Charlestown is a part of the city of Boston, Massachusetts located on a peninsula north of Boston proper. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874. Although it has had a substantial Irish American population since the migration of Irish during the Irish famine of the 1840s, since the late 1980s the neighborhood has changed dramatically because of its close proximity to downtown, and its colonial architecture.