Irish-Canadian intercultural relations in Quebec: An

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Irish-Canadian intercultural relations in Quebec:

An historical overview

Matthew T. APPLE

概要

本稿では，17 世紀から 20 世紀のケベック州へのアイルランド人移民の歴史を概説し，文化的・宗教的・言語的アイデンティティがフランス語圏や他の英語圏コミュニティとどのように影響し合ったかを考察する。ケベックにおけるアイルランド人とその隣人との進化する異文化関係の重要なポイントには，1760 年の征服，1837 年の反乱，1847 年の大飢饉の「棺通船」がある。本研究は，現在のケベック州のフランス語話者とアイルランド系英語話者の間に現在も続く緊張した関係の歴史的背景を明らかにすることを目的としつつ，将来の前向きな関係が期待できることを指摘する。

Keywords : Irish-Canadian, Quebec, intercultural studies, identity, intergroup conflict

1. Introduction

On April 18, 2019, a large crowd gathered at Hurley’s Irish Pub in Montréal, in the Canadian

Province of Québec, not only to share in music, food, and drink, but to listen to two things: a

reading of the Easter Proclamation of 1916 declaring the “Irish Republic,” and a lecture by a

ranking member of the left-wing party Sinn Féin in the Irish Senate (Seanad Éirann) on why Brexit

and the potential reestablishment of a “hard border” between the Republic of Ireland and Northern

Ireland was making a referendum on Irish unification more plausible.１） What was not unusual was

that the standing-room-only event mostly consisted of French-speaking Quebecers, or Québécois,

many of whom openly acknowledged and embraced their Irish heritage. This is something that

would have been almost inconceivable to their grandparents, due to the long, complicated history

of Irish-Québécois intercultural relations.

This paper will summarize the history of how the Irish became entrenched as a “double

minority” ２） of an English-speaking (hereafter Anglophone), Catholic ethnic group within French-

speaking (hereafter Francophone) Canada.３） First, the Irish in New France will be discussed,

including the Conquest of 1760 and the beginnings of British Canada. This will be followed by a

brief discussion of Irish immigration and epidemics of the 1830s and the Irish-canadien political

alliance, culminating in the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837. Differences in religious structure and

linguistic practice between the two ethnic groups will be touched upon before describing the

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watershed moment in Québec Irish history: the coffin ships and Fever Sheds of “Black ’47.” The

final sections will examine building tensions in the 19th century and early 20th century that inform

the continuing linguistic, religious, and cultural relationship between Anglophone Irish-Quebecers

and Québécois in modern Québec.

2. The Irish of New France and early British Canada

Although the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849 looms large in the collective memory of the Irish

diaspora, a majority of Irish immigrants to Canada arrived before the Famine.４） While most Irish

Protestants arrived in Québec (then Lower Canada) and quickly moved to Ontario (then Upper

Canada) or to the US, the very fact that significant numbers of both Irish Protestants and Irish

Catholics were already living in Québec prior to the Famine is attested by competing anonymous

pamphlets in 1800 urging Irish to vote for opposing parties. ５） By the late 1820s there were

suf ficient numbers of Anglophone Irish in Montreal to support the establishment of three

newspapers (The Vindicator, The Montreal Gazette, The Pilot), all run by Irish immigrants.６） These

Irish editors ultimately became embroiled in the political struggle between Anglophones and

Francophones.

However, the history of the Irish in Québec begins as early as 1660, when the first Irish

mercenaries arrived in New France. Most were members of la Troupe de la Marine, attachments to

the Army of France, or were deserters from the British Army, and several Irish established families

in Québec City, Trois-Rivières, and Montréal around the turn of the 18th century.７） Many Irish

during this time period in Québec history were “Wild Geese,” mercenary soldiers who fled Ireland

following the disastrous Battle of the Boyne, in which King William III of England defeated the

forces of James II.８） Fighting in a 14,000-strong Jacobite army and later as the Irish Brigade

throughout Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish soldiers retained the hopes of returning

the Catholic Stuarts to power.９） Irish also fought in North America, both on the French side and

the British side, in Canada and in the British colonies that were later to declare independence, with

many remaining to settle following each conflict.10） The last two wars of the 18th century, the French

and Indian War / Seven Years’ War (1754-1763) and the American Revolutionary War / War of

Independence (1775-1783) would prove the turning points for the Irish in New France and early

British Canada.

3. The Conquest of 1760 and Loyalist migration after 1783

The French and Indian War / Seven Years’ War came to an end with the Battle of the Plains of

Abraham outside Québec City in late 1759 and the capture of Montréal by British forces in

September 1760. At the time, there may have been at least 120 Irish families in New France; they

would have deliberately “francofied” their names to avoid detection by victorious British forces,

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Irish-Canadian intercultural relations in Quebec: An historical overview（T. APPLE）

who would have regarded any Irish in New France as traitors.11） The fall of Montréal remains a

significant, traumatizing event in the minds of present-day Québécois, who call it “the Conquest” (La Conquête). Canada was then governed for the next three years by a military government,

during which hundreds of English, Scottish, and Irish soldiers and civilians took over the daily

running of the local economy. After the Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1763, France officially

ceded New France to Great Britain. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 that October turned the most

populated area of Canada into a colony called the Province of Québec, which extended from the

present Upper Midwest of the US to the present Province of Labrador and Newfoundland.

The British government immediately knew they would face an enormous challenge governing

an entire province of French speakers. While the Treaty guaranteed the right of Catholics to retain

their religious practices, the British initially forbade Catholics in Québec from voting in the

Proclamation of 1763 under the assumption that Anglophone settlers from the North American

British colonies and Great Britain would quickly outnumber them. The anticipated settlers failed to

arrive in sufficient numbers, and the local Francophone population quickly grew to resent the

English-speaking merchants who controlled Montréal.12） Because Francophone Catholics always

had a majority in Québec, in order to maintain peace Britain passed the Quebec Act of 1774, guaranteeing the continuation of the French civil seigneurial system of feudal-like land

management as well as the power of the Catholic church within the bounds of Québec.13）

At the start of the American Revolution (1774-1783), American forces invaded Canada and

attacked Montréal through the Richelieu River valley. Governor Guy Carleton determined that

Montréal was indefensible, fled to Québec City in disguise, and Montréal was temporarily occupied

in November 1775. The US leaders hoped that Francophones would rise up en masse and support

their cause, and indeed some did. However, the US military irritated the local population with

heavy-handed behavior, and a delegate from the US Continental Congress failed to persuade the

Catholic clergy to support their cause. When Carleton returned in June 1776 with fresh Irish

recruits led by Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, the Americans were forced to retreat south to

Lake Champlain and Fort Ticonderoga, New York. This set the stage for the invasion of New York

by Burgoyne, who later lost the famous Battle of Saratoga (1777). As in Montréal, there were Irish

on both sides of the fighting, as there had been during the Seven Years’ War.14）

Following yet another Treaty of Paris (1783), this one severing the British Colonies from Great

Britain and leading to the recognition of the United States as a sovereign nation, many Irish

soldiers in the British Army decided to stay permanently in Canada. Loyalists,15） American colonists

who had fought on the side of the British, were allowed to move to Canada, where they were given

land for farming. They were initially forbidden to settle near the new US border (now the states of

New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine), as well as in what was known as the Eastern

Townships southeast of Montréal, for fear of continued violence between Loyalists and Patriots.

This ban was lifted in 1792 when it became apparent that settlers from Great Britain were not

interested in living in Québec, and large numbers of Americans came into the area. Many Loyalists

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who moved into Québec at this time were Irish, both Protestant and Catholic. By the end of the

Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the end of the War of 1812 in North America, there were

approximately 30,000 Anglophones in Québec, most of whom lived in the Eastern Townships. This

accounted for only 10% of the overall population.16） But this was soon to change.

4. “Vlá les Irlandais!”17）

A massive influx of Irish from 1814 through 1850 changed the course of Québec history. In

part due to repeated poor harvests and famines from 1800 to the early 1830s, Irish began arriving

in Québec in large numbers, with more than 180,000 arriving just in five years, from 1830 to 1834.18） Not coincidentally, in 1833 the Montréal City Council issued a “coat of arms” (referred to as the

Concordia Salus, or “Salvation through harmony”) featuring four symbols to represent each of the

European “founding” ethnic groups in the city at the time (see fig. 1). At first, local canadiens

welcomed the newcomers, for they saw them not only as fellow Catholics in need but also as a new

group that would overturn politics and help them regain control of Québec. At the time, famed

orator Daniel O’Connell “The Liberator” was campaigning to repeal discriminatory laws against

Catholics and urging for Home Rule in Ireland. In addition to Irish Catholics in Québec, many

canadiens saw O’Connell as a hero of the faith, and the Irish-run and French-language newspapers

actively supported the “O’Connellite-patriote” alliance.19） O’Connell’s political successes in Ireland,

with Catholic Emancipation in 1829 that finally allowed Irish Catholics to vote and own land, raised

French-Canadian hopes. His image was even used briefly on alternate currency set up during an

attempted boycott of British-made goods.20）

But this feeling of goodwill toward fellow oppressed Catholics would not last.21）

The hierarchy of the powerful Catholic church of Québec had never been fond of the new

immigrants, and increasing competition for employment between Irish and canadien workers

further exacerbated intergroup tensions. Lumber camps for the Rideau Canal construction in the

Ottawa Valley starting from 1819 initially employed Irish workers. When canadiens were hired

because they would accept lower wages, conflict broke out in 1827 between the two groups. This

pattern was repeated during the construction and later expansion of the Lachine Canal in Montréal

in the 1830s and 1840s. Moreover, Irish communities in Québec City, Montréal, and Clarenden

Township (later Shawville) ran into resistance from the Francophone Catholic hierarchy when

attempting to establish their own churches (see “6. Linguistic differences within the same

religion). This religious conflict is sometimes seen as dif fering depending on the region of

Québec. For example, the relations between the French-Canadian and Irish communities were very

good in Québec City.23） In rural areas of Québec, Irish tended to intermarry with canadiens due to

shared religion and were soon assimilated into local populations, but in Montréal where more

Anglophones tended to gather, the two groups were frequently at loggerheads. Both groups at the

bottom end of the social order by virtue of being Catholic, the Irish dockworkers contested

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canadiens for jobs in the timber and ship-building industries throughout the early to mid-19th

century.

The strife between working class urban Anglophone Irish Catholic and Francophone canadiens

was accentuated by cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1834, which were immediately blamed on a

massive increase in Irish immigration. During the 1832 cholera epidemic, Lower Canada passed

laws to establish a Board of Health, which set up quarantine stations at Grosse-Île (about 30 miles

from Québec City in the middle of the St. Lawrence River) and in Montréal, at Pointe-Saint-Charles

near the present Victoria Bridge. By June 1832, two thousand had already died, including many

local French-Canadians (primarily nuns and priests) who had volunteered to help the sick Irish.

The Board of Health became quickly blamed of exacerbating the epidemic, and Grosse-Île was

accused of perpetuating rather than preventing cholera from spreading.24） Greedy captains

accepted bribes from immigrants to help them avoid the quarantine stations and sail further up the

river to Montréal and beyond; the “coffin ships” which brought the Irish, mostly in steerage, were

barely seaworthy and generally in poor sanitary condition; the quarantine station buildings were

crowded, dank, and completely unfit for human usage; and merchants and marketplaces took

advantage of the situation to price gouge customers, immigrants and locals alike.25） The rapid

increase in Irish immigrants caused concern among canadiens in Québec City that they were being

overrun, with “fears that the city, or at least some of its wards, would become an Irish colony.”26）

Figure 1. The original 1833 coat of arms of Montréal featured four images representing the city founding European factions, as seen by the city council at the time. The rose: English. The thistle: Scots. The shamrock: Irish. The beaver: French. The motto reads in Latin Concordia Salus (“Salvation through harmony”). This version of the coat of arms can still be seen at McGill University and Bonsecours Market. Two additional versions were made; the most recent (2017) includes a white pine to represent indigenous peoples.22） Photo by author, August 2019.

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The tenuous alliance between Anglophone Irish and canadiens was about to reach its breaking

point.

5. The Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837

Despite the suspicions between Irish immigrants and canadiens, their respective community

leaders sought to bring the two groups together politically. Daniel Tracey and later Edmund Bailey

O’Callaghan, editors of The Vindicator, actively encouraged Irish to vote for Louis Papineau and

other candidates for Parti Patriote. This Francophone political movement sought a greater say in

governance for canadiens through the reform of the legislative council, an “upper house” of officials

appointed by the Governor that could ignore the demands of the locally elected “lower house” legislative assembly.27） However, the increasing radicalism and anticlerical positions espoused by

Papineau and the patriote movement led to both French and Irish Catholic church leaders

denouncing them. Pressed by their parish leaders, Irish voters in 1834 withdrew their support for

patriote candidates in favor of those with more moderate views, despite having initially elected

Papineau to represent the largely Irish Montreal West Ward.28） With the cities of Québec and

Montréal feeling overwhelmed by Irish immigrants and the epidemics that continued to flare up

throughout the 1830s, the O’Connellite-patriote alliance buckled and collapsed.

When the set of 92 Resolutions sent to London failed to convince the Crown to replace the

appointed legislative council with a popularly elected council, patriotes began to agitate for the use

of force. After Papineau’s requests were denied, he organized increasingly large protest rallies and

attempted a boycott of British goods. Acts of vandalism throughout September and October 1837 provoked arrests; fighting broke out in November. Later called “The Patriot’s War” (Guerre des

patriotes), the rebellion lasted until November 1838 and ended with the execution of 12 patriotes,

the deportation of over a hundred to Australia29）, and the fleeing of Papineau and O’Callaghan to the

US. The Irish by and large avoided taking sides in the conflict, sensing that they had very little to

gain by attacking people who were giving them jobs. This caused later canadien writers to regard

the Irish as having been sent deliberately by Great Britain to “strengthen the hand of the English

and the bureaucrats.” The Irish were seen a “new kind of antagonist” who “fought the canadiens

everywhere.”30） In the aftermath of the failed rebellion and collapsed political alliance with the Irish,

canadiens in the latter half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century turned their attention

to what it meant to be both canadien and Catholic.

Their answer: language.

6. Linguistic differences within the same religion

Not only had the Irish in Québec largely avoided the fighting but they also demanded their

own churches, with their own priests, who could counsel them in English rather than French.

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However, the Irish Catholics of Québec City and Montréal were initially forbidden by the Catholic

Church in Québec to set up their own parishes. When the Irish Catholics in Québec City formed a

congregation from 1819, they had to borrow a Protestant Congregational chapel for meetings.

From 1822 they were permitted to use a Francophone cathedral but for only one hour per week.31）

Finally, they received permission to establish St. Patrick’s but as a branch of Notre-Dame-de-

Québec and not as a separate parish. Likewise, the Irish Catholics of Montréal first met as a

congregation in 1817 but were only allowed to build St. Patrick’s Basilica in 1843 (see fig. 2). Even

then, the Catholic church in Québec insisted that the parish remain as part of Notre Dame of

Montréal, under the supervision of a Francophone priest.

The traditional view for Québec clergy resistance to the Irish having their own parish is that

the leaders of the Catholic Church in Québec were used to enjoying legal and independent power

granted them by the British government.32） But in reality it was the fact that the Irish wanted a

priest who spoke English, not French, as their parish leader: “The ultimate ethnic institution is the

parish church, and the Irish demonstrate this clearly.”33） For the Irish, the priest was a community

leader as well as a spiritual leader. He was an ambassador for the community and a diplomat in

their dealings with other communities. In contrast, the French-Catholic church in Québec was

hierarchical, not local, in nature. Bishops of the Catholic Church in Québec also insisted that any

priest be Francophone, or an English-French bilingual, at the very least, so that Irish parish

Figure 2. St. Patrick’s Basilica was the first church built specifically for an Irish English-speaking parish community in Mo tréal. Photos by author, October 2018.

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members would eventually become assimilated into the larger, Francophone Québec society.34） In

the views of many Québec Catholic clergy, it was the French language that was paramount:

Indeed, it is the language which characterizes the people. Our mores and customs have been

transformed first by the effect of the climate, then due to contact with foreign populations; but

we stayed what we were because of the language. The Catholic religion is not our first

safeguard, since the Irish, who are everywhere our adversaries, do not take it into account

while being Catholics themselves̶but we have remained Catholic because of the language.35）

After years of protesting the religious policies of the Québec Catholic Church, it took the

political intercession of Irish-Canadian political leaders such as Thomas D’Arcy McGee, who

appealed directly to the Pope. The Irish of Montréal were finally granted national parish status by

the Vatican, against the wishes of the Catholic church of Québec.36） After meeting in Protestant

churches for nearly three decades, Irish Catholics of Montréal were finally able to hold service in

the Basilica, completed in 1847̶just in time for the most traumatic event in modern Irish and

Canadian history.

7. The Great Famine and Black ’47

The typhus outbreak of the 1840s brought by Great Famine refugees overwhelmed Québec.

At the height of “Black ’47,” the worst year of the Famine, Montréal accepted between 70,000 and

75,000 Irish Famine refugees, even though the city itself only had roughly 50,000 residents.37）

Mayor John Easton Mills volunteered to help afflicted Irish immigrants, working with carpenters to

build shelters in Pointe-Saint-Charles and caring for refugees personally before he, himself, died of

the disease within the year. The Great Famine exodus from Ireland to Canada was the final straw

for the powerful clergymen of the Catholic Church in Québec. No longer would Ireland be seen as

a model for Québec regaining its independence from Britain.38）

Ultimately, thousands of Irish died during the typhus outbreak, 6,000 in Montréal alone, but

their very presence transformed Québec (see fig. 3). Less than a thousand Irish lived in Québec

City in 1819.39） This number swelled to over 6,000 by 1830 and 9,120 by 1851. Irish immigrants in

Montréal had already founded the suburb of Grif fintown in the 1820s and, as their numbers

increased throughout the 1830s and 1840s, were instrumental in various building projects such as

the Lachine Canal and Victoria Bridge. Irish in Québec City went on to greatly expand Québec’s

timber trade and contribute to shipbuilding and transportation industries. Following the cholera

epidemics of the early 1830s, Québec City quickly became segregated into working class and ruling

class areas of the city, with most workers living in small wooden houses in the lower town, next to

the St. Lawrence River. However, the Irish never constituted their own community, and overall

there was little ethnic segregation. By the census of 1871, 123,478 residents of Québec claimed to

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be of Irish descent (roughly 10% the total population). The influx of a huge number of workers

drastically sped the expanding Canadian economy as the area industrialized throughout the 19th

centur y. But once “responsible government” (i.e., direct election of legislators) was fully

implemented following the Canadian Confederation of 1867, the Francophone majority of Québec

quickly asserted its dominance. The Catholic church was in control, and issues of identity came to

the fore.

Figure 3. The “Black Rock” near Victoria Bridge, Montréal, set up by Irish workers who built the bridge in the 1850s. A trilingual explanation (Irish, French, and English) was later added to commemorate the Irish immigrants who died in Black ’47. An estimated 6,000+ Irish lie beneath this section of highway. Photo by author, July 2019.

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8. Disappearing communities and lingering tensions

The consistent desire for independence from Canada was led by Roman Catholic church

leaders in Montréal as part of the “ultramontanism” movement in the mid-19th century, which

sought to extend the supremacy of the Catholic Church over all political and civil thought.40） This

movement went hand in hand with the propaganda that canadiens were a separate “race” descended entirely from French settlers. The myth of racial homogeneity was perpetuated by the

immense volume set “The Origins of Canadiens” by Abbe Tanguay in the 1870s and 1880s, which

purported to trace the ancestries of existing canadien families by using marriage records in

Catholic parishes. Ultramontanists went to such extremes that they would dismiss the existence of

any non-French immigrants as part of a “pure” French heritage and claim that the language of

Canada was essentially Parisian, “the best language spoken from Rochelle to Paris and Tours and

from there to Rouen.”41）

The myth of linguistic and racial homogeneity continued into the 20th century and found

popular expression in the views of famed nationalist Abbé Lionel Groulx. Termed “cleric-

nationalist” views, ultra-conservatives such Groulx promoted the “pure” French spoken in Paris (as

opposed to the local style of French now called “Québécois”), strict patriarchy in the family

(including submission of women to men), respect for authority (and especially to the Catholic

Church in Quebec), agriculture and rural lifestyles, and religious education. Unsurprisingly, most

vocal supporters were clergy members, but also included la Ligue d’Action française [French

Action League] and publisher Henri Bourassa, founder of the newspaper Le Devoir, who famously

charged Ontario Irish-Protestants and members of the Irish Catholic church hierarchy as “enemies

of the French language [and] of French civilization in Canada.”42）

The Francophone view of the Irish as “enemies” seemed justified during the Great War (1914-1918). Francophones in Québec resisted conscription into the Canadian Expeditionary Force,

because they did not feel they should be forced to fight for an Anglophone army. On the other

hand, Irish living in Canada volunteered to form their own military unit called the Irish Canadian

Rangers. Originally earmarked only for Canadian national defense, an overseas battalion, the 199th,

was created within the Rangers in early 1916. Almost all the battalion’s of ficers were Irish

Montréalers. In an “extraordinary coincidence,” the battalion began its enlistment of local Montréal

Irish on April 24, 1916, the very day of the Easter Uprising in Dublin, Ireland.43） Rallies turned into

brawls in the streets of Montréal, with a near-riot at Place d’Armes between Irish and Francophone

Montréalers. Although Francophones opposed military service to support what they viewed as an

English fight, Anglophone Irish saw it as a chance to demonstrate their loyalty to Canada as well as

to show that, like Canada, Ireland was capable of self-governance and deserved home rule.

While Anglophone Irish Montréalers continued for a time to maintain a strong, separate

community presence, particularly in the St. Ann’s parish of Griffintown, elsewhere in Québec the

collapse of the timber industry and repeated economic depressions in the latter half of the 19th

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century led many Anglophone Irish to exit the province, seeking jobs in Ontario, western Canada,

or the US. The end of mass immigration from Ireland to Québec in 1870 also meant a slowly

decreasing percentage of the population and subsequent loss of political power as a separate ethnic

group. As Montréal grew to become an urbanized city by the turn of the 20th century, further

integration into Francophone society meant the breakup of Irish-dominated areas in both rural and

urban settings. For example, in the 1830s Anglophone Irish immigrants settled in a village now

known as Saint-Patrice-de-Beaurivage in the countryside south of Québec City.44） By the time the

parish of Saint-Patrice officially became established in 1871, the number of Anglophones was

already decreasing as the immigrants slowly assimilated and married into Francophone society. In

2021, the village’s 150th anniversary will be celebrated entirely in French, as none of the current

residents are Anglophone. Meanwhile, in Montréal, the Anglophone Irish community has survived

in pockets. However, the town of Griffintown as a name no longer appears on local city maps (see

fig. 4). The town parish of St. Ann’s disbanded in 1970 due to depopulation, after the original Irish

working population had largely dispersed to other parts of the city or other provinces of Canada

during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As for Francophones, the ultramontanes eventually split into two camps and gradually lost

power thanks to the “Quiet Revolution” (La revolution tranquille) of the 1960s, which decoupled the

Catholic church from education and politics in favor of secularism. In 1971 when Canadian Prime

Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) set in place national

policies of multiculturalism, treating French and English as equal languages represented by equal

cultures and equal ethnic groups, Québec insisted on “intralingualism,” in which other languages

are tolerated so far as French is recognized as the main, official language that everyone must learn.

By the time Griffintown ceased to exist in the 1970s, “Anglophone” in Montreal denoted a larger

social group, comprising not just Irish but other ethnicities. As a result of the creation of an

amalgamated socio-ethnic group often known as “Anglo Montreal,” previous distinctions based on

country origin or social class were no longer as important as one sole factor: speaking English as a

first language. And so,

as the English-speaking population of Montreal came together to form this new sociocultural

and political group, Anglo Montreal, the ethnic and class divisions that had existed between

the descendants of the British Isles in Montreal became of little importance next to the fact

that they all spoke English. Montreal’s multiple and varied identities became differacted into a

binary of French versus English.45）

Montreal remains the only major English-speaking city where English is actually a minority

language. Anglo-Montrealers now actively and vocally pursue their linguistic rights.46） Examples of

why they feel threatened are recent renamings of Montréal city streets after Francophone

politicians. Dorchester Boulevard was renamed Boulevard René Lévesque in 1987.47） A similar

attempt to rename Park Avenue in 2006 sparked multi-ethnic grass-roots opposition and petitions

that eventually collected over 30,000 signatures.48） At the time, the plan to rename the street was

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shelved, only to return in 2015 with the renaming of a section of Rue University to Boulevard

Robert Bourassa. Linguistic tensions yet again arose as Anglophones accused Francophones of

trying to alienate those in the city with different ethnic roots from Québécois by erasing their

visible history.49）

A final example of the continued complex relationship between Francophones and the Irish in

Québec concerns downtown renewal. In 2012, the city of Montréal agreed to set aside land for the

Irish Monument Park Foundation to create a park for the 6,000 Irish typhus victims buried around

the Black Rock monument in Pointe-Saint-Charles. Yet five years later, the city suddenly sold the

land to Hydro-Québec for the purposes of building a light-rail train station. Nearby land in what

used to be Goose Village, housing the Fever Sheds of ’47, was likewise targeted for development

into a baseball stadium. Irish groups, and Francophone archaeologists as well, were furious.50） The

Figure 4. Map of southern Montréal, posted at the St-Gabriel Lock of the Lachine Canal by Parks Canada. The “Black Rock” monument is in Pointe-Saint-Charles, where the Famine Irish were cared for in the Fever Sheds of Black ’47. Griffintown, the community that Irish immigrants helped to create just north of the lock (starred), no longer appears on the map. Photo by author, September 2019.

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city mayor promised to negotiate and compromise but further infuriated the Foundation by

proposing to name the new station after Bernard Landry, a former divisive and controversial

Francophone Premier of Québec who never lived in the area. An archaeological team sent by

Hydro-Québec later found evidence of at least a dozen bodies beneath the site, strengthening the

Foundation’s argument that the station should have an Irish name.51） The city countered by giving

the station a hyphenated name̶Griffintown-Landry̶but the Foundation remains opposed.52）

Buoyed by politics, the old tensions still remain.

9. Conclusion

Although the Anglophone Irish and Francophone communities have gone through ups and

down during a long, often turbulent relationship, their intercultural ties have become so closely

linked over time that it is virtually impossible to separate them. While the issue of language use

remains an overriding concern in Québec, as it does throughout Canada, the cultural influence and

political importance of the Irish in Québec is obvious. Irish-Quebecer political party leaders

(Claude Ryan), Premiers of Québec (Jean Charest, Daniel Johnson and his sons Daniel, Jr., and

Pierre-Marc), Prime Ministers of Canada (Louis St-Laurent and Brian Mulroney); journalists-

turned-representatives (Daniel Tracey, Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan, Thomas D’Arcy McGee);

artists, poets, and musicians (Mary Travers, Émile Nelligan, Kate & Anna McGarrigle); and sports

players (Patrick Roy, the Montreal Shamrocks hockey team) have all contributed to Québec society

and culture.

Despite intergroup conflict, the Irish have become an integral element of Québec society. The

power-differential among the political and religious hierarchies did not necessarily filter down

through all societal levels. Indeed, historians have remarked for some time on the strong tendency

for Irish immigrants in Canada to intermarry, particular among those who share a common

religion.53） In Québec, this has led to the Irish as a separate ethnic group virtually disappearing

outside Montréal; however, about 1 in 5 Québec families have at least one Irish immigrant ancestor

and Québécois continue to show great interest and even pride in their Irish relations.54） This

interest is evident everywhere you look in Montréal. Shamrocks adorn several major modern office

buildings, in addition to the revised coat of arms (which now uses a fleur-de-lis for the French and a

pine tree for Amerindians). And, of course, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade (see fig. 5), held annually

on March 17th since 1824 by the St. Patrick’s Society and 1929 by the United Irish Societies of

Montreal, is enjoyed by Montréalers of all ethnicities.55）

－ 126 －


Nowhere stronger can the cross-influence of Irish and French cultures be seen than in the

words of Georges Kavanagh, an historian from the Gaspé Peninsula, who proudly told an enthralled

audience at the world premiere of the movie Lost Children of the Carricks56）, “Je suis un Québécois-

Irlandais.”I am an Irish-Quebecer.

Notes

１）Senator Rose Conway-Walsh, Guest Speaker at April 18 (avril) 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration

(Commémoration du Soulèvement de Pâques 1916), Hurley’s Irish Pub, 1225 rue Crescent Street,

Montréal, Québec, Canada (18 April/avril, 2019). Sponsored by Friends of Sinn Fein / Les Ami(e)s du Sinn

Fein (Canada) & The Coalition for Peace in Ireland / La Coalition Pour la Paix en Irlande.

２）John S. Moir, “The Problem of a Double Minority: Some Reflections on the Development of the English-

speaking Catholic Church in Canada in the Nineteenth Century,” Social History, vol. 7 (1971): 53-67.３）The name “Canada” is generally used to describe the modern confederate nation, which extends from

the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and includes ten provinces and three territories. However, historically,

Canada referred originally only to what is now the provinces of Ontario and Québec. When French-

Canadian writers in the 19th century use the term canadien, they always mean Francophones. Occasionally,

Figure 5. St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Montréal. All five major ethnic groups considered to have founded the city are represented: Irish, English, Scottish, French, and Mohawk. Photo by author, March 17, 2019.

－ 127 －


they used the term canadien-français (French-Canadians), but many were (and still are) bitter that the

name “Canadian” now applies to Anglophones and others not originally from Québec. This paper uses

canadien to denote Francophones in Québec up until the mid-20th century, when they began to call

themselves Québécois to denote a new ethnic group not connected to France or Francophones in other

Canadian provinces.

４）Maude Letendre, “Analyse Démogénétique de la Contribution des Fondateurs Irlandais au Peuplement

du Québec et de ses Regions.” (master’s thesis, Université du Québec à Chichoutimi, 2007).

５）“Address to the Irish Inhabitants of Quebec” (University of Alberta Libraries, Microfilm) accessed

October 12, 2018; “To the Irish Emigrants Settled in Lower-Canada” (University of Alberta Libraries,

Microfilm) accessed October 12, 2018. Both pamphlets were published anonymously in English in 1800; the fact that someone took the time to write opposing opinions on the political process and the Irish

indicates that Irish were capable of voting in enough numbers to determine the outcome of an election.

６）Based on the 1825 Census of Lower Canada, most estimates place Irish numbers at between 6,000 and

7,000 in 1830 of what was then called Lower Canada (compared to a total population of between 24,000 to

28,000 English-speakers, with an overall population of 479,288). A majority of Irish Catholics lived in urban

Québec City or Montréal.

７）Matthew T. Apple, “The Irish in New France, 1660 to 1763,” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, in review.

８）Stephen McGarry, Irish Brigades Abroad: From the Wild Geese to the Napoleonic Wars. (Dublin: The

History Press Island, 2013).

９）Dennis Showalter, “Wild Irish Geese,” Military History, vol. 28, no. 3 (September 2011): 64-70. Also

Maurice Hennessey, “The Wild Geese: The Irish Soldier in Exile.” (New York: Devin-Adair, 1973).

10）The British and the French have different names for several wars in the 17th and 18th centuries, many of

which occurred in North America as parts of other wars in Europe. In French, three major wars in North

America are called Première / Deuxième / Troisième Guerre Intercoloniale (lit., “the first / second / third

intercolonial wars”), but the British considered each war separately (King William’s War, 1688-1697; Queen

Anne’s War, 1702-1713; and King George’s War, 1744-1748, respectively). The final war in North America

between the French and British is termed Quatrième Guerre Intercoloniale or Guerre de la Conquête (“the

War of Conquest”). In Europe, the Seven Years’ War started in 1756, but in North America the fighting

started with New England raids by the French and their Amerindian allies in 1754.11）Marianna O’Gallagher, “The Irish in Quebec,” in Robert O’Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (eds) The Untold

Story: The Irish in Canada, vol. 1. (Toronto: Celtic Arts of Canada, 1988), pp. 253-261. Also Marcel

Fournier, Les Européens au Canada: Des origins à 1765 (hors France). (Québec: Flueve, 1989). The exact

number of Irish in Québec by 1760 may never be known.

12）Ronald Rudin, The Forgotten Quebecers: A History of English-speaking Quebec, 1759-1980. (Quebec City:

Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1995), 24. See also Donald Creighton, The Empire of the St.

Lawrence: A Study in Commerce and Politics. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). Originally pub.

1937.13）The Quebec Act upset American colonists, who later cited it as an “intolerant act” in the Declaration of

Independence.

14）Guy Carleton and his political rival Thomas Gage were both Anglo-Irish.

15）In the US, they were known as “Tories.”16）Rudin, 30.17）“Here are the Irish!” This is a quasi-humorous, quasi-frightful expression used to describe the feelings of

Québec City residents at seeing vast numbers of Irish immigrants flood into Saint-Jean and Saint-Roch

－ 128 －


quarters of the lower town: A. N. Montpetit, Nos Hommes Forts, vol 1. (Québec, 1884), 172. At one point,

the Irish were so numerous that the Québec City council banned the Irish game of hurling in the streets, as

they were fearful that the Irish playing it would damage property: Robert J. Grace, The Irish in Quebec: An

Introduction to the Historiography. (Quebec City: Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1993), 19. All translations from the original French and by the author.

18）Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth, Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement: Patterns, Links, and

Letters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).

19）Shane Lynn, “Friends of Ireland: Early O’Connellism in Lower Canada,” Irish Historical Studies, vol. 40, no. 157 (May 2016): 43-65. Also Mary Finnegan, “Irish-French relations in Lower Canada,” CCHA Historical

Studies, vol. 52 (1985), 35-49.20）Robert Rumilly, Papineau et Son Temps. Tome I. (Montréal: Fides, 1977), 401.21）Rudin puts it simply, that, despite similar socioeconomic status and shared religion, “It is difficult...to

characterize the nature of the relationship between the French and the Irish Catholics.” (110).

22）For more information on the coat of arms, see https://montreal.ca/en/topics/logo-and-visibility-

standards.

23）Monique Rivet, “Les Irlandais à Québec.” (master’s thesis, Université Laval, 1969)24）Editorial, “The Grosse-Ile Fever Sheds Well Underway, No One Yet Knows the Full Extent of the

Tragedy,” Ottawa Daily Citizen (June 26, 1847): 4.25）Marianna O’Gallagher, Grosse Ile: Gateway to Canada 1832-1937. (Sainte-Foy, Canada: Carraig Books,

1984). O’Gallagher is largely responsible for the establishment of the designation of Grosse Île as a

National Historic Site.

26）Raoul Blanchard, L’Est du Canada Français, vol. 2. (Paris: Masson-Beauchemin, 1935), 237.27）Helen Taft Manning, The Revolt of French Canada, 1800-1835. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962).

28）Finnegan, 45.29）Most returned by 1845 after clemency was offered. See Gilles Laporte, Brève Histoire des Patriotes.

(Québec: Septentrion, 2013).

30）Benjamin Sulte, Histoire des Canadiens-Français, 1608-1880. Vol. 3. (Montréal: Société de Publication

Historique du Canada, 1884), 108.31）James O’Leary, History of the Irish Catholics of Quebec: Saint Patrick’s Church to the death of Rev. P.

McMahon. (Quebec: Daily Telegraph, 1895), 7-8.32）O’Leary, 6.33）Grace, 1993, 100. See also Rosalyn Trigger, “The Role of the Parish in Fostering Irish-Catholic Identity in

Nineteenth-century Montreal.” (master’s thesis, McGill University, 1997).

34）John A. Gallagher, “St. Patrick’s Parish̶Quebec,” CCHA Report, vol. 15 (1947-1948): 71-80.35）Sulte, 132.36）Grace, 1993, 98. Note that despite the resistance of the Québec Catholic Church hierarchy, the original

designers of St. Patrick’s Basilica in Montréal, including one priest, were Francophones. This again shows

the complicated nature of the Irish-canadien relationship.

37）Morgan Lowrie, “Dream of Memorial Park in Montreal to Honour Irish Famine Victims Inches Closer,” CBC News (March 17, 2019). Accessed https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-irish-

memorial-park-honour-famine-1.506010538）Mary Haslam, “La Période Pré-Rébellion: L’Imaginaire Irlandais au Québec, 1822-1837,” in Linda

Cardinal, Simon Jolivet, and Isabelle Matte (eds), Le Québec et L’Irlande: Culture, Histoire, Identité.

(Quebec: Septentrion, 2014), 275.

－ 129 －


39）Grace, 60. See also Rober t Grace, “The Irish in Quebec City in 1861: Por trait of an Immigrant

Community.” (master’s thesis, Université de Laval, 1987).

40）Nive Voisine, “Ultramontanism,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2015. Accessed https://www.

thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ultramontanism

41）Benjamin Sulte, Origin of the French Canadians. (Ottawa: A Bureau & Frères, 1897), 12.42）As cited in Mason Wade, The French Canadians, 1760-1945. (New York: MacMillan, 1955). Yet Bourassa

also praised Irish nationalists such as John Redmond for insisting on Irish Home Rule as a precondition of

joining the British Army in WWI (674). This shows not only the ongoing admiration among canadiens for

the Irish desire for self-rule but also the ambivalence towards the Irish Catholic resistance in Quebec to the

French Catholic church and to the French language.

43）Robin B. Burns, “The Montreal Irish and the Great War,” CCHA Historical Studies, vol. 52 (1985): 67-81.44）D. Aidan McQuillan, “Beaurivage: The Development of an Irish Ethnic Identity in Rural Quebec, 1820-1860,” in Robert O’Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (eds) The Untold Story: The Irish in Canada, vol. 1. (Toronto: Celtic Arts of Canada, 1988), pp. 263-270.

45）Matthew Barlow, Griffintown: Identity and Memory in an Irish Diaspora Neighbourhood. (Vancouver: UBC

Press, 2017), 142.46）Rod McLeod, “Terms of Estrangement: Denial, Indifference, and Scenes from the Search for the 21st

Century Anglo,” Quebec Heritage News, vol. 4, no. 12 (Nov-Dec 2008): 9-11.47）“Montreal to Rename Dorchester Blvd. after Levesque,” Montreal Gazette (January 5, 1987). Archived at

www.canada.com June 28, 2011.48）Bertrand Marotte, “Montrealers Protest Plans for Change of Street Name,” The Globe and Mail (October

30, 2006) accessed https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/montrealers-protest-plans-for-

change-of-street-name/article1108882/49）Amanda Kelly, “University Street Name Change to Robert-Bourassa Boulevard is Official,” Global News

(March 18, 2015). Accessed https://globalnews.ca/news/1889647/university-street-name-change-to-

robert-bourassa-boulevard-is-official/. The section of the street renamed for Bourassa intersects with the

new René Levesque Boulevard, his political rival. Both were opposed to Pierre Trudeau’s multilingual

federal policy, with Bourassa passing Bill 22, making French the official language of Québec in 1974, and

three years later Levesque passing Bill 101, which expanded on Bill 22. Bourassa is given credit for

introducing universal health care and increasing hydroelectric energy but was later excoriated for his role

in massive construction company scandals: Peggy Curran, “Trip Back in Corruption Time Machine,” Montréal Gazette (October 1, 2012). Accessed https://montrealgazette.com/news/montreal/40-years-ago-

an-inquiry-pointed-to-wrongdoing-and-violence-in-quebecs-construction-industry-will-anything-change-this-

time

50）Marian Scott, “Montreal, Refugees and the Irish Famine of 1847.” Montréal Gazette (August 12, 2017).

Accessed https://montrealgazette.com/feature/montreal-refugees-and-the-irish-famine-of-184751）Marian Scott, “Montreal Archaeologists Find Remains of 19th-Century Irish Famine Victims.” Montreal

Gazette. (November 28, 2019). Accessed https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-

archeologists-find-remains-of-19th-century-irish-famine-victims

52）Morgan Lowrie, “Montreal Irish Groups Not Giving Up Fight over Light-Rail Station Name.” National

Post. (June 24, 2020). Accessed https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/montreal-

irish-groups-not-giving-up-fight-over-light-rail-station-name

53）Sheila T. McGree and Victora M. Esses. “The Irish in Canada: A Demographic Study Based on the 1986 Census,” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (July 1990): 1-14.

－ 130 －


54）Marc Tremblay, Maude Letendre, Louis Houde, and Hélène Vézina, “The Contribution of Irish

Immigrants to Quebec (Canada) Gene Pool: An Estimation Using Data from Deep-rooted Genealogies.” European Journal of Population, vol. 25 (2008) : 215-233. doi: 10.1007/s10680-008-9170x. See also Hélène

Vézina et al., “Origines et Contributions Génétiques des Fondatrices et des Fondateurs de la Population

Québécoise,” Cahiers Québécois de Démographie, vol. 34, no. 2 (2006): 235-258. There is also a commonly-

held belief that all Québec City residents have at least one Irish ancestor: François Drouin, “La Population

Urbain de Québec, 1795-1971,” Cahiers Québécois de Démographie, vol. 19, no. 1 (printemps 1990): 95-112.55）Due to COVID-19, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Montréal was cancelled in 2020 for the first time in 196

years. (https://unitedirishsocieties.ca/2020/03/197th-consecutive-parade-postponed/)

56）Lost Children of the Carricks, directed by Gearóid Ó hAllmhurain (Celtic Crossings Production, 2019),

Concordia University, DeSeve Cinema, May 29, 2019.

Documents

Irish-Canadian intercultural relations in Quebec: An