Thursday, 4:30 PM
Bulger eulogy at Kelly funeral: 'Jim, you were heroic'
(David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)
The casket of long-time City Councilman James M Kelly was brought up the steps of Saint Brigid Church in South Boston today for his funeral.
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff
South Boston said goodbye to a neighborhood icon today, as hundreds packed St. Brigid Church for an emotional funeral Mass and a eulogy that celebrated the life and battles of James M. Kelly and the neighborhood he represented for more than two decades.
Mourners came in police cars, shuttle buses from City Hall, in wheel chairs and on foot. As the former Boston City Councilor's casket entered the church, family, close friends and dignitaries wearing green ribbons on their lapels lined the walk. Bagpipes and drums played, and a police color guard saluted.
Mixed with the powerful figures Kelly knew in his political life -- including Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, former Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly -- were many of the working-class people that Kelly saw as his protectorate: Security guards, sheet metal workers, and a secretary at City Hall.
"He saw as his responsibility, as part of his obligation, to make things better for those in need," William M. Bulger, the former state Senate president who also represented South Boston, said in a eulogy.
Bulger also dwelled on the neighborhood where Kelly grew up, the values that shaped the man and the ones he adopted as he became a lifelong defender of the Irish enclave's old ways. He cited the school busing riots of the 1970s, when Kelly fought alongside others in the neighborhood against what many viewed as a battle against unjust policies being imposed by outsiders.
Those days, when Kelly vehemently opposed integration, had branded Kelly to many outside South Boston as racist. But Bulger said yesterday that he had, in the end, been vindicated.
"Jim, you saw the busing victory ... as unjust, as unnecessary and doomed as counterproductive. Thank you for that," Bulger said. "Jim, you were heroic, you were steadfast and you were right."
The church erupted in thunderous applause.
After the funeral, people gathered outside, talking and embracing one another tearfully. The procession departed, with cars festooned in flowers, passing the L Street Bath House where flags flew at half staff.
