have brought our girls here for years.”
Once you finish your perfect pint or hot whiskey, walk across the street to St. Paul’s Church, designed in the Gothic style by the architect Patrick Charles Keely (1816–1896), who immigrated from Ireland in 1841 at age 25. Other Hingham sites include Burns Memorial Park, St. Paul’s Cemetery, and the Civil War Memorial.
The Snug in Hingham Square.
Marshfield, Scituate, Cohasset
Voyage Irish Pub and Restaurant at Humarock Beach, adjacent to Marshfield, serves a heavy protein Irish breakfast with brown bread baked on the premises. Longtime Voyage server Kristen knows to ask customers if they want brown sauce with their sausages and Irish bacon. She has witnessed how the community is part of the dining experience. For her, “it’s one big Voyage family.”
In Scituate, after visiting the Irish Mossing Museum and the Easter Rising Monument commemorating the 1916 Irish rebellion, step into the lively Hibernian Tavern for international dishes, including Irish fare. Then head to Cohasset’s Maritime Museum and learn about the shipwreck of the brig St John on October 7, 1849. Only 21 of the 99 Irish men, women, and children on board survived the crash onto the treacherous Grampus Ledge. Drive over to Hull’s Lifesaving Museum. Hear courageous stories of 19th-century rescue operations (often involving Irish immigrants) off the coast of Hull and in Boston’s Inner Harbor.
The Voyage in Humarock.
Kingston/Plymouth
Head to two South Shore communities with neighborhoods where early Irish immigrant families clustered because of farming, shipbuilding, or factory work. In Kingston, the area of the Jones River Heritage Trail includes Jones River Landing, where Irish immigrants of the 1860s made a significant mark in the boatbuilding industry along the Jones River.
Drive to Plymouth to walk along lower Bradford Street. Known as “Dublin” in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries for being a neighborhood with a high concentration of Irish immigrant families, it is representative of many places where people sought a new life working along waterfronts and in residences.
Top off your Plymouth visit with an Irish coffee at Dillon’s Local, owned by Colin Dillon and his wife. Regulars are impressed by the young owners’ success in honoring Irish traditions of hospitality. Order an Irish coffee, and they will add homemade thickened cream to mimic the foamy head on a Guinness pint.
The Galway Girl in Duxbury.
Duxbury
For gifts or treats to take home, visit Kevin and Alicia Clancy’s The Galway Girl Shop in Duxbury. Shelves filled with tins of chocolates and teas, biscuits, sticky puddings, crisps, and black-currant and orange squash (Irish-style fruit drink) might call to mind Mum’s or Mamó’s pantry in the Old Country. The freezer chest and cold cases hold imported Irish meats, scones, breads, tea brack (traditional Irish fruit bread), butter, cheeses, and even more chocolate.
Kevin hails from Oughterard in Connemara, County Galway. The South Shore needed a spot for Irish food and hospitality, and he wanted his children to know “the value of indulging in our heritage and forging community.” They opened Galway Girl in the summer of 2023.
Breaking news: plans are now in the works for a second location in Plymouth.
Along the Irish Heritage Trail
Keep the Wanderlust Going
Curious about traditional Irish ways of making one feel at home and enjoying the blessing of Bia agus Deoch (“food and drink” in Irish) visit ssirishtrail.org for road trip ideas to feed your sense of community.
Bia agus Deoch
-“food and drink”
Katie Baxter has explored Irish heritage in RosMuc, Connemara; traditional foods at Powers in Oughterard; Sheridan’s Cheese Shop in Galway; Ballymaloe Organic Farm & Garden and Middleton’s Farmers’ Market in Cork.
Originally published in the Winter 2026 print edition of Edible Southeastern Massachusetts.
Read the complete digital edition here
Bubble & Squeak
Ingredients
- 25 grams/1 ounce butter
- 1 small onion thinly sliced
- ½ pound diced thick cut bacon
- 1 leek diced
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 small head green cabbage, chopped (1”squares approximately)
- ½ pound cooked small potatoes
- 2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard
- 2 tablespoons red vinegar
- ½ bunch tarragon chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 free-range eggs
