Irish Canadian - Irish in Ontario

Irish in Ontario

From the times of early European settlement in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Irish had been coming to Ontario, in small numbers and in the service of New France as missionaries, soldiers, geographers and fur trappers.

After the creation of British North America in 1763, Protestant Irish, both Irish Anglicans and Ulster-Scottish Presbyterians had been migrating over the decades to Upper Canada, some as United Empire Loyalists or directly from Ulster.

In the years after the War of 1812, an increasing numbers of Irish, a growing number Catholic, were venturing to Canada to obtain work on projects such as canals, roads, railroads and in the lumber industry. The labourers were known as ‘navvies’ and built much of the early infrastructure in the province. Settlement schemes offering cheap (or free) land brought over farmer families. Munster (particularly Tipperary and Cork) were frequent sources of these migrants. Peter Robinson organized land settlements of Catholic tenant farmers in the 1820s to areas of rural Eastern Ontario, which helped establish Peterborough as a regional centre.

The Irish were instrumental in the building of the Rideau Canal. Along side French-Canadians, thousands of Irish laboured tirelessly in difficult terrain. Hundreds, if not thousands, died because of malaria.