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Irish Canadians

© David Newman

Its Saint-Patty's Day today! Got your Guinness? Anyway, to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland what better thing to do than what we did for St. Andrew's Day when we viewed Scottish-Canadian. So here lets look at Irish-Canadian history as well as Irish-born Canadians.

The major event that started Irish immigration to Canada was the Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s and Irish immigration continued after that in the following decades. In Ireland everyone was dying and Emigration was the only solution and a couple of hundred came across the Atlantic to Canada. Many didn't stay in Canada and went to the United States. There had been Irish in Canada prior to the famine but made up little of the population. About 475,000 Irish had been in British North America before the famine. At some point the United States was closing its doors on the Famine Irish, which may have helped them to settle in Canada. The immigrants that came to Canada were Protestants and Catholics (each about 50% of the Irish emigrants). The Protestants were welcomed just about everywhere in Canada because, hey they were British, English Speaking Portestants like most Canadians outside Quebec. The Irish Catholics didn't know where to go as they had the Language of English-Canada and the religion of French-Canada. But their hate of the English (England people) and their religion probably won for them as Quebec accepted them into their Province. Many irish orphans who had lost their parents on their way to Canada were adopted by Quebec families. That is the reason there are so many "French Canadians" with Irish names such as Donavan, O'Hara, O'Neill.... Since then the Irish have influenced Canadian Culture and have become part of our nation. Cabbage Town in Toronto for example is an example of Irish culture in Canada...

Anyway here goes for Canadians born in Ireland:

Hilary M. Weston is Ontario's Lieutenant Governor. She was born Hilary Frayne in Dublin, Ireland in 1942. She married Galen Weston in 1966. In 1979 she formed the Ireland Fund of Canada which funds community projects in Ireland. She was Deputy Chair of Holt Renfrew for 10 years and promoted Canadian Designers. She became Ontario's 26th Lieutenant Governor, representing the Queen in Ontario. Her official instalement was January 24, 1997.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee was born in Carlingford, Ireland, April 13, 1825. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to the United States and he started writing for the Boston Pilot. After some time he went to Dublin and started writing for a revolutionary papper. He was arrested as one of the leaders of the revolutionary episodes of 1848 but escaped and returned to the United States to write for revolutionary newspapers. In 1857 he moved to Montreal and there and published a paper called "The New Era". He entered politics and was elected to the Canadian Parliament. He changed his views to British Supremacy and has played a part in the Confederation. He was so Pro-British that a revolutionary Irishman killed him in Ottawa, April 7th, 1868.

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