Former House speaker to talk in Lynn

LYNN – Thomas Finneran, the feisty former speaker of the state House of Representatives, will deliver a talk at the Porthole restaurant at noon today.Finneran will be the featured speaker at the Lynn Rotary Club meeting.”Finneran was famous for his several innovations on Beacon Hill and for many events that made him well known,” said Eugene Hastings, the club’s publicity chairman. “The notion of a hands-off approach on something Finneran cared about so deeply ran counter to everything that was known about the controlling, detail-oriented man who ran the House. But for the eight years Finneran presided as a speaker of unchallenged power, he seldom felt the need to agonize over his words or his image. Indeed, he was every inch the happy warrior, a sharp-tongued figure who freely expressed his opinions.”