Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement : : Patterns, Links, and Letters / / Cecil J. Houston, William J. Smyth.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Houston, Cecil J.,; Smyth, William J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (380 p.) :; figures, maps, tables, h/ts throughout

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- Part One: Links in Emigration -- 2. Emigrant Origins -- 3. The Emigrants -- 4. The Emigration Process -- Part Two: Patterns of Settlement -- 5. Settling In -- 6. Social and Religious Life -- 7. The Geography of Settlement -- Part Three: Lives and Letters -- 8. Nathaniel and Joseph Carrothers: Upper Canadian Pioneers -- 9. Jane White: Townswoman in Upper Canada -- 10. Alexander Robb: Adventures in British Columbia -- 11. Conclusion -- Notes -- Index