Lafayette Mulligan

{{Short description|Perpetrated Hoax}}

Lafayette Mulligan was a name under which hoaxes were perpetrated in Boston in the 1920s and 1930s.

In one such incident in 1924, "Mulligan"{{mdashb}}purportedly writing on behalf of mayor James Michael Curley{{mdashb}}sent Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) a key to the heavily Irish Catholic city of Boston and invited him to visit as Curley's guest.{{refn|{{cite news

|work=The Lewiston Daily Sun|date=January 22, 1936

|title=New Ruler victim of hoax in Boston|location=Lewiston, Maine |agency=AP

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1928&dat=19360122&id=X84gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6moFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1193,1700668&hl=en

}} {{open access}} }} Eddie Collins, a Boston Globe reporter, was credited with the hoax.{{cite magazine |author=Gordon Malherbe Hillman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rm7QAAAAMAAJ&q=lafayette+mulligan |title=The Boston Political Circus |magazine=The American Parade |volume=1 |date=1925 |pages=97–98 }}{{cite book |author=James Michael Curley |title=I'd Do It Again: A Record of All My Uproarious Years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z6nYrLR70DwC&q=lafayette+mulligan |location=Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1957 |oclc=675298 |page=323 }} After the Prince visited Boston as the guest of Bayard Tuckerman Jr., "Mulligan" sent Tuckerman a key.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/12/25/archives/sends-another-key-to-city-of-boston-lafayette-mulligan-repudiated.html |title=SENDS ANOTHER KEY TO CITY OF BOSTON; Lafayette Mulligan, Repudiated by Mayor Curley, Now Honors Prince of Wales's Host |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 25, 1924 }}

In 1933, the "codnappers" of the Sacred Cod from the Massachusetts State House (the editors of the Harvard Lampoon) ended their phone message to Mayor Curley with "Lafayette Mulligan, we are here."{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2aBfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1414,5889092&dq=try-and-catch-us-when-we-cop-the-flag&hl=en |title=Sacred Cod Gone. Massachusetts in Furore When Fish Found Missing |newspaper=Lewiston Morning Tribune |date=April 28, 1933 }}