A memoir podcast - Est. 2025
Growing Up Poor in Irish Boston
A Boston tenement kid, born in 1939, claws his way out of poverty. This podcast is told with humor, nostalgia and pathos, and a Roman Catholic, plainspoken slant.
Latest Episode
▶ Listen nowCockroaches, Cooties & Shanty Irish, Episode 202
Meet the host
“I am Roderick Patrick Murphy, born into a large, loving Irish family in Boston — widowed after fifty happy years”
Now Rod writes, volunteers, and learns how to be a bachelor again — sharing stories of old Boston, Cambridge and New England for anyone who loves an Irish-American, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps tale.
Support the show
Every episode is free. If the stories mean something to you, chip in to keep them coming.
From the archive
More Episodes
•Cockroaches, Cooties & Shanty Irish, Episode 202Send us Fan MailCockroaches, Cooties & Shanty Irish, Episode 202Today I bring you back to the 1940s and 50s, and how Boston's 3 decker dwellers lived…•From Catholic to Pagan, The Fall of Boston's Papists, Episode 102ASend us Fan MailFrom Catholic to Pagan, The Fall of Boston's Papists, Episode 102AHow did the devout 1950s Catholic population of Massachusetts, Boston and the USA…