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South Boston, Dorchester & Boston's Working-Class Irish Soul

Boston has the largest Irish-American population of any major American city as a percentage — approximately 20% of Boston's residents claim Irish ancestry, a legacy of the massive waves of Irish immigration during and after the Great Famine of 1845-1852 (when approximately 37,000 Irish arrived in Boston in a single year (1847)): South Boston ('Southie') and Dorchester are the neighborhoods where this Irish-American identity is most concentrated and most culturally expressed.

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1
South Boston (Southie) — Irish-American Working Class
Southie's Irish-American identity, forged in the working-class dockworker and factory communities of the 19th century, produced the political culture of James Michael Curley and the busing crisis of 1974-1975 that split the city for a generation.
2
Dorchester — The Largest Boston Neighborhood
Dorchester is Boston's most diverse neighborhood — home to Cape Verdean, Vietnamese, and Caribbean communities alongside the oldest triple-decker housing in America. The Dorchester Avenue restaurant strip reflects the neighborhood's global character.
3
JFK Presidential Library & Museum — Columbia Point
The JFK Library (I.M. Pei, 1979) on Columbia Point overlooks Boston Harbor — the permanent exhibition on Kennedy's 1,000 days and the Cuban Missile Crisis archives make it the most visited presidential library in New England.
4
Castle Island & Fort Independence
Castle Island (connected to South Boston by a causeway) houses Fort Independence (1851), the oldest continuously fortified site in the US. The surrounding park's L Street Brownies swim in the harbor every January 1st.
5
Roxbury — Dudley Square & Afro-American History
Roxbury's Dudley Square, now Nubian Square, is the historic center of Boston's African-American community — the Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists and the Black Heritage Trail mark the neighborhood's civil rights significance.
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Allston-Brighton — Boston's International Student Zone
Allston-Brighton is Boston's most international neighborhood — the concentration of Boston University, Harvard Business School, and Boston College students creates a density of Korean BBQ, Ethiopian restaurants, and basement music venues found nowhere else in New England.