The Irish in Atlantic Canada 1780-1900

David Schweitzer is a British and European history lecturer at the
University of Guelph.

This is a collection of several essays that take as their common theme
the experience of Irish immigrants to Canada in the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. T.M. Punch begins by uncovering evidence of
anti-Irish prejudice in literature in Nova Scotia throughout much of the
nineteenth century, by such local dignitaries as Abraham Gesner and
Joseph Howe. A.J.B. Johnson then continues the theme of anti-Irish
sentiment in Nova Scotia by taking a closer look at those feelings in
the 1840s and 1850s.

J.J. Mannion uses the migration of a small group of persons from the
parish of Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny, to Newfoundland in order to tell us
more about the background, course, and character of the immigration
process itself and the patterns found in adapting to life in
Newfoundland in the context of the homeland tradition. The scene then
changes again, as R. Bittermann uncovers connections between the
agrarian activism found in pre-famine Ireland and the Escheat movement
on Prince Edward Island. The comparison is provided largely in the
context of Whiteboyism in Ireland, especially since many emigrants came
from the south of Ireland, where Whiteboys were most active. The fifth
essay takes up yet another thread: the problems of disease and
immigration in New Brunswick in 1847. Both the province and the city of
Saint John were caught unprepared in 1847 for the sudden increase in the
number of immigrants from Ireland, many of whom were weak from
starvation or ship fever or typhus. Much of the essay concerns Partridge
Island, which is the topic of the following piece (by H.E. Wright) on
the marine, military, and immigration history of the island. The
collection concludes with an essay by the editor, T.P. Power, which
identifies the main collections (public and private) in the Provincial
Archives of New Brunswick in Fredericton, which are vital reading for
scholars of the Irish in New Brunswick or Atlantic Canada. Indeed, those
scholars should consider this collection as an important part of their
reference literature for the valuable light it sheds on the experience
of the Irish immigrant in the region.