Prompted by a hint frae another forum member, I have been informed that…
“more Irish have died in Quebec than were killed during the whole of the Troubles”
Other than the quarantine station at Grosse Isle where 6000 people who died of disease whilst fleeing the famine are buried I am not aware of any Irish rebellion,pogrom or other form of death dealing event to the Irish in Quebec.Do any of ye know otherwise?Thanks…
slán go foill
Uilliam
Nor I. I suspect hype.
I have not heard of anything to match what you are referring to, Uilliam. There were lots of Irish immigrants who survived the coffin ships, landed and set up shop in Québec and Montréal, where they became part of the growing society there. There are some songs and tales of the usual immigrant’s woes, getting fleeced, going hungry, having to take the most menial work to survive, etc. but no class or race-based pogroms against the Irish per se - more against shiftless, unemployed beggars of any ilk, of which a few were certainly Irish, but not all.
Many of the Irish that landed in Canada quickly made their way to the US where they could join relatives and where prosperity may have seemed more likely (seems the borders were more open then 
). Conversely, after the building of the Erie canal in the US, many Irish labourers who had originally immigrated to the US moved up to Canada where land was cheaper, and no-one was too choosy about where they came from, as long as they had the money to pay their way.
djm
not on the scale you are talking about - but here’s an article on a riot in Louisville, KY in 1855 that was targeted at Irish and German Catholics:
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050731/NEWS0103/507310375
"…Stories of atrocities from that day in 1855 abounded, such as of an elderly longtime citizen whose murdered body was thrown into the flames of his burning property. The victim’s only “crime,” lamented the Daily Democrat newspaper, was “that he was an Irishman and a Catholic.”
Though Protestants were among the dead, most victims were Catholics targeted by mobs who feared the immigrants’ growing numbers.
Irish and German immigrants, most of them Catholic, made up nearly a quarter of Louisville’s population of 43,000 at the time, according to the Encyclopedia of Louisville. Most native-born residents were Protestant."
Uilliam,
Grosse Ile isn’t in Quebec CITY, it’s in the St. Laurence Seaway, about 30 miles downstream from Quebec City, but still in Quebec PROVINCE.
I thought you liked Irish people. Isn’t 6000 enough (in fact it was more like 5,600)? Aren’t typhus, colera, etc tragic enough without bullets and bombs?
What of the estimated 1,000 Irish orphans (both Catholic and Protestant) who were adopted by French-Canadian families after their parents had died on the coffin ships or in quarantine? I’m certain they’d consider what happened on Grosse Ile to be a tragedy.
PJ ye are being a bit disengenous arent ye?
It was yersel that was being a bit misleading in saying in a pm to me that more Irish died in Quebec than in the whole of the troubles.Ye didnae mention Gross Ile I did to ye!By inference ye were suggesting that I didnae know my history.
The discussion was in fact about Rule 21 which came about just at the start of the troubles and had nothing to do with an Gorta Mhor.
I was prepared to give ye the benefit of the doubt and hence my posting this thread.
So please don’t try and twist around to say that I don’t care about folks who die…I find that really offensive.
Slán Agat
Uilliam
Either there’s a lot more to the argument which is below the surface, or somoene is practising the martial art of the absurd.
I’ve never heared it put that way before! 
Invented by french intellectuals and used with devastating effect upon American universities, many of which STILL haven’t got the joke.
Apologies Uilliam. I was a bit flippant. What I mentioned in the PM was that more Irish had died in Quebec (approx 6000) than had died in the whole of the troubles (approx. 3100). This was to put into perspective that Quebec does have serious links with Ireland (I don’t consider myself a serious link between the two nations).
Many famine orphans were informally adopted by French Canadian families to the extent that to this day you’ll find many O’Flynns, O’Briens, Murphys, etc., living in Quebec City. They’ll be French speaking but will insist they’re Irish.
I’ll leave it at that.
Peace
“more Irish have died in Quebec than were killed during the whole of the Troubles” is what ye said…not
more Irish had died in Quebec (approx 6000) than had died in the whole of the troubles (approx. 3100). There is a significant difference between succumbing to disease and being killed + ye did not give any figures in your mail…so here are a few for ye to digest…
Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1937)
“Killed on the Irish side”:
1 Jan. 1919-12 June 1921: 752
21 June 1920-18 June 1922: 428
Add to this the figure of 3000 since 1969
Gives ye a figure of 4180 not as ye quote 3100.Add to that if ye like the figure for one year 1798 of anything from 10000 to 33000 and ye have quite astonishing numbers of violent death in Ireland covering a mere 200years.The 1798 Rebellion is close enough historically to influence the 1916 Rebellion and in fact did so.If ye were to mention Grosse Ile ,in the 1st place,which ye didnae, then we wouldnae be having this discussion at all methinks. :roll:
Peace
Uilliam
Here’s a relavant Canadian minute.
(movie with sound)
http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10165
Whoa! Cool, t-neck. I didn’t know they’d put those on the web. Thanks for the link.
djm
Uilliam,
Redefining “the Troubles” to include the 1798 Rebellion, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, is certainly original. I’m pretty sure Tim Pat Coogan didn’t even do that.
Against such creative thinking, all I can do is concede defeat.
(The devil emitocons have nothing to do with my post. I just want to use them before they’re banned from forum 
)
I wouldn’t call it devastating in that case.
Thanks turtleneck. It’s funny to look at a map of Quebec city region. There’s Shannon, Armagh, even Ireland, all within a stone’s throw of the city. Go there and speak English, and precious few will understand you.
Head up the sauguenay to the land of the Bourkes (Burke) and Blackburns, and no one will understand you.
PJ I knew ye would ask this so here is my thinking…take 1916 as the central catalyst for the founding of the Republic…
go back to 1798 the year of the Rebellion and the beginning of Nationalism and the idea of a Republic being formed…
just 118years in total.
Go forward to today 2005 (although there is a cease fire and the provos are disbanded the Loyalists are still killing each other) just 89 years in total.
So ye see the two dates and every thing that went between are close enough historically to be classified as interrelated,and valid to be used statistically.
More so as the figures relate to violent death and not calamitous disease!
As for creative thinking I think ye take the title for that by introducing Grosse Ile!
“The Troubles” is not my definition of the times but a rather tidy tabloid expression.Many rural folk in Ireland in the 30’s referred to them as "The Crossness"We even have the past 30years refered to as the "Recent Troubles"so by inferrence we can use the term “Past Troubles!”
Nah…I am afraid serious history reflects the true titles for these events as ye have correctly identified Rebellion Rising and 2 Wars. Independence and Civil…
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam
Just a little anecdote regarding Grosse Ile. In the 1909 the Ancient Order of Hibernians erected a High Cross on Grosse Ile. The base of the cross is square, as you’d expect. On one side there’s an inscription of all the Catholic priests (from memory, approx. 20) who died treating the sick on Grosse Ile. On another side, in English, is the dedication of the Memorial - something to the effect of “Sacred to the memory of thousands of Irish emigrants who, to preserve the faith, suffered hunger and exile, in 1847-48, and stricken with fever ended here their sorrowful pligrimage”. On the 3rd side, there’s the french translation of the same thing.
But on the 4th side, the AOH inscribed the dedication of the Memorial in Irish. Basically, it’s not a translation of the English/French dedication but goes more along the lines of “Thousands of children of the Gael were lost on this island while fleeing the foreign tyrannical laws and an artificial famine in the years 1847-48”. I’ll try get the full Irish text and post it.
It is hard to give an exact number of Catholics, be they french or celtic, who died in early Canada. You know those pretty pictures of french canadians in touques pushing sleds by a frozen river? Those sleds are probably full of dead family members.
A good many Irish died in Atlantic Canada, Lower Canada and later on during the building of the lovely canals in Upper Canada, we have our own Irish memorial at the end of the Rideau canal here. I see little point in arguing about who can claim the most Irish deaths.