Overview

In the summer of 1847, over four hundred ships arrived in the Gulf of St Lawrence, carrying Irish men, women, and children who were fleeing the starvation and misery of the Great Potato Famine. Tens of thousands of famine refugees rebuilt their lives in different parts of Canada, in places urban and rural, Anglophone and Francophone. Though still a young province within the British Empire, Canada would be marked permanently and in significant ways by this mass migration. Canada and the Great Irish Famine examines how people confronted, experienced, and remembered the famine migration. Essays consider the transatlantic voyage; the collection of donations and organization of aid; the challenges encountered by the cities of Quebec, Saint John, Montreal, Toronto, Kingston, and Hamilton and their public debates over the impact of so many new arrivals; the accompanying problems of disease, destitution, mental illness, death, and burial; the stories of orphaned children; and expressions of famine memory. The worst demographic catastrophe in nineteenth-century Europe inspired generations of political writings, artistic and literary endeavours, and commemorative practices, and it was woven into narratives of Irish nationalism and the founding of Canada. Canada and the Great Irish Famine provides a new perspective on the social outcomes of Ireland's famine migration as well as on the resilience and adaptability of the receiving communities and the migrants themselves.

Full Product Details

Author:   William Jenkins
Publisher:   McGill-Queen's University Press
Imprint:   McGill-Queen's University Press
ISBN:  

9780228025863

ISBN 10:   0228025869
Pages:   378
Publication Date:   14 October 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  General ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xiii Canada Calls to Ireland xvii Introduction: “A Calamity to the Province” 3 William Jenkins 1 Shipwrecks and Society: Press Reports of the Irish Emigrant Passage to Canada, 1845–55 55 Cian T. McMahon 2 Via the Port and into the City: The Irish Famine Migration to Quebec in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 73 Robert J. Grace 3 Saving Ireland from Famine: Canada’s Role in 1847 111 Christine Kinealy 4 Catholic Orphans in Protestant Towns: The Churches and the Irish Famine Orphans in British North America, 1847–48 144 Mark G. McGowan 5 Stephen De Vere’s “Political Lesson”: A Case Study of Famine Irish Emigration, Settlement, and Political and Social Unrest 164 Jason King 6 Encountering a Ravaged People in the Modern City: The Impact of the Irish Famine Migration on Montreal’s Urban Landscape 190 Dan Horner 7 Making Space for the Irish: Toronto before and after the 1847 Migration 217 William Jenkins 8 Madness in the Season of Famine and Distress: Famine Migration, Irish Insanity, and Toronto’s Provincial Lunatic Asylum, 1841–48 251 Max Smith 9 “Mournful fragments of … the Irish Exodus”? Literary Representations of Irish Canadian Famine Immigration in the Periodical Press 272 Marguérite Corporaal 10 “A Most Historically Gruesome Ground”: The Burial and Commemoration of Famine Irish in Hamilton, 1847–1927 292 Laura J. Smith Contributors 325 Index 329

Reviews

""Leading historians illuminate the Famine Irish experience in Canada in discerning and profound ways. An enduringly important contribution."" Mary C. Kelly, Franklin Pierce University and editor of Navigating Historical Crosscurrents in the Irish Atlantic: Essays for Catherine B. Shannon “Canada and the Great Irish Famine provides a rich and long-overdue reassessment, offering yardsticks with which to measure the Atlantic Canadian and Western experiences.” Kevin James, University of Guelph

Author Information

William Jenkins is associate professor of history at York University and the current president of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies. He is the author of Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867–1916.

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