Irish Canadian - Irish in Quebec

Irish in Quebec

Irish established communities in both urban and rural Quebec. Irish immigrants arrived in large numbers in Montreal during the 1840s and were hired as labourers to build the Victoria Bridge, living in a tent city at the foot of the bridge. Here, workers unearthed a mass grave of 6,000 Irish immigrants who had died at nearby Windmill Point in the typhus outbreak of 1847-48. The Irish Commemorative Stone or "Black Rock," as it is commonly known, was erected by bridge workers to commemorate the tragedy.

The Irish would go on to settle permanently in the close-knit working-class neighbourhoods of Pointe-Saint-Charles, Griffintown and Goose Village, Montreal. With the help of Quebec's Catholic Church, they would establish their own churches, schools, and hospitals. St. Patrick's Basilica was founded in 1847 and served Montreal's English-speaking Catholics for over a century. Loyola College was founded by the Jesuits to serve Montreal's mostly Irish English-speaking Catholic community in 1896. Saint Mary's Hospital was founded in the 1920s and continues to serve Montreal's present-day English-speaking population. The St. Patrick's Day Parade in Montreal is one of the oldest in North America, dating back to 1824. It annually attracts crowds of over 600,000 people.

The Irish would also settle in large numbers in Quebec City and establish communities in rural Quebec, particularly in such regions as Pontiac, Gatineau and Papineau where there was an active timber industry. However, most would move on to larger North American cities.

Many Irish immigrants would also assimilate into French-Canadian society. After the disaster at Grosse-Île (see above), many Irish children were left as orphans in a new country. The Catholic Church would arrange for these children to be adopted by French Canadians in Lower Canada. Some of these children kept their Irish surnames (Caissie to Kessy, Riel to Reilly..). A common Catholic religion also allowed Irish immigrants to intermarry with French Canadians, and children would often speak French as a first language.

Today, many Québécois have some Irish ancestry. Examples are Daniel Johnson, Claude Ryan, the former Premier Jean Charest, and the late Georges Dor (born Georges-Henri Dore). The Irish constitute the second largest ethnic group in the province after the French Canadians and one estimate suggests that as many as 40 percent of the French-speaking Quebecers have some Irish ancestry.