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History General

Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement

Patterns, Links, and Letters

by (author) Cecil J. Houston & William J. Smyth

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 1990
Category
General, Pre-Confederation (to 1867), Ireland
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487590284
    Publish Date
    Dec 1990
    List Price
    $26.95

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Description

In mid-nineteenth-century Canada, the Irish outnumbered the English and Scots two to one. Yet they have been much less studied than their US counterparts, even though their experience was very different. Irish settlers arrived earlier in Canada, formed a larger proportion of the founding communities, and were largely rural-based; more than half were Protestant. The Famine provided only a rather late part of the Irish emigration to Canada, which took place principally between 1816 and 1855.

 

The authors evaluate both emigration and settlement and present as well revealing personal documents about intense, often painful experiences of the settlers. Part I explores the geographical links – particularly the phenomenon of chain migration – that shaped decisions to leave Ireland. Part II examines patterns of settlement in the new land. Part III, with biographies of immigrants and collections of letters written home, chronicles personal and social life in the new land and the abiding interest in family and friends in Canada and back in Ireland. The documents illustrate links and patterns revealed in the earlier analysis of emigration and settlement; they also offer an additional, intimate perspective on a key phase in the cultural history of Canada and Ireland.

About the authors

Cecil J. Houston is a member of the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto.

Cecil J. Houston's profile page

William J. Smyth is the president emeritus of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and a past president of the Geographical Society of Ireland and the Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland.

William J. Smyth's profile page