Spring 2019 $4.99
HUGO BOSS! the
Now available at the LCBO.
IS YOUR HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE? Kylemore Abbey, County Galway
Because it wants to come home. Home to family, friends, stories. Home to festivals, traditional music, and the Irish pub. Home to majestic landscapes and fabulous feasts. You know the places. They’re the castles silhouetted against fiery sunsets, the islands that stir you with their beauty, the towns like Westport that pulsate with energy, and the iconics sites like Kylemore Abbey that are etched with true love. And when it comes to those legendary 100,000 welcomes, well‌ They say you should always listen to your heart, and it wants to be in the right place. Serving Dublin airport and connecting cities across Canada, Toronto offers year-round direct flights to Ireland. Find your way home at CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
3
Counting down to
Spring and All Things Green!
Eleanor Reynolds Publisher/Editor ECG www.ellie-corp.com Sales, Marketing & Creative Direction
W
elcome to the Spring Edition of Celtic Canada! We are excited to bring you some wonderful articles of interest from the recent discovery of the first ever event commemorating Saint Patrick in the U.S. held in St. Augustine, La
Florida in 1600, and the first St. Patrick’s parade/procession in the whole world took place here in 1601. Featuring Hugo the Boss!!! Hugo Straney, it may just be a parodied lyric of U2’s song Every Breaking Wave but it truly befits Hugo Straney’s life and journey from Belfast to Toronto! If you’ve ever visited Ireland in the spring you know it is one of the most majestic places to be
Graphic Design Prism Studios Advertising & Design Inc. Contributors Colin Barry Rick Frayne Gary Knight David K. McDonnell Cormac Monaghan Christine Graef Shauna Dickson James Burt Paul Loftus Advertise Now Visit: www.celticcanada.com Email: info@celticcanada.com Call: 416-845-9900 Articles for submission Visit: www.celticcanada.com Email: info@celticcanada.com
this time of year. Fields are blanketed in wildflowers, painting a picture fit for a postcard with lambs frolicking among the flourishing and vibrant plants. Here in Canada, blossoming buds and singing songbirds are here to clear the bitter winter air with their delightful presence. A new season has arrived and after a true Canadian winter it is safe to say we deserve a proper Spring! Check out the latest fashions from Irish Design located in Niagara on The Lake! From family favourites like Lamb Hot Pot Stew, Colcannon, Shamrock Soup finished off with Shamrock Cup Cakes culinary delights to celebrate Spring! Happy St. Patrick’s Day! “Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhaoibh!
Come join us!! Are you a member of a Celtic club or institution? Why not drop us a line. Are you in charge of a special Celtic event? Let us know. Do you own a Celtic business or provide a service that you would like to share with the 9 million Canadians claiming Celtic Heritage? Advertise with us. If it’s Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Breton or Cornish, we want to know about it. If you have a Celtic related
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story, interview, review or production, we want to see it. Together we can build the most comprehensive multi-media platform for all things Celtic in Canada. Please join us on the journey.
Facebook www.facebook.com/celticcanada1 Twitter @CelticCanada Disclaimer: Opinions or viewpoints expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Celtic Canada and/or ECG. Where materials and content were prepared by persons or entities other than CC/ECG, the said other persons and /or entities are solely responsible for their content. We reserve the right to edit all submitted articles prior to publication. 4
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
At What Age Should I Start Collecting CPP? By Colin Barry
C
anadian’s have some flexibility
There can be benefits of hedging your
about when to take CPP. This
bets and taking CPP early and saving it in a
flexibility allows us to have
TFSA or RRSP (if you have the room). You
better control about when we take income
would need invest to expect high rates of
and pay tax on that income. It’s almost
return for this to work. The rate of return
impossible to know that you are taking
would need to make up for the lower CPP
CPP at the best possible time. There is no
levels. It can be a good approach for one
simple rule-of-thumb that we can apply.
spouse to do that while the other defers
Here are some things to consider that can
CPP.
help you determine what the best time for
Once CPP starts it does not stop. You only
When should I make the decision?
you might be.
get one chance to make a right decision.
How much do I get?
circumstances they may need to take the CPP
I find the best approach is to make the
income as soon as it is available. For others it
CPP decision each year starting at age 60.
can be delayed to a later time.
By doing this you have the best information
Some people don’t have an option. Due to
For 2019, the largest CPP payment is $1,154.58 per month at age 651. Taking CPP early reduces the amount you receive. Starting CPP at age 60 reduces it to $738.93 per month. Taking CPP late increases the benefit. Starting CPP at age 70 increases it to $1,639.50 per month.
Timing CPP is a big decision.
available to you. You can reliability estimate
When is the best time for me to start collecting CPP?
tax rates and health levels. If you are in a high
My clients often ask me when is the best
sense to defer CPP a while. Since you can opt
time to start taking CPP. There are many
into CPP at any time between age 60 and 70
factors to consider. Other sources of income,
you can even make the decision every month.
tax rates, income needs, expected rate of
If a person decides to start CPP at age 70
tax bracket and in good health it may make
For a couple approaching age 60 it is
return, expected inflation, RRSP room, TFSA
a $400,000 decision that you get to make
rather than age 60 they will have received
room, OAS benefits, CPP survivor benefits,
once. It certainly pays to get an analysis done
$182,000 more CPP by age 94. Double that
pension splitting … all play a part. Longevity
for you by a Certified Financial Planner.
figure for a couple. The Canadian Pensioners’
is a very big factor. Unfortunately, we can
That way you can be confident that you are
Mortality Table tells us that surviving to age
only guess about how long we have.
making the most appropriate decision for
94 is possible. For a 60-year-old couple, there
If someone delays taking CPP income they
is a 50% chance that one of them will live to
can get more CPP. But they can also miss
age 942. It’s potentially a $400,000 decision.
out on the benefit they die early. If someone expects to live a long
(905) 829-0094 www.colinbarry.ca
your circumstances. About Colin Barry – Canfin Financial Group Colin Barry is a Certified Financial
life then deferring
Planner who works with families and small
CPP can make
businesses to plan their finances and make
sense. The chart
the most of what they have. Visit
below compares
www.colinbarry.ca for more information.
different CPP start
Fee for service financial planning and
times. The age that
investments provided through Canfin
a decision to defer
Magellan Investments Inc. Insurance
CPP breaks even is
provided through Canfin Capital Inc.
roughly between the
1 h ttps://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/public pensions/cpp/cpp-benefit/amount.html 2 http://fpsc.ca/docs/default-source/FPSC/newspublications/2018-projection-assumption-guidelines.pdf
ages of 73 and 81.
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
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The First
St. Patrick Day Parade in the World was 1601 in St. Augustine
C
elebrate the 419th anniversary of the World’s Original St. Patrick’s Day Parade. A recent discovery proves that the first event commemorating Saint Patrick in the U.S. was held in St. Augustine, La Florida in 1600, and the first St. Patrick’s parade/procession in the whole world took place in here 1601. These pre-date Boston’s claim to the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in 1737, and New York City’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1762. Dr. J. Michael Francis, Chair of Florida Studies at University of South Florida, discovered the documents in Spain last
Winter. They reveal that in the year 1600 in St. Augustine, Florida, Spring festivities included a feast day of San Patricio (St. Patrick). The following year 1601, Spanish St. Augustine’s Irish pastor, Ricardo Artur (Richard Arthur) led the first St. Patrick Day
procession ever documented anywhere in the world!” The documentation was found in a gunpowder expenditures log in Spain’s Archivo General de Indias, because they fired the cannons in the fort to celebrate St. Patrick!
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celticcanada.com/celtic-maple-leaf-collection/ 6
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
St. Augustine is an Authentic Center of Celtic–American Culture More than half the residents of St. Augustine can claim an ancestor from Scotland, Ireland, Wales or one of the other Seven Celtic Nations.
St. Augustine has a very long Celtic History, including Father Miguel O’Reilly who built our Cathedral, and Spanish Governor Sebastian Kindelan y O’Regan, whose name is still on the 1812 Spanish Constitución monument in our Plaza. There were six Colonial Florida Governors with Irish, Scottish or Welsh last names. The Hibernia Regiment (Irishmen) was stationed here by Spain, and most remarkably, “The Nation’s Oldest City” was founded in 1565 by soldiers and colonists from the northern, Celtic region of Spain. Aviles, our Sister City there, still celebrates its Celtic roots today. St. Augustine was founded by Celts… Spanish Celts!
SAVE THE DATE March 9, 2019 at 10:00am The St. Augustine St. Patrick’s Day Parade will take place in downtown St. Augustine with more than 50 units, and more than 1,000 participants, including Clans and athletes from the Highland Games. The parade travels down Orange Street to Avenida Menendez (the bayfront), then to Cathedral Place, next on Cordova Street, then back to Orange Street. Then follow the parade to the Celtic Festival.
March 8-10, 2019
In America’s Oldest CELTIC City, St Augustine, Florida, USA “The finest Celtic MUSIC Festival in the United States ”
8 of the top 100 Celtic Bands in the world
PLUS the WORLD’S ORIGINAL St. Patrick Day Parade (1601 in St. Augustine)
The Gothard Sisters Find the CELT in YOU in America’s Oldest Celtic City at the St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival, with 8 of the top Celtic Bands in the world, The St. Augustine Highland Games, Celtic artisans and food, two stages and so much more. March 8-10, 2019. The St. Augustine St. Patrick’s Day Parade and The St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival are produced by nonprofit Romanza St. Augustine and funded in part by the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council, Visit Florida, and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs.
The St. Augustine Highland Games, Celtic artisans, Celtic food, and MORE! proudly presented by:
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019 SACF 2019 Celtic Canada Ad.indd 1
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1/14/19 9:10:48 PM
The Porteous Riot Edinburgh 1736 By Gary Knight
T
he village of Pittenweem is a charming and picturesque fishing village in the East Neuk of Fife. With its hermits cave, old church tower once used as a prison and tales of witches, you can feel the history seeping into your very bones as you explore its narrow winding streets. A plaque on the gable end of a house in Routine Row in the village gives the viewer a clue to a crime commit-ted in Pittenweem. This misdemeanour was to have repercussions in Edinburgh and lead to one of the darkest stories in the capitals long history. Leading to an occasion when the population of the city denied justice for a terrible massacre took control of the town and dished out its own form of retribution. The plaque states that “near this spot stood the Inn where the tax-gatherer was robbed by smugglers giving rise to the Porteous Riots in 1736.” This plaque goes on “Sir Walter Scott has immortalised this event in The Heart of Midlothian”.
The origins to this story took place when smugglers Andrew Wilson, George Robertson with an unnamed third man robbed the Commissioner of Customs in Pittenweem. Wilson and Robertson were both caught and brought to trial in Edinburgh, they were found guilty and sentenced to hang in the city’s Grassmarket. It was the custom to take condemned prisoners to St Giles Kirk in Edinburgh’s
8
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
Royal Mile to wor-ship on the Sunday before the execution. The church sat right next to the site of the Tolbooth where the town council sat and prisoners were held. On Sunday morning both men under escort and shackled were led into the church, all eyes turned to stare at the felons. At a time of high taxation, smugglers were held in high regard by the popu-lace. To smuggle contraband into the country was thought as honourable and patriotic. Suddenly a commotion broke out in the church as Wilson grabbed two of his guards and bit into the collar of the third. As he did this, he signalled on Robertson to run. George Robertson did not need to be told twice the prisoner violently shoved aside a fourth guard and as the parishioners stepped aside, Robertson bolted out the door and disappeared in the maze of closes and wynds that ran off the High Street. Robertson managed to get through the town gates, he then made his way to Dunbar where he boarded a ship about to sail for Holland. Wilson was overpowered and taken back to the Tolbooth to await his hanging. The date for the execution was the 14th of April 1736 as the crowds gathered the city authorities were expecting trouble as they knew Wilson was a hero to the townsfolk for his act of selfless courage in helping his friend escape. The 50 strong men of the Town Guard commanded by Captain John Porteous were called out into the streets along with 150 soldiers brought down into the city from the castle. Porteous was upset by the presence of the troops from the citadel, he saw their existence in the town as a slight on his authority, to him it was evident that he was not trusted to keep order. Porteous in a bad mood and perhaps drunk on the day of the hanging was very rough with Wilson when he took him from the Tolbooth to the gallows. The hanging of Andrew
Wilson went without incident the crowd remained silent and respectful. It was only when a few of the dead man’s friends tried to cut the body down from the gibbet that things turned nasty. Seeing the attempts to retrieve the body Porteous in a rage grabbed a musket from one of his men and fired at the scaffold. All hell broke loose as the crowd now enraged picked up rocks, stones and clods of earth and launched them at the soldiers. As serious troubled flared, John Porteous ordered his Town Guard to line the street and fire upon the rioters consisting of many women and children. Some of the soldiers not wanting to fire on unharmed citizens fired over the crowd, but their shots hit and killed three people who were looking down onto the disturbance below from their win-dows. At the end of the day, nine people lay dead in the street with many more wounded. Captain Porteous was arrested, tried and found guilty for murder, he was sentenced to death and held in the Tolbooth. The populace watched the gallows being erected for the hanging which was to take place on the 7th of September 1736. Now the Edinburgh citizens would see justice being served. In the days leading to the execution, a rumour was spreading through the streets that the Queen had issued a pardon for Porteous and that the messenger was making his way up from London. Evidence of this was evident when it was seen that the gallows were being dismantled. When John Porteous
heard of the expected pardon, he held a party in his cell with his friends who brought food and drink. In fact, King George II was overseas in Hanover and the queen had issued a temporary respite to Porteous until the monarch had returned and could himself contem-plate the sentence. On the night of the 6th of September, just before the city gates were to be shut the guards were attacked and overpowered by some men from within the town. The gates were locked and barred. A large mob collected in the High Street outside the Tolbooth. The building was as-saulted as the crowd tried to kick in the front door which proved to be too strong. It was set alight and once the flames had weakened the structure, the crowd gained entry. When Porte-ous’s cell was entered, they could not find him, he was soon found trying to hide up the chimney breast. Dressed in his night clothes, he was dragged outside and forcefully led up the High Street towards the Grassmarket. On the way, some of the mob smashed a window of a shop selling rope and a length was taken, they left enough money to pay for the goods and any damage done. In the Grassmarket Captain John Porteous was lynched by the mob on a pole sticking out
from a dyers shop. When the news of this event reached London, the Government were furious. The City Council of Edinburgh were suspended, the Lord Provost disqualified for life and sacked. The city was fined £2,000 and although substantial rewards were offered for information and names of anyone in-volved no one was ever brought to charge for the murder. John Porteous was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard and there his grave can still be seen. A plaque to commemorate his horrific death was erected on the site in 2000 by the Porteous Asso-ciation and can be seen in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. John Porteous had a reputation of violently putting down any disorder in the City of Edinburgh. At the execution of Andrew Wilson, he was in a terrible mood and was said by some to have been drinking.
When trouble flared after the hanging, the Riot Act should have been read to the crowd and the masses given the opportunity to disperse peacefully. Instead, he ordered his men to fire on a crowd of civilians in what became the infamous Porteous Riot.
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
9
New in Fiction:
The Shining Fragments The Irish Orphan Who Reached Across Time to Bring a Toronto Author Home
T
he story of The Shining Fragments, a work of historical fiction set in late 19th-century Toronto, lies both on and off the page. Through the eyes of Irish orphan, Joseph Conlon, the city’s past comes vividly to life. So, too, do the challenges faced by the Irish – and particularly by Irish Catholics – in their new land. There is the story, also, of the novel’s creation, one in which author Robin Blackburn McBride finds kinship and community in present-day McBride with author Northern Ireland Wayson Choy on launch and a deeper sense night at Ben McNally Books in Toronto, fall 2018 of connection with her ancestors. Spanning the years 1882-1904, The Shining Fragments explores the ramifications of abandonment, obsession, love, memory, and visionary power. We follow Joseph
Conlon from his early childhood in Ulster, to his experiences of youth and adulthood as an immigrant. He arrives in Toronto, aged 8, and is left behind at Union Station like so much forgotten luggage. He grows up in a city bleak with bigotry. He discovers that he has artistic talent and becomes a designer of stained-glass windows. Joseph is haunted by the spirit of his unborn sister, Annie, and the powerful and often conflicting influences of the women in his life. “When Joseph lay down, he gave in to the silence that replaced the ringing in his head. The nun sat on a chair beside his bed. She was a bird on the ship’s rail and her eye was a perfect circle. She was a granite angel in St. Patrick’s churchyard. She might have had wings. She was the moon’s face drifting across the blanket of night, watching over him.” McBride began working on The Shining Fragments in the early aughts while juggling a teaching career and responsibilities as a young mother. She travelled to Northern Ireland twice to research the book, and spent countless hours exploring the Toronto archives and walking the city’s streets and ravines. Her determined aim: to bring her
McBride reading from her novel at Word Up Barrie, Fall 2018 10
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
characters and this time period to life. “I was yearning to write fiction, and this little boy just began speaking to me, whispering to me, wanting his story to be known. Joseph was speaking to me through my sleeping dreams and my waking dreams,” she says. Joseph comes from Darkley, near Keady, in County Armagh. McBride was fascinated
Reading with author H. Nigel Thomas at Paragraphe Books in Montreal, October 2018
landscape that I’d been dreaming by what life there at that time of in Canada, and that was alive would be like, and how a in my imagination,” McBride trip to Canada by ship and recalls. train would feel and be She was hosted by the experienced by a little boy. former Curator of the “In my imagination Armagh County Museum, I was seeing the homes Roger Weatherup, and his that Joseph lived in, the wife Anne. “They invited fields he walked in, and I me to stay with them in their wrote a number of scenes home, and became my surrogate before I crossed the ocean parents while I was away,” myself and walked in those same McBride reading with author H. Nigel Thomas she says. “I remember Anne fields. I literally walked into at Paragraphe Books in putting her arm around me and the scenes that I had written Montreal, Fall 2018 welcoming me home, which back in Toronto. The vision-toI found very strangely and manifestation process occurred beautifully moving, as some of just as powerfully in Northern my ancestors had come from Ireland, where I received that area.” clarity on the book’s McBride has always had Toronto ending while a passion for history. “I sitting under a tree at dusk loved doing the research on Navan Fort.” for this book. I would turn Robin treasures the a corner while walking, view community of kind-hearted something individuals she came to and wonder, know on both sides of the ‘what was that ocean as part of her research. Ottawa launch night, like 50 years “I was generously supported. I The Art House Café, ago, 150 years travelled to Northern Ireland October 2018 ago’. for extended periods to research “I knew that in order to the book and, of course, write. I was warmly bring this period sharply welcomed by the community – by people into focus, I would need who, ultimately, were key to book’s coming to know it,” McBride says. into form.” And she does, in realistic Within minutes of her having arrived scenes of Toronto’s street in Armagh she met Trevor Geary, a life, a Catholic orphanage, local historian passionate and deeply knowledgeable about his land and the people a flour mill, and a stained glass studio, as those places who lived there. Navan Fort, 2005 would have appeared at “We were in Trevor’s hatchback driving the time. through the Armagh fields and touring the
Navan Fort, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, 2005 A significant setting in The Shining Fragments.
Wayson Choy, eminent Canadian novelist, memoirist, short-story writer, and Order of Canada recipient, was among the novel’s early supporters. He wrote this about The Shining Fragments, “Here is a convincing drama of an Irish boy who, after being abandoned in Union Station, seeks to make himself a life. What appealed to me is that the story is uniquely set in a well-researched, turn-of-the-century Toronto. The struggling characters come from all classes and, most important, their dramatic interactions are told with a gripping, compassionate power.” For 20 years McBride taught at Toronto’s Branksome Hall. In 2002 Guernica Editions published a collection of her poetry, In Green. In 2016 her self-help eBook, Birdlight: Freeing Your Authentic Creativity, became an Amazon Best Seller. That book has since been released in paperback and as an audio book. In addition to being an author, McBride is a speaker and coach in human potential. The Shining Fragments is her first novel.
The Lake of Treasures (Navan Fort in the distance), 2005 CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
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Canada’s Worst ummer Ever S By David K. McDonnell (© David K. McDonnell)
1
847 is “Black 47” in Ireland -- the worst of a short span of years in which well over a million Irish died of starvation and famine-related diseases and an equal number left the island forever. Thousands of Irish were forcibly evicted from their peasant huts and small potato fields, and placed aboard ships bound for Canada. They arrived in the summer of 1847, bringing contagious diseases with them. Canada never had a worse summer.
The Famine Centuries of English efforts to subdue the Irish led to a continual cycle of Irish rebellion and defeat, and English confiscation of rebel lands after each Irish defeat. Irish were pushed onto ever smaller parcels and onto land not especially suitable for agriculture. Such small parcels had to somehow support an extended family of three, sometimes four, generations living in the same peasant hut. Nearly all of Ireland was owned by English landlords, with the Irish living as tenants on their own island, at atrociously high rent. For the Irish tenant farmer, only one crop could grow on a few acres with sufficient yield to sustain a large family -- the potato. Potatoes are incredibly rich in calories, protein and essential nutrients. The rural Irish didn’t live on potatoes because they liked them, but because they didn’t have income with which to buy anything else to eat. The potato diet kept the Irish hovering around the subsistence level for over a hundred years. This is a polite way of saying that rural Irish starved when crops failed, and lived when the crops did not. The island saw many crop failures before, but never what occurred in 1845 and the several years thereafter, in what some call the “Potato Famine”. In Ireland, it’s An Gorta Mor – the Great Hunger.
The culprit in 1845 was a fungus-like critter called Phytophthera infestans, and if conditions are right, these critters are potato eating machines. Coffin ship memorial in County Mayo, Ireland. It’s a sculpture by John Behan of Conditions were a sail ship with riggings of human skeletons and bones. perfect in Ireland Photographs by Linda McDonnell, © Burrowing Owl Press. during the another. Hunger years. About one-third of Ireland’s Some Irish died from starvation. Others potato crop was destroyed in 1845 but 1846 from famine fever. Somewhere between one was worse. Every potato field, anywhere in and 1 ½ million died in the several years of Ireland, was destroyed. the Hunger The winter of 1847 was especially harsh -- one of the coldest of record. The starving The Evictions Irish (or at least, those who survived that On an island of over eight million people, long) wore every item of clothing they fewer than 10,000 families owned all of had and huddled together for warmth the land in Ireland. Even this number is under a single blanket. Every other article overstated -- most of Ireland was owned by of clothing or bedding, and every other several hundred wealthy families. These were personal possession, had been pawned long the descendants of the English who acquired before. Strangers, roaming the countryside the land confiscated centuries earlier from scrounging for food, joined in to keep warm. the Irish. Some of these estates were large One creature did reasonably well in this farming operations, growing oats, barley or environment – the body louse. Lice live wheat or raising cattle or sheep, with Irish quite nicely on dirty clothes. They freely laborers. Others were subdivided into small move from person to person, and feed off tenant farms. human blood. Lice are bothersome, in and of To the Irish landlords, conditions in themselves, but they are also vectors of other Ireland became intolerable in 1847. It organisms. Lice pick up a microorganism by wasn’t the starving, diseased Irish that sucking the blood of an infected human, and distressed them so. It was that the starving, transmit it when biting the next. diseased Irish weren’t paying rent. And it Typhus is caused by one such was apparent that Irish tenants never would microorganism, but there are a few others. be able to pay sufficient rent to support the Bacterial dysentery, hunger edema, cholera, landlords’ lavish lifestyle. scurvy and others prey on the starving and The landlords came up with a solution. malnourished. The Irish didn’t know much The Irish had to go. The Irish tenant and the about microbiology. All of these diseases small potato fields would be replaced with were called “famine fever”. Hundreds of open graze land suitable for cows and sheep, thousands died from one famine fever or Continued on page 14
12
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
13
Continued from page 12 – C ANADA’S
WORST SUMMER EVER
or plowed over and replaced with oats, barley or wheat. These other crops continued to grow well in Ireland – the only crop affected by the blight was the potato. What followed was massive, wholesale eviction of Irish tenants. Tenant cottages and entire villages were torn down. Cottages infected with fever were burned. Homelessness was added to the woes of the starving and diseased.
The Coffin Ships
What made the fever tragedy especially ironic for both the Irish and the Canadians is that the Irish aboard the trans-Atlatic ships really did not want to go to Canada. If they had to leave Ireland, they wanted to go to the United States. It wasn’t that the Irish had anything against the Canadians. It Below deck of a coffin ship. Image from Illustrated London News, May 10, 1851. was simply that the vast region north of the United States was not universally known as “Canada.” It was “British North America.” The Irish fleeing Ireland were not particularly excited to go any place in the world with “British” in its name. The Irish who chose Quebec harbor. Date of photograph unknown, but it has Canada, and the landlords been used to show the line of ships waiting for entry in who chose Canada for their 1847. Image from University College Cork. tumbled tenants, did so for of passengers and required minimum the same reason – the fare provisions and thus made the voyage more was much cheaper than to the expensive. Violations of American shipping Irish Cemetery at Grosse Ile. The crosses, by the way, were United States. The prices varied, laws resulted in heavy fines and possible added years later for symbolism. of course, but at one time during Photograph by Mary Burns, with permission. confiscation of the ship. British regulations the early famine, it cost fifty-five were far less strict and loosely enforced. shillings to sail to Canada and But the most significant reason for the The eviction process was ruthlessly seventy to a hundred shillings to go to the lower fares to Canada was lumber. efficient, but not efficient enough for some. U.S. As England became more urban, its The landlord had to hire a crew to tear down There were several reasons for this. The demand for timber grew. England itself the peasant cottage. And the homeless poor United States regulated American passenger had fewer forests to meet the demand, and might be eligible for public relief, which the ships and those arriving in American sources in northern Europe became less landlords as taxpayers would be obligated to ports. The regulations limited the number support. The solution? Induce the tenants to tear down their own cottages and to leave Ireland forever. How? Offer to pay the tenants’ fare for a one way trip to North America. Landlords imposed two conditions for the trip: The entire family had to go, and the family had to “tumble” (an interesting verb meaning to tear down one’s own home). About 180 landlords did this, inducing 80,000 Irish tenants to tumble in exchange for free Atlantic passage. The ten largest landlords accounted for 30,000 of these Irish tenants. In 1846 and 1847, destitute Irish headed for the coast and the ports – any coast and any port. Before the Hunger years were over, more than a million Irish had left – most of these for North America. Lord Ashburton, which arrived in Quebec in October, 1847. This painting, by Joseph Heard, depicts the ship in a nor’easter in 1857 in which she sunk in the Bay of Fundy within sight of its St. John destination. 14
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
Map of eastern Canada, on the left. Ships from Europe generally entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence north of Nova Scotia, sailed to the St. Lawrence River, and finally sailed up river to Quebec City.
Map of the city of Quebec and the downriver island of Grosse Ile, north and east of the city. Map from Grosse Ile and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site, A Case Study, by the Getty Conservation Institute for Parks Canada, and © Parks Canada, with permission. available. Canada has many, many natural resources. Certainly one thing Canada had plenty of in the 19th century was trees. Canada provided the British with nearly all of its lumber needs. But Canada was sparsely populated and had little need for British imports. Ships built for the transport of timber sailed full from Canada to Britain, and returned nearly empty. The poverty in Ireland, even before the Hunger, solved the problem for ship owners. Instead of returning empty to Canada, the ships returned with Irish people. The ships were not designed to carry people, but the impoverished are not difficult to please. Construction of wooden beds, neatly in a row dormitory style, stacked four tiers high, and the construction of a few privies, were
all that was required. There was some symmetry to the scheme as well – stacks of timber in the hold for the trip east, stacks of people in the hold for the trip west. From a North American perspective, it was “Lumber out, Irish in.” The British perspective was the exact opposite: “Irish out, lumber in.” These ships became known as “coffin ships”, and they earned the name. The ships carried barrels of 1996 illustration by Bernard Duchesne, showing ships in cue water, but the water may have at Grosse Ile. Illustration © Parks Canada, with permission. been stored in a barrel that had carried oil or turpentine on a were added for the westward voyage, prior journey. Passengers were typically a “hole” on the deck enclosed provided a modest allotment of food, but with a door, three walls, and a roof. The the food was typically stale, and sometimes privies were hastily constructed, and a rotten, food purchased from port stores. The strong wind sometimes collapsed the entire food provided by the ship was intended to structure. Modest Irish women refused to supplement the food brought on board by use the facilities on deck, in full view of the the passengers, but the Irish passengers were male passengers and crew. They relieved famine victims. Some of them brought food themselves in any nook or cranny below with them; many did not. deck. The ship owners sold “space” in their The vessels during the Hunger were ships to agents. The agents in turn sold sailing ships. Typically, they were barques, tickets to passengers. The agents were not at all concerned with the number of people Continued on page 16 who could fit within the allotted “space.” The agent’s only interest was to sell as many B.A. (Hons.), M.A., LL.B. tickets as possible, Barrister & Solicitor and this became the ship capacity. Some of them carried two or three Employment Law, times the number Human Rights, of passengers who Workers’ would have been Compensation, permitted on a trip Litigation, to the United States. The problems Real Estate with the coffin ships were many. Serving the They were built for Irish community cargo, not people. since 1995 The passengers were crowded below deck, often four to a bed. One 466 Dupont Street, Toronto, Ontario M5R 1W6 or two privies Tel. (416) 537-0108 x2 • Fax (416) 537-1604 (perhaps one for every hundred or so passengers)
ALAN G. McCONNELL
alan@mcconnelllaw.ca www.mcconnelllaw.ca
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The Monument to Physicians at Grosse Ile. Photograph by L. Delisle © Parks Canada, with permission.
ships with three masts that could be operated with much smaller crews than the larger squared-sailed ships of the era. Four thousand miles separate Ireland from Quebec. A fast sailing ship could make the trip in as little as four weeks. The coffin ships took forty days to three months, depending upon the ship, the weather, and the competency of the captain. These are weeks sharing a small ship with two hundred or more people, with little or no fresh water, and little or no food, in overwhelming stench. One of the most descriptive accounts of a coffin ship voyage came from a County Limerick man: Before the emigrant was a week at sea, he is an altered man … How can it be otherwise? Hundreds of poor people, men, women, and children, of all ages from the driveling idiot of 90 to the babe just born, huddled together, without light, without air, wallowing in filth, and breathing a foetid atmosphere, sick in body, dispirited in heart… the fevered patients lying between the sound in sleeping places so narrow, as almost to deny them … a change of position … by their agonized ravings disturbing those around them … living without food or medicine except as administered by the hand of casual charity, dying without spiritual consolation and buried in the deep without the rites of the church. For example, the Larch left County Sligo 16
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in 1847 with 440 passengers – 108 died was the port of entry for nearly all of them. on the voyage and 150 arrived in Canada Some immigrants stopped and settled at New sick. The Virginius left Ireland with 496 Brunswick and Nova Scotia but most were passengers – 158 of them died on route heading for the interior. Immigrant ships and the remainder (including the captain sailed past the maritime colonies and up the and entire crew) were ill. At first, those St. Lawrence River to Quebec City. Once in who died on board were buried at sea in Quebec, they either stayed or more likely solemn ceremony. The ship’s captain said headed up river over land or by barge to a few words and all of the passengers and Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, or beyond. crew attended the service. As the voyage Quebec established a quarantine station continued, the deaths became more frequent in 1832 to deal with the immigrants. It was a and the burials less ceremonial. As the ships modern concept for the era and the facility got closer to Canada, the deaths became was quite modern as well. The notion was a daily occurrence. Those who died were simply to establish a processing facility in unceremoniously dumped overboard. which ships arriving from Europe would be An Irish passenger did not start the stopped and immigrant passengers inspected voyage as a healthy, well-fed adult. Many for communicable diseases. Those who were were old. Many were children. All of them ill would be quarantined or treated at a fever were hungry, and nearly all of them were hospital and the others would be allowed to afflicted with one famine-related disease or pass through. another. They came on board with only the possessions they could carry. Their homes had been tumbled. They walked, perhaps a hundred miles, to the nearest port. They expended every resource they had, including every ounce of energy still in their bodies, to get to the port and on board the famine ship. And the Irish passengers did View looking down at the Grosse Île memorial, showing the not come to the coffin ships path forming a Celtic cross. The glass panel, with names alone. They brought with them engraved, is at the top of the picture. The memorial overlooks Irish lice. the Irish Cemetery. Photograph © Parks Canada, with permission. The Irish people and Irish lice, together below deck of the coffin ships, lived in an even better environment Quebec chose the island of Grosse Île for the fevers. It took only one infected Irish for its quarantine station and fever hospital. human or one infected Irish louse to board Despite its name, Grosse Île is not a big a ship at an Irish port. Within a few days, the island. It is nearly five kilometers long and Irish person was in fever. A parasitic louse 1.6 km wide, and is located less than 50 km moved to the body of someone else and soon east and downriver of Quebec City. one more person was in fever. In the voyage The biggest fear in 1832 was cholera. A across the Atlantic, everyone was exposed, cholera epidemic spread through Europe in passengers and crew alike. prior years and immigrants afflicted with The infected Irish and the Irish lice cholera had arrived in Canada on a regular arrived in Canada in the spring of 1847. basis. An inspection of the incoming ships by medical personnel, with the quarantine of cholera patients on a St. Lawrence River Grosse Île and Quebec City island, would prevent the spread of cholera Canada saw a steady stream of to Quebec and points west. So it was immigrants in the first four decades or so thought. of the 19th century. The numbers reached In fact, the Grosse Île facility was built thirty thousand each year in the latter part too late in 1832. Thousands of immigrants of these decades, and many of these people were from Ireland and Scotland. Quebec City arrived in Quebec in 1832 and many carried
cholera. Over three thousand people died of cholera in Quebec City and in Montreal that year. The quarantine station did stop some of them, and most of these were buried on the island. The epidemic ended that same year. Grosse Île remained busy thereafter but escaped catastrophe until 1847. Grosse Île had a large wharf for the incoming ships and a reasonably wellequipped fever hospital with capacity for 150 fever patients and an overflow area for 50 more. It had comfortable, temporary housing for the immigrants awaiting quarantine and permanent housing for the inspection and medical personnel. Overall, it was reasonably well equipped to handle “normal” immigrant traffic. 1846 was the first year Grosse Île faced “abnormal” immigrant traffic. Many Irish immigrated to Canada before the Hunger, but most of those who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States. 1846 was quite different. With a few exceptions, the ships arriving from Ireland in 1846 were not overloaded. The passengers were reasonably well off and reasonably free of famine fevers. The exceptions, though, were atrocious. The Canadians struggled at Grosse Île during the summer of 1846 but were able to handle the influx of Irish. They maintained the quarantine, treated the fever patients, efficiently and humanely processed the healthy arrivers, and buried the dead. Ice formed on the St. Lawrence River in late autumn, and the coffin ships stopped coming. The important thing, from the Canadian perspective, was that Grosse Île had done its job. Irish immigrants arrived with typhus, but a typhus epidemic did not hit Quebec or elsewhere in Canada in 1846. Such was not to be the case in 1847. Canadian officials were extremely nervous during the winter of 1846–1847. They received a steady stream of information about the Hunger. Quebec braced itself for the worst in the spring of 1847, but no one in Quebec could have anticipated how bad it would become. The first ship to arrive was the Syria, on May 17, 1847. The Syria had left Liverpool several weeks before with 241 passengers, all of them Irish. Nine passengers had died en route and were buried at sea. Eighty-four passengers arrived with typhus. Within a few weeks of their arrival and while in quarantine, a few dozen more developed typhus. The Grosse Île fever hospital was
designed for 150 patients. It was at twothirds capacity with the first ship in port. Four days later (May 21), eight more ships arrived at Grosse Île. These eight ships carried 430 fever patients. More than half of them were admitted to Grosse Île and the others were required to stay on board. Grosse Île had no place for these additional patients. The buildings intended as quarantine housing were immediately converted into hospitals, but this was as much a name change as anything else. The A lazaretto of Grosse Ile. Photograph © Parks Canada, with permission. facility didn’t have the medical staff to take care of 430 additional patients. And kitchens, residences for cooks and nurses, of course, the numbers grew. Within a few washhouses, laundries, latrines, various days, the “healthy” passengers on board outbuildings, and even a police station. The these eights ships were as sick as those in the facilities still were not enough, and patients island’s fever hospital. were housed in tents or exposed outside. Five days later (May 26), thirty more ships Grosse Île did not have nearly enough arrived carrying ten thousand more Irish. staff. Nurses were particularly in short supply The wharfs at Grosse Île were already full and as was medicine of any kind. Most of the care none of these arriving ships were permitted was provided by volunteers from Quebec. to dock. A larger wharf wouldn’t have helped Almost no medical care was provided, since anyway, since the staff at Grosse Île had yet there were so few medical personnel available to examine everyone on the ships that had for so many patients. Care consisted of arrived previously. The 30 ships were ordered keeping patients as comfortable as possible to anchor in the St. Lawrence and wait their and was provided wherever patients could be turn. placed. Three days later (May 29), six more ships Once a ship was cleared for docking at arrived carrying three thousand more from Grosse Île, the staff went through the triage Ireland. Two days later (May 31), four more process of removing the sickest. The rest ships from Ireland arrived. There were now were supposed to wait on board for their 40 ships in the St. Lawrence River. They were turn. Those who could walk or crawl ignored each anchored, awaiting their turn to dock the instructions. They left the ship as best at Grosse Île. The line of ships extended two they could to finally reach dry land. Often miles down the river. they didn’t make it. They simply lay down on Medical personnel from Grosse Île briefly the wharf and died. examined these 40 ships. They found typhus The Virginius was one of the few coffin or dysentery or both on every one of them. ships that ended its career in 1847. It left The dysentery was of the bacterial kind Liverpool with 496 passengers, but 158 died and highly infectious. The Grosse Île staff before the ship reached Grosse Île. All of also spoke with the captains of these vessels the remaining passengers were in fever. The (many of whom were infected as well), and ship’s captain died and most of the crew died received an update on news from Ireland. on the voyage as well, and the remaining What they learned was frightening. crew members were ill upon arrival. When What they learned was that many more the ship reached Grosse Île, everyone got off ships were on their way to Quebec, carrying and the ship was abandoned completely. with them another fifty thousand Irish. Officials and newspaper reporters in Within a few weeks, there were 88 ships Quebec City diligently tried to identify those anchored in the St. Lawrence, cued for their Irish buried at sea while in route and in turn at Grosse Île. Quebec, but ship manifests were incomplete Officials and the citizens of Quebec and inaccurate. A variety of Irish names are scrambled to make do in an impossible represented in the list of the dead at Grosse situation. New buildings were constructed on Île. But a number of people on these death Grosse Île almost overnight. They included records shared the same name. By far, this “Lazarettos” or quarantine stations (which were immediately converted into hospitals),
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Up River Communities
instances of what we have now stated – corpses lying in the same beds with the sick and the dying, the healthy not taking the trouble to remove them. The doctors suggested that the ships on the St. Lawrence be allowed to pass Grosse Île. This could not have been an easy recommendation, knowing as they must have that passing Grosse Île would only lead to an epidemic up the river. But as the doctors noted: We entirely disapprove of the plan of keeping a vessel in quarantine for any period, however prolonged, whilst the sick and healthy are congregated together, breathing the same atmosphere, sleeping in the same berths, and exposed to the same exciting causes of contagion. This year’s melancholy experience has, in many instances, proved that the number attacked and the mortality of the disease increased in direct ratio with the length of time the ship was detained under such circumstances.
As chaotic and difficult as it was on Grosse Île, it was worse for those on board ship, waiting in line on the St. Lawrence. The healthy got sick and the sick got sicker. An untold number died on these A View of the Quarantine Station at Grosse Isle by Henri ships. They were merely tossed Delattre. The setting looks quite peaceful in this painting, which it probably was by 1850. The painting is in the Henri overboard. “Burial at sea” became Delattre collection. Image courtesy of Library and Archives “burial at river,” and the infected Canada (AC # 1983-121-1). bodies soon drifted to shore. single name was more common than any Ships ran out of drinkable of the other names of the dead at Grosse water, some before they reached the Île. This name was spelled two different Canadian coast. The water in the St. ways, depending upon whether the person Lawrence is normally fresh and drinkable, recording the death spoke French or English but foul in the summer of 1847. Ships as a native language. waiting in line had already cleaned their This name was recorded as inconnu by the holds. Filthy straw from bedding, barrels of French speakers of Quebec. It was recorded vile matter, tattered clothes and rags, and as unknown by the English speakers. everything else wretched, had been There was at least one birth on Grosse thrown overboard. This does not Île. Hugh McDonald was born on July 28, even include the dead bodies. The 1847, the child of Duncan McDonald and ships waiting weeks in line could Christina McMullen McDonald. Duncan and not even dip buckets into the St. Christina sailed from Cork to Quebec aboard Lawrence for fresh water. the Sir Henry Pottinger. Three doctors, two from Of the 399 passengers on board when Montreal and a third from Quebec, the Pottinger left Cork in early June, 98 died were appointed “commissioners” before the ship reached Canada. Seven more in June. Their task was to board died while the Pottinger was waiting in line the coffin ships on cue in the St. on the St. Lawrence. Once at Grosse Île, the Lawrence and to figure out what surviving passengers – including Duncan to do. Their report included these and Christina – finally got off the ship. Of findings: these, 112 were afflicted with typhus. The We found these unfortunate number of dead before arrival, plus the people in the most deplorable The Celtic Cross at Grosse Ile. The photograph was taken at number of afflicted at arrival, adds up to 210 condition for want of necessary the dedication of the cross in 1909. With the people in the – over half of the passengers. nurses and hospital attendants; foreground, the photograph shows the scale of the cross. The sick were cared for somewhere – their friends who had partially Photographer unknown, and photograph courtesy of Library and Archives Canada (C-066294). probably not at the fever hospital since it recovered being in too many had filled to capacity weeks before. Likely, instances unable and in most, the sick from the Pottinger were taken to Thus Quebec gave up on the quarantine. unwilling, to render them any storage sheds on Grosse Île. Another 22 It couldn’t keep up with any meaningful assistance, common sympathies passengers from the Pottinger died in these triage, and those on board the ships in cue being apparently annihilated by sheds. It must have been a horrific voyage merely became sicker. One by one, ships were the mental and bodily depression for the Pottinger passengers. It must have allowed to pass Grosse Île and continue up produced by famine and disease. been especially difficult for the pregnant river. At our inspection of many of the Christina.. vessels, we witnessed some appalling 18
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This did not, of course, solve the problem. It simply passed the problem further up river. Montreal, Bytown (Ottawa), Kingston, and Toronto quickly set up their own fever hospitals, soup kitchens, poor houses, and orphanages, and staffed them the best they could. They cared for the sick, but they couldn’t stop them from dying. Canadians died as well. Medical personnel, other staff, and volunteers on Grosse Île suffered the highest ratio. Seventyone Catholic and Protestant clergy went to Grosse Île in 1847; 26 of these contracted the fevers and seven of them died. In some cases, the ships anchored off Grosse Île were allowed to pass up river. In others, passengers were moved to steampowered riverboats. Each riverboat carried 1,000 to 1,400 passengers and thus the passengers of two or more transatlantic ships became passengers on a single riverboat. So the infected passengers from one coffin ship quickly infected the healthy passengers from another. Canadians hastily built Grosse Île-type facilities all the way up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario. The sick were treated in these fever sheds as best as the staff and volunteers could provide, but they couldn’t provide much. The sick were made as comfortable as possible, provided clean bedding and clothing, and given water. Not much else could be done. About 5,300 Irish passengers died and were buried on Grosse Île. Quebec City was spared much of the disaster. Its disaster was at Grosse Île. It was not so for the upriver communities. More Irish died upriver than at Grosse Île. Montreal was the least prepared. The city formed its first board of health in 1847 when officials realized that the Irish would soon be coming. The board immediately issued a series of “recommendations.” It couldn’t do anything else, since the city hadn’t gotten around to funding the board. The recommendations were largely followed though and this process included cleaning the city and closing boardinghouses and lodges. When they arrived, the immigrants were channeled to Windmill Point, where they were segregated from the rest of the city. Not everyone followed the recommendations, and typhus carriers infected major portions of the city. Immigrants not yet sick merely walked out of the segregated areas and into the city. Perhaps as many as eleven thousand people
in Montreal contracted typhus that summer. At least eight more priests and seven nuns died of fever in Montreal. The dead of Montreal included the city’s mayor, who caught the fever after visiting one of the city’s temporary hospitals. Further upriver at Bytown (present-day Ottawa), a thousand people became afflicted with typhus and about two hundred Painting by Ray Butler depicting Dr. Collins treating a patient at died. It took two days for the St. John in 1847. Note the bad weather in the background and the steamboats to make it up the patient lying outside on bare ground. The painting, c. 1997, was one St. Lawrence to Kingston. of a series done for the 150th anniversary of the famine years, comTwo days was all that was pleted with the assistance of local historians to ensure accuracy. Painting © by the family of the late Ray Butler and used with permission. necessary for everyone on board to become infected. St. John Kingston treated the patients on the grounds The experience at St. John, New of Kingston General Hospital. One thousand Brunswick, wasn’t much different than four hundred Irish died there and were in Quebec. St. John established its own buried in a common grave on the hospital quarantine station in the late 18th century grounds. on Partridge Island, a small (about 24 acres) Toronto’s board of health and general island in the harbor. Several thousand Irish hospital took immediate steps in preparation entered Canada each year by way of Partridge for the anticipated tide of famine patients. Island in the decades before and after the These measures included construction of Hunger. The peak, though, was 1847 when new famine sheds on hospital grounds. The 5,800 Irish arrived. Irish immigrants didn’t arrive until later in The death toll at Partridge Island was the summer, and the city was reasonably less than that of Grosse Île but only because prepared. Officially, 863 Irish died of typhus Grosse Île took in more vessels from Ireland. at Toronto, although it may have been over Some 800 died on board ship on their way a thousand, but this death toll was far lower to St. John. Another 600 died on Partridge than in the cities along the St. Lawrence. It Island and at least that many more in the city was especially low considering the number of St. John. (some 38,000) of Irish who made their way One landlord who sent his evicted tenants to Toronto. to both Quebec and St. John was Henry John It is difficult to obtain a reliable estimate Temple, Lord Palmerston. An earlier Temple of the number of Canadians who died in the Cromwell era was given thousands of of typhus, dysentery, and other diseases acres in County Sligo that were confiscated contracted from the immigrant Irish in 1847. from the O’Connor Sligo clan. The Temple Some sources mix the numbers of Canadians family hired agents to manage the estates and Irish with the fevers. The absolute and forward the rental income to the family numbers may not be astronomically high, in England. Although the family owned the but the percentage is atrocious. This is simply land for nearly two hundred years, Henry because Canada was far from urban in the John Temple was the first person in his 1840s and the population of its cities was still family to ever visit the property. The Temples relatively small. were, quite clearly, absentee landlords. The population of Quebec at the time In 1847, Temple sent nine vessels carrying was about 32,000; Montreal was about several thousand of his tenants from Sligo to 25,000. Kingston had about 10,000 people Canada. The Eliza Liddell arrived in St. John, and Toronto about 15,000. There were as New Brunswick, filled mainly with widows, many Irish aboard the coffin ships on the St. orphans, and the elderly. The Lord Ashburton Lawrence in 1847 as there were in all of these left for Quebec with 477 passengers -- 107 Canadian cities along the river’s shores!
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was unaware of anything going on there. He was typical of many absentee landlords – his only interest in Ireland was collecting rent from the poor Irish tenants. But Temple nevertheless responded to the St. John officials and to the British Parliament. He wasn’t apologetic at all. The Irish tenants, he said, went willingly. Temple would not have sent them had they been Scene at Grosse Ile, probably painted c. 1837–1840 able to pay their rent. They were, after by Henry Hugh Manvers Percy. It shows some of the additional facilities on the island as well as a boat landing. all, paupers anyway, and they were naked because they were accustomed died from fever or dysentery on the voyage. to inferior clothing. Temple took no The Aeolus did double duty as a coffin responsibility for the fact that his tenants ship in 1847. It dropped off a load of Sligo were paupers or that they had no options tenants in Quebec earlier in the season and but to leave Ireland or that they were tried to fit in a second trip. It reached the “accustomed” to inferior clothing. St. Lawrence River on the second voyage on The explanation made perfect sense to November 2, but the river had already begun Temple. He actually thought, quite sincerely, to freeze up. Residents of Quebec had already that he was doing his Sligo tenants a favor. replaced their carriages with horse-drawn His colleagues in the British Parliament must sleighs for ease of travel on the snow-filled have accepted his explanation. Seven years roads. later, Temple was elected prime minister by This second voyage was likewise filled his colleagues in Parliament. No one held his with the tenants of Temple. Denied entry handling of his Sligo tenants against him. into the St. Lawrence, the Aeolus landed at The conditions at Partridge Island were St. John. Winter had already reached New as horrific as those at Grosse Île. Dr. James Brunswick as well, but the Irish passengers of Collins, an Irish immigrant from County the Aeolus were “almost in a state of nudity.” Cork, came to New Brunswick with his No one on board was self-sufficient. They family when he was a young boy. He studied were widows, children, the aged, or those medicine in London and Paris as a young “riddled with disease.” man and returned to St. John and set up The St. John city council wrote an open practice. He had an established medical letter of protest to Henry John Temple, who practice in St. John when the coffin ships was then a member of the British Parliament. arrived in 1847. With the medical staff on The city expressed its fury that Temple: Partridge Island overwhelmed, Dr. Collins … should have exposed such a volunteered to help. He was only on the numerous and distressed portion island for about a month when he too of his tenantry to the severity and contracted typhus and died on Partridge privation of a New Brunswick Island. He was only 23 years old. winter... unprovided with the common means of support, with The Aftermath broken down constitutions and There are many memorials to the Irish almost in a state of nudity... without during the Hunger. One of the most moving regard to humanity or even common tributes to the Irish who died on the coffin decency. ships is the famine memorial in County The British government asked Temple Mayo. It is a sculpture by John Behan of a to provide an explanation to the Canadian sailing ship with riggings of human skeletons colonial officials and to the rest of and bones. It is impossible to view it without Parliament. Temple was oblivious to the being moved. entire affair. He knew nothing of the Aeolus The first memorial on Grosse Île was or any of the Sligo evictions. His Sligo erected in 1849. Officially, it’s the Monument estates were operated by his agents, and he to Physicians but is as often called the 20
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Doctors’ Memorial. Inscribed are the names of the four physicians who died of typhus in 1847, a doctor who died of cholera on the island in 1834, and another who died of typhus in 1837. The monument was erected by Dr. George M. Douglas, who deserves his own monument. Douglas was the superintendent of the Grosse Île quarantine station in 1847 and the several years before and after. He was tireless in his efforts to help the sick and in supervising others with the same mission. Grosse Île was terribly underfunded and understaffed but through no fault of Dr. Douglas. He was one of the few in Quebec who foresaw what was coming and knew what was needed. Dr. Douglas was born in Scotland in 1809 and was 38 years old when the coffin ships arrived. He had immigrated to Utica, New York, as a boy and lived with his elder brother, who was already practicing medicine there. George learned the profession by dissecting cadavers which, unfortunately, was illegal in New York at the time. Fearing prosecution, he fled New York and moved to Quebec. He practiced medicine in Quebec for several years before becoming the superintendent at Grosse Île in 1836. Dr. Douglas suffered from his own personal issues after 1847. In June of 1864, he stabbed himself and died the next day. The coroner called it “death by suicide while temporarily deranged.” Grosse Île’s burden and role changed in the years after the coffin ships. Quebec increased the capacity of Grosse Île in 1848 and in the several years thereafter. But fortunately, Grosse Île never again faced the onslaught of starving and diseased immigrants that it faced in 1847. Immigrants continued to arrive, but fewer of them were from Ireland. They came from England, Scandinavia, and the rest of Europe. These people left Europe less desperate than the Irish, traveled across the ocean better fed and accommodated, and arrived in Canada in far better health. The steamships of the latter eras cut the time of the voyage to twelve days. Cholera once again arrived at Grosse Île in 1854, but it was successfully contained on the island and did not spread into Quebec. By the end of the 19th century, Grosse Île became less the focal point for Canadian immigration, though it continued as an
immigrant quarantine station until 1937. It had a variety of other uses after that: it was once a biological weapons development center, an animal pathology research facility, a livestock quarantine station, and a radio communications station. Canada’s attitude towards Grosse Île also changed as the 19th century turned into the 20th and again as the 20th turned into the 21st. The change began in 1897, when hundreds of Irish-Canadians made a pilgrimage to the island to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Black 47. In 1909, a group of Irish-Canadians erected a memorial near the Irish Cemetery, a Celtic cross nearly fifteen meters tall. Almost 90 years later, another Irish memorial was constructed there. It is the Grosse Île Memorial and was completed in 1998. It consists of paths in the shape of a Celtic cross cut through an earthen mound. The sides of the paths are walled with shale. One side of the memorial is framed by glass, engraved with the names of those who died on the island. The entire island became a national historic site in the 1970s. It is now administered by Parks Canada, which has undertaken a considerable effort to restore and preserve facilities on the island. There were, and still are, a number of buildings on the island. They include the three hotels, which aren’t much in the way of hotels but were used to house travelers while in quarantine, as well as staff quarters, food preparation facilities, laundries, and chapels. Only one building remains on the island that was there in 1847. That building is the lazaretto, or quarantine station. There were dozens of lazarettos hastily built in 1847, but only one is still standing. This lazaretto is now a National Heritage Building. Partridge Island has its own Celtic cross, erected in 1927 in memory of the coffin ship victims. The entire island is now a national and provincial historic site. Those Canadians who experienced the summer of 1847 probably wanted to forget it. In fact, it may have taken only a dozen years for those in Montreal to have forgotten about it entirely. The sick and the healthy Irish were herded to an area of Montreal then known as Windmill Point. The area was later known more often as Goose Village (or Village-auxOies). It eventually housed twenty-two fever sheds, cordoned off by troops to prevent the
Irish from spreading the fever into the city. Thousands of Irish died there and were buried in a mass grave. In 1859, the city began construction of a railroad bridge across the St. Lawrence River. Windmill Point was chosen as the site of the Montreal side of the bridge, to be called Victoria’s Bridge. The bridge required a massive amount of excavation for its foundation. In the course of excavation, workers discovered a surprise: the mass grave and the remains of thousands of Irish typhus victims. It is difficult to fathom how no one who planned the construction of the bridge was aware of the mass grave, but construction proceeded as planned and no official monument was erected or official remembrance took place. But workers thought that something appropriate should be done for the dead. On their own, The Black Rock, Montreal. Photograph © douaireg, ccl. they moved a 30 ton granite boulder over Today, one can still see the mounds of the the spot of the mass grave. On the boulder, trenches marking the mass graves of 1847. they hand-carved the following inscription: Over 7,500 people are buried at the three To preserve from desecration the cemeteries of Grosse Île, six thousand of remains of 6,000 immigrants who these in the Irish Cemetery. died from ship fever AD 1847–48 Somewhere under those mounds are the this stone is erected by the workmen remains of the Baby Hugh McDonald. of Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts The mortality rate of the Irish in 1847 was employed in the construction of the abysmal. Some reasonably suggest that forty Victoria Bridge AD 1859 percent of those passengers died – either on While Montreal bridge planners may board the coffin ships or shortly after their have forgotten about the dead Irish, many arrival in Canada. Officially, and according in Canada did not. There were still survivors to the British government, the numbers were to take care of, and orphanages were set up these: in every community along the St. Lawrence. Within a few years, most of the Irish orphans • 104,738 left the British Isles in 1847 bound for Canada were adopted. The dead at Grosse Île were also buried in mass graves. The island had one cemetery in 1847 (it later added two more). This first one was called simply “The Cemetery.” It was later renamed “The Irish Cemetery.” At the Cemetery, the dead from cholera and other diseases before 1847 were buried in individual plots. There were too many dead in 1847 to follow the same practice. The Irish Cemetery is only a few acres in size and is located near the island’s wharf and fever hospital. At first, the dead were placed in rough coffins, piled one on top of the other and side by side, with only a few feet of dirt placed above the top coffin. Later, workers dug much deeper trenches and placed the bodies inside without coffins. Grosse Île kept six men working full-time on this project during the summer of 1847.
• 6,093 died at sea • 11,047 died on land • Over 30,000 were admitted to hospitals upon arrival to Canada. The latter three of these numbers are probably quite low. Many of the Irish survivors of 1847 left Canada, merely by walking across the border to the United States. Many who stayed were those who could not leave – the old, the young, the sick, the widows, the orphans. They and their descendants ultimately became Canadians. As many as 4 ½ million Canadians today are of full or partial Irish descent. Many of these are descendants of those Irish who arrived, and survived, 1847 – Canada’s worst summer ever. CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
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HUGO Your Way... By Rick Frayne
I
t may just be a parodied lyric of U2’s song Every Breaking Wave but it truly befits Hugo Straney’s life and journey from Belfast to Toronto. The video of the same song might just as easily portray his early years as a youth in Belfast. As a talented; Troubadour, raconteur, impresario, DJ, actor, comic, radio show host and arguably one of the most engaging master of ceremonies to ever hold a microphone, Hugo’s gift of the gab in conversation, stories and song is apparently providential and most unequalled. In the mid 60’s many of Belfast’s high density, archaic and dilapidated terrace houses were demolished to make way for a new and then ultra-modern high rise housing complex called The Divis Flats. This development would be a dream to those
who once lived in the aged terrace row houses, many who shared one toilet between five houses. This new development might also prove to be very slow in the making from 1966 to 1972 as many of the supply loads of everything from concrete to timber and steel would get hi-jacked enroute. The modern day highwaymen must have been very versatile and knew how and when put down their guns and pick up their trowels in a hurry. The Divis flats would also be where Hugo would call home in his early life. Years later it would become a hellish war zone complete with rooftop snipers, sandbagged fortifications, razor wire and the regular sound of gunfire nearby. “Hey listen, I only look stupid” might just be one of Hugo’s favourite comedic introductions but as we know through the works of many others, comedy, prose and many a ballad are borne of humility, suffering and yes even troubles. Even as in ‘The Troubles’. Despite the coming of what would be many emerging dangers, Hugo smiles and fondly reminisces upon some of
his youthful experiences in Belfast during the Troubles. “One of my first recollections of any bombs or explosions, took place outside of a pool hall during a snooker match. I was the referee. Now that’s somewhat of a difficult officiating task when chunks of plaster are falling on the felt and there really aren’t any established rules for being snookered by that debris you know”. Perhaps this incident was future inspiration for thousands of Hugo’s creative ad libs and comical improvs that were yet to come throughout his life and career and still flow freely today. Being taken away by soldiers moments later was though a literal hands on experience as he was loaded up and held for questioning related to the recent blast. As curious youths, he and mates would often fearlessly run towards any explosions in the neighbourhood to see all the excitement. This was hardly an indication of guilt or involvement, but a rather youthful adventure in a defacto war zone. It also came a time of great confusion and high anxiety for the residents, the soldiers and The Royal Ulster Constabulary. Upon his release at 2 AM early the next morning which was also the night before a job interview, his family was perhaps even more curious than the RUC.
Hugo with his Grand Children - Kate and Owen 22
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
Continued on page 24
YOUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME
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Continued from page 22 – H UGO
YOUR WAY
It was decided after their many questions that perhaps it was time he might best join his sister Lily in Canada. It was 1974. “I got a job on arrival in Canada in the finance sector. Actually, I was a clerk at a bank… but then I got fired when they caught me stealing. How much you ask? Thousands, millions? That’s the best part, it was only pens and after I’d gone to confession my pen-ance wasn’t really that severe. This might seem hard to believe, but I’ve got some musical talent and for my next job I was hired by CBS records right here in town. I worked very hard there. I was a producer and actually made over a million records in my first year. Yeah that’s right, literally made them on the press and even put them in the sleeves and boxed them up. They actually wanted to sign me to the label as an artist but someone had stolen all their pens too!” “Then I got a job at General Motors parts plant in Scarborough. There were lots of Brits, Scots, Welsh and Irishmen so it was much like the UK, back home, Ireland and Celtic culture had followed me there. Soccer was a big part of intramural activities and helping the teams
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raise money for uniforms was something I was drawn to help out with. Selling pens proved to be too tedious, so I proposed some fund raisers and it turned out dances were just the perfect thing. Dances needed music, and hey I’ve made a million records. Look Mom, I’m a DJ now! Working as a DJ has actually proven to be quite rewarding and a lot of fun. I’ve since DJ’d over 1,000 weddings. Playing music and keeping the party going internationally has taken me to several countries on cruise ships, conventions and even special events in Las Vegas. I was involved in a variety show that featured everything from ‘name that tune’ to some crazy, crazy party games along with music”. “My progressions into radio work happened when Brian Kearney at CHIN multicultural radio in Toronto decided he was looking to retire. Brian had been hosting a show called ‘Songs from Home’ a show that is Toronto staple for 31 years now. There were several candidates and prospects for the job. I suggested to Brian and his wife that maybe he shouldn’t leave the show quite so quickly. All the while the others were asking ‘when are
you leaving Brian’? It turns out some people appreciate those who appreciate them the most so I got the job as well as some very valuable mentorship” “Back in 1988 I was the DJ at The Harp in Mississauga when we began doing a revolutionary new thing called ‘Singamania’. Basically people, mostly people who had mustered just enough cocktail courage would come up on stage and sing along with the actual song. Now I know this sounds rather a lot like Karaoke, however in our version everyone sounded much better, simply because it was the actual song they were singing along with and if they ever forgot the words, no problem, Michael Jackson or Madonna was still there to pick up the slack. Brilliant eh? “One of my career highlights was singing both the national anthems at a Blue Jays game. I had to first pre-record a high quality version of each one. I thought they might be using the recordings as demos to promote me with other venues like Madison Square Gardens, The ACC or BMO Field. So being a good DJ and astute technician, I like to double check all the equipment over before I go on. Well it’s a good thing I did too. I happened to see that my microphone wasn’t even plugged in! I pointed that out to the chief audio technician at the Skydom just in time. Well,
then he sat me down and told me”; ‘You’ll be singing both the anthems Hugo, the crowd will be seeing you sing and hearing your voice too, no worries’. “It turns out that it’s now a matter of major league policy that following Roseanne Barr’s most memorable creativity, every performer, regardless of who they are sings to their own pre-recorded version of the anthems live, just not as one would normally consider live to avoid any further uncensored debacles or impromptu versions. Who knew such a list of famous artists and many thousands of fans in the park and at home are now just discovering my invention ‘Singamania’ at the ball park ? And the best part is the singers didn’t even need to have any liquid encouragement. “My relationship at CHIN is ongoing today and has greatly helped with community outreach with projects like The CHIN Toronto
Island Picnic, The Irish Cultural Centre, The Pot of Gold Sweepstakes and numerous charitable events for; Cystic Fibrosis, Breast Cancer, Paint the Town Red, St. Vincent de Paul, The Key to a Cure, The North American Federation of Celtic Supporters, and much more. I’ve also been part of The Mississauga Waterfront Festival and a CP 24 on air personality for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In 2009 was chosen Irish Person of the Year. At some point in the program every singer, broadcaster and MC has to say good night, good bye or ‘till the next time. If you could leave is with some final words today, what might they be? “Well, had I known ‘Singamania’ would have literally been such a major league hit, I would have patented it but then I suppose maybe I’d have to share all that with Roseanne. IOne thing that I do consider a priceless fortune is my life’s journey. I came to Canada to make a better life for myself, and
by making life better and more fun for others, I’ve certainly achieved that. I met my wife Gerardine here and started a wonderful family and have more friends that one could imagine. I just finished a run on stage with The Toronto Irish Players playing the legendary Joe Dolan, that was quite an experience. As an entertainer I like to live by the credo that my next gig is always the best one. As boy from Belfast and a man in Toronto, I can tell you most sincerely, I was born in a great country and now I live in one.” When Hugo is not on stage he enjoys spending time with his family, wife Geradine, son’s Bill and Ryan-Francis, Hugh and daughter in-law Natalie, Grand-Children Kate and Owen who keep him entertained and busy and of course nothing like a man’s best friend Fonzie! All photos courtesy of Gavin O’Neill.
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9 To Try: N
othing will get you up off a bar stool like a thumping traditional music session. Here are 9 to try.
Johnnie Fox’s, Glencullen, County Dublin Famed as Ireland’s highest pub, Johnnie Fox’s serves up a rip-roaring Hooley (party) experience every night of the week. A traditional band serenades you while you enjoy dinner, before a troupe of Irish dancers take to the floor for a leg-kicking extravaganza accompanied by live master musicians – be sure to book in.
O’Donoghue’s, Merrion Row Pull up a stool and settle in, because this is a musical institution. Trad legends like The Dubliners and Christy Moore have struck up songs in this famed establishment, so when you’re enjoying a session here, you’re surrounded by legends. As the pints flow and the music sweeps over you, you’ll find it hard not to burst into song.
The Celt, Talbot Street Trust us, you won’t be able to resist some foot-tapping when you walk through these doors. The Celt is known best for its dancefloor, and you’ll have the chance to test out your jigs and reels as the band plays up a storm around you. Everyone is welcome to give the boards a go – don’t worry if you have no moves, you’ll learn the steps quickly! 26
Dublin’s Brilliant Trad Music Pubs
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
The Auld Dubliner, Temple Bar Ask anyone where the most iconic trad session in Dublin is, and they’ll point you towards The Auld Dubliner. This Temple Bar mainstay is renowned for its warm welcome, along with the rising crescendo of traditional music that pumps out of its doorway, as musicians and singers join in the sessions that kick off before the sun starts to set.
The Brazen Head, Lower Bridge Street The Brazen Head is famous for a lot of reasons. It’s one of Ireland’s oldest pubs, it has hosted incredible wordsmiths like James Joyce and Jonathan Swift in its time and it has one of the most swinging trad sessions in Dublin! Every night this pub lights up with song and dance, and if you’re here on a Sunday you might get the chance to exercise your vocal chords, too.
Devitts, Lower Camden Street Devitts is devoted to preserving musical traditions and authenticity is important here, with regulars sharing their favourite songs, and locals singing ancient ‘sean nós’ (old songs in the Irish language). Ballads can transform into lively tunes, instruments can appear out of nowhere, and at times the whole pub erupts in song together in a rousing celebration of traditional music.
The Cobblestone, Smithfield The Cobblestone is a labour of love when it comes to music. Tom Mulligan and his family have been playing trad for five generations, maybe even longer, and it thrives on a spirit of musicians teaching musicians. New talent and old masters alike can be found perfecting their craft in every corner of this charming pub.
O’Shea’s Merchant, Lower Bridge Street Named after the inimitable Ned O’Shea, a County Kerry native who brought his brand of hearty welcomes, warming food and rousing trad sessions up to the bright lights of Dublin city, O’Shea’s plays live music every night of the week. And if that gets your feet tapping, then you’ll love the set dancing sessions that everyone’s welcome to join. Enjoy!
Mother Reilly’s, Rathmines As you descend the stairs of Mother Reilly’s, you’re entering an underground world of musical tradition. People from all walks of life congregate here for the rousing trad sessions that echo around this subterranean venue every Monday. Perch yourself beside the roaring fire if the weather’s so inclined, and let your toe tap to the beat of these whirling tunes. Source Tourism Ireland
Geraldine Browne
Irish Person Of The Year Giving back from Tipp to TIP!
Photo credit: William C. Smith
By Cormac Monaghan
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eraldine Browne, Toronto’s 2019 Irish Person of the Year, was born in the townland of Knockavilla, a small village approximately 7 miles from the Rock of Cashel and 3 miles from Dundrum, Co Tipperary. Geraldine is the third youngest of 11 siblings – 6 boys and 5 girls – born to Peter and Kitty Browne. Peter was a Forestry worker, and Kitty was – understandably! – a full-time stay at home mother. The Brownes are a family firmly rooted in the parish - both Geraldine’s parents grew up in the area and of the 11 siblings, Geraldine is the only one not living close to the home-place. Geraldine came to Canada 27 years ago and has worked in the caring professions here ever since, including nurse’s aid, special needs teacher’s assistant, professional nanny, and more recently as a Personal Support Worker, having spent most of 2018 back in full time study. ICC Ad_DSlowey Broker CMYK.pdf
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Over that time Geraldine has been very active in Toronto’s Irish community, putting into action in her new home the love of Irish culture that was instilled in her back in Tipp. Most notably Geraldine has been with the Toronto Irish Players (“TIP”) for more than twenty five years and has been the President since 2016, and is the co-Producer of their current production, The Land Grabber. Music and Dance have been Geraldine’s other main cultural pursuits – in particular Geraldine loves her set dancing! – and is the driving force behind “Open Door Ceilis Toronto”, organising monthly set dance ceilis and a set dance weekend annually every May, featuring a teacher from Ireland, bringing new sets and footwork to Canadian set dancers. Geraldine served as the Irish Language Officer for the local Comhaltas Ceolteori Eireann branch here and was one of the leaders in setting up a camogie club at the old Irish Centre, back in the day, perhaps 15-02-16 3:35 PM seeking an outlet for the talent that earned
her an All-Ireland schools winning medal back in Tipp. Other organisations to benefit directly from Geraldine’s sense of community include the Irish Cultural Society and the Benevolent Society (of which she is the current President), the annual Mass of Memory, and the Toronto chapter of Solace. Geraldine volunteered for many years at her local Church’s “Out of the Cold” program and has worked as a teacher’s assistant at Dunblaine School, a school for kids with learning disabilities. Reflecting on why she is motivated to give her time and energy to community work, Geraldine says it was what she saw her parents doing back home, and it was natural for her and her siblings to do the same. The Toronto Irish Community showed its appreciation for all that Geraldine does at a lunch in her honour on Sunday, March 3rd.
Working with the Irish Communitiy, both new and established, to find value and security in their new Toronto home. C
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dslowey.com • home@dslowey.com
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The Causeway Coastal Route
Explore one of the most incredible coastlines in the world
T
he Causeway Coastal Route between the cities of Belfast and Derry~Londonderry is a kaleidoscope of natural landscapes, imposing cliffs, bubbling mountain streams and gushing waterfalls. This stunning slow coastal route starts in Belfast and will take you to the remarkable Gobbins Cliff Path, through the gorgeous Glens of Antrim, towards the famous Giant’s Causeway and the magnificent Mussenden Temple.
Coastal Highway From Belfast city, via the Gobbins Cliff Path and all the way to the UNESCO World Heritage Site from which it takes its name, this incredible route is best enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Days are lazily spent driving along unique coastal seascapes, eating fresh seafood and exploring pretty seaside villages. The romantic remains of Dunluce Castle lie teetering on a craggy headland. This 14thcentury stronghold was abandoned in 1641 after part of the kitchen collapsed into the sea during a storm. Small wonder this place is said to have inspired C.S. Lewis to create Cair Paravel in The Chronicles of Narnia. Is that epic enough for you yet?
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A Giant Journey Country Antrim’s lighthouses shine brightly along this rugged coastline. Visit Rathlin West Light on stunning Rathlin Island or stay in one of the restored lightkeepers’ houses at Blackhead. Head to the nearby Old Bushmills Distillery, Ireland’s oldest working distillery, where you can enjoy a tour and a wee dram. There are so many fantastical landscapes along this Northern Ireland route that several places have been chosen as filming locations for the smash-hit HBO series Game of Thrones.
Torr Head Weave along this rugged jut of land on the north coast of Antrim, and as the raging waters crash below, gaze across the horizon at Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre.
Highlights along the way.
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge Heart thumping, knees quaking, blood rushing: Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge is a swaying little bridge that hovers almost 100 feet over a dramatic chasm.
Glens of Antrim All nine of the Glens, bar one, sweep downhill from Antrim’s volcanic plateau to the North Channel. Each has its own name evoking their history and character.
The Giant’s Causeway is an official UNESCO World Heritage Site. Giant’s Causeway Now for the gem of this serrated coastline, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site – the Giant’s Causeway – 40,000 basalt columns, formed by molten lava cooled into hexagonal dark stone steps. The Causeway
OTTAWA’S BEST STOUT & IRISH FARE
legend claims the great Celtic warrior Finn MacCool built the basalt highway to Scotland to challenge a rival giant, Benandonner, to battle. However, scientists believe that the Giant’s Causeway was formed by an ancient volcanic eruption 60 million years ago. Either way,
It’s the best craic in town!
SUNDAY
this haphazard grouping of columns is nothing short of outstanding. There’s also a fantastic visitor centre for you to discover more, and make your own mind up as to where the Causeway came from. Source Tourism Ireland
A real session for the ages!
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Speaking Irish The Survival of an Ancient Language Through Five Centuries By Christine Graef
I
n one of the first studies to be researched, Míle Míle i gCéin: The Irish Language in Canada, Danny Doyle traces the survival of the Irish Gaelic language through five centuries. Unraveling myths about the famine period, the book received the literary prize at the North American Gaelic competitions in June 2015 and was launched with the Canadian embassy in Ireland. “Gaelic is a truly Canadian language.” Doyle said. “There is evidence for Irish songs, poetry, and stories told and composed here in Canada, as well as some scant evidence for dialectical words, all now lost except for two — fál for the autumn, instead of fómhar, and
Pure Copper Preferable to Paper Token - Thomas Halliday Canadian colonial token “Pure Copper Preferable to Paper” 1820-1830, especially popular in Lower Canada, showing an Irishman holding shamrocks and a shillelagh, surrounded by oak leaves and shamrocks. 30
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samhán for a little afternoon siesta.” When Canada confederated in 1867 a quarter of the population was Irish. The language was so strong that in 1890 Sen. MacInnes stated that there were 200,000 to 250,000 people living their lives through the Irish language as well as about 250,000 Scottish-Gaelic speakers. With half a million citizens speaking Irish or Scottish, he proposed that Gaelic become Canada’s third national language. During his five years of research Doyle discovered remnants written back home remembering Ireland’s landscape, a narration of someone coming to a place of no fields and no crops or familiar animals, just strange haunting echoes coming out of forests, written in a song about arriving and stumbling to a cabin to find an old woman who recounts her memories of Ireland. Poems and stories were found, composed to console a wife that her husband was faring well in the fisheries, a ghostly tale of a mythological animal attacking a lonely cabin in the woods, and the epic of a Canadian bishop’s adventures with the tyrant king of Turkey. Kinship was found here. The famine brought more speakers to Canadian shores than ever before, but also imparted a sense of deep shame on the speakers. One part of Doyle’s own family changed their name from O’Sullivan to Selman in the 1850s to hide their Celtic heritage. “Theirs was a language of poverty and death,” Doyle said. “This globally saw the abandonment of the language within just two generations. In Canada, this shame was compounded with the national schools beating the language out of children and the
desire to be seen as British rather than Irish, following the Fenian raids.” Doyle, a fluent speaker of the southern dialect, graduated the Irish language program at the University of St. Michael’s College, having earned his HonBA in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto. His Master degree is in Art Conservation from Queen’s University. He is currently a conservator with Parks Canada in Ottawa, Áth a’ Tuaidh, the Ford of the North. “I got into the language myself through my grandfather,” he said. “My father’s family is Irish, but he lost his father in childhood, long before I was born. I hated the idea that I would travel to my family’s ancestral home and be a foreigner, and the language worked to make me at home, with the Gaelic community opening its arms to me. It also helped me to connect to a grandfather I never knew and to his people and history.” He looks at the world around him now through the same words and collected knowledge as his ancestors used for millennia before him, and be able to pass it along to those after him. “This is why the two dedications in the book are to my grandfather, and my first Irish teacher,” he said. Doyle found four generations who spoke Irish fluently but only when the doors were closed did the final generation
chatter in Gaelic. He found families who used derogatory terms for those who spoke what they considered an ancient language, saying “no, we never spoke that, our family is upright and proper.” But in his search he also found treasures of dialect that remained. “One of the beliefs native to culture I found that always brings a smile to my face is about fireflies told of in Gaelic,” he said. “It’s said, ‘a woman told me that a woman told her of a little old man the fireflies landed on and set him on fire.’”
An Meath (The Decline) At the time, the contemporary view held that Irish and Scottish Gaels were descended from Stone Age people and had not evolved yet, under Darwinian theory. Doyle found an anecdote of a zoo naming two monkeys Bridget and Patrick which the public considered an insult to the monkeys. “All this comes centuries after Irish already being here,” Doyle said. The first recording that Irish were in Canada was in 1536 when sailors came back to their home port in County Cork with cod and cod liver oil from the Grand Banks. The next mention is in 1608 when a man from Waterford sailed to Newfoundland. There were migrating fisheries with Newfoundland right up to famine, with some settling here for twenty years before sailing back home. The Cromwellian incursions saw 50,000 to 100,000 Gaels deported from Ireland into servitude in the West Indies and North America, transported in the same ships used in the African slave trade. “Branded like cattle, children of Gaelic nobility toiled for the rest of their lives in Virginia, Carolinas, West Indies,” Doyle said. “The men were sent to the continent to serve France and settled the St. Lawrence Valley. They probably didn’t retain language as they fled to French colonies.” The first reference of Irish in America was of a woman named Biddy (Bridget) Ann Glover who had toiled long years in the sugar plantations in Barbados until her husband died. She was bought by a man in Massachusetts. She became his washer woman but when his children fell ill, she was brought to court. Speaking only Irish, her ease at using the word “spirits” in place of “saints” along with other scanty evidence led to her being tried and hanged as a witch in 1688. “Biddy,” a common Irish name, came to mean servant. The language flowered from the 1700s
until the famine. Poets, song writers, storytellers and epic tales, all things associated with a strong culture carried all the way to the Klondike tale of the Great Milk Cow, Glas Ghaibhleann, was heard in 1898, recited on cold nights. Owned by the Formorian giant Balor or the Evil Eye, the magical cow would produce endless quantities of milk. “Others written in America, Australia, and New Zealand may not yet have been discovered yet,” Doyle said. Canada began seeing a flood of Gaelic come into places like Toronto with 38,000 Irish people in 1847 when the city at the time had only a population of 20,000. St. Johns, New Brunswick saw 15,000 into city of St. John’s population of 30,000. In the United States in 1847, at the height of the famine, Congress passed a bill
declaring overcrowded ships or ships with even one fever would not be allowed to enter the country. After already being on ships for months, the passengers were redirected up the coast to Canada, which could not reject any ships from the British ports. Doyle’s book brings to life the fever ships and coffin ships that made a Canadian phenomenon. A hundred thousand came in these ships in year 1847 alone. The death rate of refugees from the Great Hunger was one in four. Canada set up a quarantine island on Grosse Isle, Oileán na nGael (Island of the Gaels) outside of Quebec on the St. Lawrence River houses the mass graves of an unknown number of Irish victims. Estimates range from 3,000 to 30,000 people were buried Continued on page 32 CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
31
Continued from page 31 – S PEAKING
IRISH
here. Among them is a four-year-old, Ellen Keane, the first to die that year. The numbers were so overwhelming that eventually the names and the numbers were no longer recorded. Later, in the 1880s, “Irish speakers who came on shore were put on trains in such numbers they had to have an Irish attendant on the train to translate,” he said. Also explored in the book is the kinship the Gaelic held with First Nations. “Both feared dispossession of land, extermination of language and the efforts to erase their identity,” Doyle said. “The policies that were developed against the Irish overseas were then exported to use against the natives of North America. And, sadly, the national school system, developed by England to use against Celtic speakers, was exported to Canada. Many children raised in these schools, taught through physical and emotional abuse that their language and culture was wrong, were then recruited as teachers to use the same system, amplifying the brutality to ‘teach’ the native cultures.” In Nova Scotia Doyle found stories of survivors of the schools who still remember the cruel tortures put upon children who were caught speaking Gaelic. Within two generations, the Irish not only stopped speaking it, but no one knows it had been spoken here. English scholastic studies teach that Irish and Scottish Gaelic are different languages, but quotes from Parliament show they held it as one language with a common Gaelic view. A Scotsman, Robert McDougall, created a guide in 1841 for newcomers, using imagery of the homeland. Describing animals such as wolves no longer heard in Ireland after being wiped out by Cromwell, he wrote of their sound being similar to the “deep bellowing of elk during rutting season down in glen, when you’re up at top.”
Athbheochán (Re-enlivening) By 1901 the Irish language was passing to third and fourth generation Canadian born speakers. “It seems to have stopped around that period,” Doyle said. “Rather than a lingering idea that it had been here at one time it was entirely taken out of Canadian history, with children never knowing their grandparents may have spoken Gaelic.” The language persisted in isolated places 32
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
“The Irish in Ireland and in America” by Henry Edward Doyle, in Cusack, Mary Francis. “An Illustrated History of Ireland from the Earliest Period.” London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1868. with the last identified native speaker in Quebec dying in the 1950s and in New Brunswick in the 1980’s. In Alexandria, Ontario the last fluent speaker passed in 2005 in a family that spoke Scottish Gaelic for five generations. “It was close to being scrubbed from Canada, but the Irish language is breathing back into life,” Doyle said. “We’re preserving that part of our heritage into the future so it’s not entirely lost.” Doyle is actively involved in gathering the threads of Gaelic culture and teaching the language in Canada. He has lectured in fluent Irish as part of the Éigse Cholm Cille at Coláiste Mhig Aoidh, Ollscoil Uladh, in Derry, Ireland, as well as at Queen’s University in Ontario and teaching Irish in the Ottawa Catholic School Board in a high school credit course. He also participates in Canada’s first Gaeltacht which opened on June 2007 in Ontario with Ireland’s support during the opening ceremony attended by the Irish ambassador to Canada, Declan Kelly, and Helen Gannon of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. The first of its kind outside of Ireland, the Gaeltacht’s goal is to restore Gaelic by having a place where speakers can come together to learn and practice Irish as it was spoken 150 years ago. The Gaeltacht is located in the small rural town of Tamworth. The area, heavily of Irish character, was settled by an emigrant poet from Co. Wicklow, calling his first homestead
Mount Tara. “Conceptually, there is only one Gaeltacht in the world, the concept meaning the connected world of Gaelic speakers in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Cape Breton.” Doyle said. “Ours is only a small part of this.” There are so many thoughts that convey a sense of wonder that cannot be translated into English, he said. The Gaelic word for ladybug, for instance, means “a little cow of God” because of its spots. Mushrooms, which seem to appear out of nowhere, are the “meat of the fairies” “I strongly lament that there’s no collected work done in Canada,” Doyle said. “What did they call a loon, what did they call a bear or all the new things they came across. How did they describe them? We’ll never know what they spoke.” The rare accounts remaining of the people who went before us to make it possible to be here today speak between the 316 pages, changing how we view the Gaelic language outside of Ireland. Their stories, songs, poetry and folklore are woven into a story of Canada using their original Irish as well as through translation. “I hope I’ve been able to show how tragic it is when a language is lost, how quickly it could be gone and never regained,” he said. Míle Míle i gCéin: The Irish Language in Canada is available through Borealis Book Publishers and on Amazon.
A Government of Ireland measure brought to you by the Department of Justice and Equality
Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex-Gratia Scheme Expression of Interest In 2013 the Government established an ex-gratia redress scheme for the benefit of women who were admitted to and worked in one of 12 ‘Magdalen’ institutions. The Government has now decided to apply the scheme to women who worked in the laundries in those 12 institutions but who were resident in one of 14 adjoining institutions. The table below shows the 12 institutions covered by the 2013 scheme and the 14 relevant adjoining institutions covered by the recent Government decision. ‘Magdalen’ Institutions in 2013 Scheme
Institutions adjoining the ‘Magdalen’ Institutions Good Shepherd Sisters
Magdalen Institution New Ross
St. Aidan’s Industrial School
Magdalen Institution Waterford
St. Dominick’s Industrial School Gracepark Training Centre Mayfield Training Centre
Magdalen Institution Cork
St. Finbarr’s Industrial School Marymount Training Centre
Magdalen Institution Limerick
St. George’s Industrial School St. Joseph’s Reformatory School Rosemount Training Centre
Sisters of Our Lady of Charity St. Mary’s Refuge, High Park, Dublin 9
Monastery of Our Lady of Charity Sean McDermott Street, Dublin 1
An Grianán Training Centre St. Joseph’s Industrial School Martanna House Hostel St. Anne’s Hostel
Sisters of Mercy House of Mercy Domestic Training School,
St. Michael’s Industrial School,
Summerhill, Wexford
Summerhill
Magdalen Asylum, Forster Street, Galway
No relevant adjoining institution
St. Patrick’s Refuge, Crofton Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
No relevant adjoining institution
Sisters of Charity St. Mary’s Magdalen, Donnybrook, Dublin 4
No relevant adjoining institution
St. Vincent’s, St. Mary’s Road, Cork
No relevant adjoining institution
Domestic Training School, Stanhope Street, Dublin 7
No relevant adjoining institution
If you worked in the laundry of a ‘Magdalen’ institution while a resident in one of the adjoining institutions and would like to know if you might be entitled to benefits under the scheme, you should apply for and complete an “Expression of Interest” form. This form is available on the Department’s website www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/MagdalenScheme You may also email RJScheme@justice.ie or phone +353 (1) 4768660 and request a form. The Magdalen Restorative Justice ex-gratia scheme established in 2013 remains open. CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
33
Irish Style By Shauna Dickson
I
f you’ve ever visited Ireland in the spring you know it is one of the most majestic places to be this time of year. Fields are blanketed in wildflowers, painting a picture fit for a postcard with lambs frolicking among the flourishing and vibrant plants. Here in Canada, blossoming buds and singing songbirds are here to clear the bitter winter air with their delightful presence. A new season has arrived and after a true Canadian winter it is safe to say we deserve a proper Spring! We can expect longer evenings, new life to the beauty that surrounds us and definitely some new clothing. With each changing season we can bring fresh enthusiasm to our daily wardrobes. What better way to do so than by using Ireland’s natural
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
beauty as a muse for the palettes in our day to day life? This season Irish designers have sparked their creativity from simply taking a look
around them. The country landscapes and terrain is the perfect artistic influence. They’ve developed collections by sprouting new and fun colours you maybe wouldn’t expect to see so early on in the year. Mustard, orange and teal which are normally reserved for Autumn and Winter seasons are making the rounds alongside yellow, classic pastels, creams and sky blues. Cotton and linen grandfather shirts for men and linen sweaters and ponchos for women are always a Spring go to as the natural fibres wear extremely well. It’s best to let the skin breathe on those warmer days so cotton and linen are a crowd favourite.
A burnt orange merino wool half-zip is sure to brighten up any wardrobe and will keep your body temperature perfectly regulated for those evening walks. For a feminine touch try a shorter dusty pink chunky turtle neck over a long skirt and consider yourself sorted from day to night. With genuine hand knits getting harder and harder to find, more consumers are looking for something different enough to set them apart but still clearly ties them to their heritage. Designers like McConnell have figured out how to let traditional knot work and high end chic coexist. Their sweaters and ponchos in ice blues, blush pinks and charcoal greys bring new meaning to Irish couture and will certainly elevate any wardrobe. Ireland’s Eye Knitwear is another fantastic example of Irish style at its finest. Traditional aran patterns seem a bit more refined within this brand. This is important if you are aiming to stay on the more contemporary side of things while still wearing your heritage proudly. It’s important to have a few staple pieces that you can find yourself reaching for in the closet. Exhibiting these pieces is crucial in loving what you wear. You are able to show them off with pride and enjoy expressing your Celtic background through the best way you know how: the long standing family tradition of Irish designs. So put a spring in your step this year and make your day a little brighter with an authentic and stylish Irish piece of clothing!
irish design The finest products from Ireland to you.
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75 Queen Street, NOTL
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
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The Family Feast LAMB STEW HOT POT You can also use neck of lamb or gigot chops to make this stew. Simply ask your butcher to cut it into 1½cm slices for you. This is a great nutritionally complete dinner in one pot for the whole family.
Ingredients - Serves 6
Method
• 6 75g shoulder of lamb • 4 tablesp. plain flour • S alt and freshly-ground black pepper • 1 teasp. chopped fresh thyme • 1 small onion, sliced • 1 large leek, sliced • 2 large carrots, sliced • 1 00g swede, cut into cubes • About 600ml chicken stock •D ash of Worcestershire sauce • 6 75g even-sized potatoes • 4 0g butter •C hopped fresh parsley, to garnish
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180ºC (350ºF). Trim the lamb very well and cut into bite-sized pieces. Place the flour in a shallow dish and season generously, then use to coat the lamb. Arrange half of the lamb in the bottom of a round dish and add a sprinkling of thyme. Scatter the onion, leek, carrots and swede on top, then season and add another sprinkling of thyme. Arrange the remaining lamb on top to cover the vegetables completely and sprinkle over the remaining thyme. Pour enough chicken stock to just come up above the last layer of lamb. Cover the casserole with a lid and place in the oven for about 1 hour until the lamb and vegetables are just tender and the stock has thickened slightly. Place the potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Drain in a colander and set aside for 5 minutes until cool enough to handle. Slice the potatoes lengthways into 1cm thick slices and lay them in a slightly overlapping layer on top of the stew. Melt the butter in a small pan or in the microwave and brush over the potatoes. Season to taste and cook in the oven for another 40 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through and nicely golden and the lamb stew is bubbling up around the edges of the dish. Sprinkle the chopped parsley on top and serve straight to the table.
COLCANNON CAKES WITH POACHED EGGS AND HOLLANDAISE SAUCE This dish would also be delicious served with a slice of baked ham or bacon if you have any leftover. Alternatively, chop up the ham or bacon and add to the colcannon mixture before shaping into patties.
Ingredients - Serves 4
Method
• 4 50g potatoes, peeled • 4 0g butter • 3 scallions, finely chopped • A little salt and freshly ground black pepper • 5 0g Savoy cabbage, shredded • A little plain flour, for dusting •O live oil, for frying • 1 tablesp. white wine vinegar • 4 large eggs
Cook the potatoes in a covered pan of boiling salted water for 15-20 minutes until tender.
For the Hollandaise Sauce • 2 teasp. white wine or tarragon vinegar • 2 large egg yolks • 1 00g unsalted butter
Meanwhile, heat a knob of the butter and one tablespoon of water in a heavy-based pan with a lid, over a high heat. When the butter has melted and formed an emulsion, add the scallions and cabbage with a pinch of salt. Cover, shake vigorously and cook over a high heat for 1 minute. Shake the pan again and cook for another minute, then season with pepper. Drain the potatoes and mash until smooth, then beat in the remaining butter. Fold in the cabbage mixture. Shape the mixture into four balls, dust with flour and press into neat patties. Heat a thin film of olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan and add the patties, then cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown. To make the poached eggs, bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the vinegar and season with salt and keep at a very gentle simmer. Break the eggs into the water and simmer for 3-4 minutes until just cooked but still soft on the inside. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen paper, trimming away any ragged edges. To make the hollandaise sauce, place the vinegar and egg yolks in a food processor with a pinch of salt. Blend until just combined. Gently heat the butter in a heavy-based pan until melted and just beginning to foam. Turn on the food processor and with the motor running at medium speed; pour in the melted butter in a thin, steady stream through the feeder tube. Continue to blitz for another 5 seconds and pour back into the pan but do not return to the heat. Allow the heat from the pan to finish thickening the sauce as you stir it gently for another minute before serving. Season to taste with salt.
Serving Suggestions To serve, place a colcannon cake on each warmed plate and place a poached egg on top of each one. Spoon over the hollandaise sauce and add a grinding of black pepper.
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
ST PATRICK’S DAY SOUP WITH SHAMROCK SHAPED CHEESE CROUTONS Ingredients - Serves 4
Method
• 6 0g butter • 2 medium white onion, chopped • 6 00g potatoes, peeled and chopped • S alt and pepper • 8 00ml vegetable or chicken stock • 2 40g sorrel leaves, shredded
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion and potato and cook gently, covered for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Cheese Croutons
Add salt, pepper and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Add the sorrel leaves and cook for 5 minutes more. Liquidise the soup until smooth.
• 2 slices thick wholemeal bread •O live oil or melted butter to brush on • 1 00g grated Irish cheese
To make the Cheese Croutons: Cut shapes from the bread and brush lightly with olive oil or butter. Grill on one side then turn over and sprinkle with the grated cheese and grill until cheese is melted. Place on top of the hot soup.
ST PATRICK’S DAY SOUP WITH SHAMROCK SHAPED CHEESE CROUTONS Ingredients Makes 24 cupcakes • 2 00g caster sugar • 2 00g soft butter • 4 medium eggs • 1 tsp Irish cream liqueur (optional) • 2 00g self-raising flour
Frosting • 1 pack green sugarpaste icing sugar • 1 tub ready-made royal icing
To Cook • 2 x 12 cup muffin tins, • 2 4 muffin cases • S hamrock cutter
Method Preheat the oven to 180ºC, fan 160ºC, gas mark 4. Put the sugar and butter in an electric mixer and beat until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly in a small bowl and add slowly to the mix, using medium speed. If the mixture starts to curdle, add a little of the flour. When the eggs and butter mixture is well combined, mix in the liqueur (if using) and the remaining flour at slow speed. Divide the mixture between the muffin cases using two teaspoons or a piping bag with a wide nozzle [no.10]. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the sponge is lightly golden and springs back to the touch. Leave to cool before icing.
To make shamrock decorations: Roll out the green sugarpaste to about 3mm thickness using a little icing sugar to prevent sticking. Cut out shamrock shapes and put to one side. Prepare the royal icing as on the pack and cover the cupcakes with a spoon or pallet knife [Add green colouring if desired]. Place the green shamrock shapes on the icing before completely set. Wait until fully set before serving.
FISH PIE - ALWAYS A FAMILY FAVOURITE. Ingredients - Serves 6
Method
• 6 00g fish, e.g. haddock, hake, monkfish, trout, skinned and boned • 6 00ml milk •½ onion • 1 bay leaf • 6 pepper corns • 2 0g butter • 2 0g plain flour • 2 tomatoes, skinned and sliced • 3 tablesp. flat-leaf parsley, chopped • 1 tablesp. lemon juice • S alt and freshly-ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6, 200°C (400°F).
Topping
Try not to over-cook the fish at the poaching stage as it will have plenty of time to cook through when in the oven.
• 9 00g freshly mashed potatoes • 2 5g cheddar cheese, grated
Place the milk, onion, bay leaf and pepper corns in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer, add the fish and cook gently for 4-5 minutes. Remove the fish from the pan, allow to cool a little, then flake into bitesized pieces and place in a bowl. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring all the time until golden brown. Gradually stir in the fish cooking liquid until the mixture boils, season with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer gently for 3-4 minutes until thickened. Now add the sauce to the fish along with the parsley and lemon juice and taste for seasoning. Spoon half the fish mixture into a 1½ litre baking dish, arrange the sliced tomatoes on top and then spoon in the rest of the fish. Spread the mashed potatoes on top, finely sprinkle the cheese all over and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until heated through and browned.
Chef’s Tip
Other fish you could use: Any combination of fish will work.
Source: BordBia CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
37
Ruck Over
Rugby and Its Celtic Legacy in Canada By James Burt
N
ow that the winter sporting season is upon us, especially ice hockey and American football, many Canadians find themselves glued to the television watching padded skaters pass pucks on the ice and armoured field runners tossing a ball in-between several whistle blows to gain high Super Bowl status. There’s no denying the attraction of these sports and their legacies in North America, especially for the participants. But there are other sports piquing the interest of sports fans craving a faster pace and rawer field action. It’s ironic that it’s been a part of Canadian sporting life for over a century but only recently gaining renewed attention. Rugby’s highly competitive and global sports fans have long enjoyed the sport’s physically demanding nature—before the pads and guards, there were players with only cleats and a mouth guard scrumming it down to get there ball over the try line. However, while played by select clubs in Canada the US since earliest colonial periods, it’s never had the popularity compared to countries like South Africa and New Zealand, let alone the British or Celtic countries. In
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
Canada it’s been obscured by many other sports and many people barely familiar with its existence. But with growing popularity and influence from, among other places, Celtic regions, has seen it come to great fruition above the forty-ninth parallel.
no questioning that rugby is an English concoction. So much the better—as rugby spread in popularity, the Celtic nations adopted rugby
“…Training were two nights a week, with a match at weekends made for enduring friendships… A real tight-knit community club…” ~ Trevor Brennan in Heart and Soul by Gerry Thornley English Origins, Celtic Hearts There’s never been a definite explanation of how rugby came into existence. As Tony Collins’ The Oval World reviews, many have questioned if future Anglican clergyman William Webb Ellis of Rugby School, Warwickshire, England actually decided to pick up a soccer ball during an 1823 match and run with it to make his own game: the future ‘rugby-football’. However, there is
as one of their major games and adopted the phrase, ‘If they invented it, we beat them at it’ with deserved pride. By 1893, First Home Nations Championships were being played between England and Celtic counterparts Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Wales beat the strong and now rugbyprominent New Zealand All-Blacks first in 1905 while Ireland enjoyed a great win over the All-Blacks during the 1978 Rugby Union Tour of Britain and Ireland. More recently Dublin has become the headquarters of the International Rugby Board, and both Ireland and Scotland have seen action in Six Nations rugby matches in February 2019 with Ireland providing a surprising win and flanker Peter O’Mahony being named ‘Man of the Match’. What also seems to be even greater for rubgy fans is the Celtic nations teams’ adherence to traditional rugby playing style, known as rubgy union. Players still form scrums and engage each other before sending the out-coming ball down a line of backs according to traditional rugby practices. This differs from rugby union’s Yorkshire originating counterpart, rugby league, a game that requires fewer players and different pitch rules. It should be noted however league’s own growth in popularity,
thanks to the Toronto Wolfpack, a recently formed league team already making international headlines for its rugby skill and high playing status.
What of North American Pitches? With so much Celtic activity that came to Canada and the US over the last two centuries, there’s the wonder of why rugby has not been a more pervasive sport in the North American continent, especially Canada with its heavy roots in Celtic and British society. Many arguments have tried to account for the lack of rugby activity—in his book, A Game for Hooligans, Huw Edwards suggests that the proximity to the United States allowed Canada getting seduced by the more popular activities south of the border, along with American style beer and food to boot.
“You’ve got over ten thousand Canadians playing it now and nearly thirty thousand players registered with Rugby Canada now,” he said. “There have been great success stories too. In 2016, our Canadian women’s team won the bronze medal at the Rio de
Janeiro summer Olympics. Here in British Columbia, we have fans of thirty-eight to forty thousand turning up just to watch a match.” A rugby player from Victoria, British Columbia, Kelly knows the game, the teams, and articulates the direct Celtic lineage of rugby playing in Canada. “We have the Calgary Irish, the Ottawa Irish, and when you go to games in St. John’s or Halifax, you really feel like you are at a game in Ireland. But that’s where you see the enthusiasm. Many of the players there are originally from Ireland, Wales, or Scotland… these countries of high performance rugby play. They know the rules and what efforts their team here has to put in to play a solid game. It’s exciting.” All photos courtesy Rugby Canada
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However, the last fifty years has seen a change. Canada’s national rugby union team has shown its capability and fans are increasing in numbers. “Canadian Rugby Union was incorporated in 1974,” said Rugby Canada’s Media and Communications Manager Bryan Kelly. “Before that, rugby in Canada did have a great history. There were clubs in the 1800’s in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. We played Japan in 1931. We became part of World Cup Rugby at its inception in 1987. Now have teams of fifteens and sevens. In all, there are definite pockets of rugby in Canada where it is loved.” Kelly points to the great numbers of rugby interest in Canada and how it’s been growing steadily over time.
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CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
39
Interview with
Jackie McDonagh General Manager, AerRianta International, Montreal for Celtic Canada By Paul Loftus Let’s start by you telling me about your background My grandmother was from
Manager for Dunnes in Liffey Valley , and later went to Cornelscourt which was the number 1 store in the company.
Caherlistrane, Co.Galway and my
I left Dunnes in November 2001
grandfather was from Shrule in Co. Mayo.
to go to River Island.
They met and moved to Dublin in the late 1950’s. They moved to a very small place called Brittas, Co Dublin which is half a mile off both the Wicklow and Kildare border. My father who was brought up here later met my mother, who was brought up in Co Carlow. Brittas is where I grew
What’s your work history before starting with AerRianta? I spent 10 years working
up throughout all my childhood and
for the UK high street fashion
attended primary school and later attended
retailer River Island. I started as an
secondary school in Rathcoole. I am the
Assistant Store Manager in Grafton St.,
eldest of eight children so I spent a lot of
Dublin and later got promoted to a Store
time looking after my sisters and brothers
Manager in 2003 to the busy store in Henry
and we had a lot of fun growing up in the
St. In 2005 I was promoted to an Area
countryside. I enjoyed playing basketball
Manager in Northern Ireland responsible
which include Grafton St, Henry St ,
and tennis when I was young and I spent
for 11 stores and to open 2 stores more. I
Dundrum and several more.
a lot of time with my grandmother who
was 27 years old at the time and I relocated
taught me a lot of things over the years. My
to Belfast. It was a great experience
retail and I worked with Life Style Sports
daughter Nicole is 21 years old and recently
managing multi sites and gave me good
and was Head of Retail Operations for 4
moved to Budapest to study veterinary
skill sets on communication and managing
years looking after 65 stores in Ireland.
In 2010 , I decided to work in sports
people and achieving consistency over
When did you start to work and where? I began my retail career working in Dunnes Stores in 1995 after I completed
several locations. In 2006 I was promoted to a Flagship Area Manager where I was responsible for all the top stores in Ireland
When did you join AerRianta and why? I joined Aer Rianta in July 2014, one
my Leaving Cert. I loved working there
sector within retail I had not worked in
and the retail bug had bitten me. I then
was travel retail, and I found this to be very
progressed into management and did my
exciting. Travel retail is very different that
first post in the Ilac Centre in Dublin City
downtown retail , as a passenger’s priority
Centre as Womenswear Manager at 21
in an airport is not necessarily to shop, but
years old. It was a big step up for me as it
to get on a flight. This means travel retail
was a large turnover store. Two years later
needs to be better , faster and have good
I was appointed as the Assistant Store
promotions to entice passengers to buy.
40
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
It was also a challenge to learn and evolve within the retail sector and work with key stakeholders in the airports
Who was your inspiration? My daughter Nicole is my inspiration. I have always strived to learn, grow and
To what do you attribute your success? Good two -way communication with all
develop so I could be a good role model to
employees is important so everyone knows
her and to provide her with opportunities
the vision and we are aligned on our path
in life that she wants to follow. When
to deliver. We have done a lot of work on
At the start of my career with Aer
Nicole was 7 years old she wanted to be a
staff engagement and staff training over the
Rianta, I was appointed Head of Retail
vet. I am very proud of her relocating to
last 18 months. It is all about motivating
in July 2014. In January 2015 , I took
Budapest to study veterinary and following
the team and communicating clearly our
additional responsibility for all the
her dream.
vision and priorities that leads to success.
Why did you move to Canada?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
What was your career path since joining?
purchasing for Ireland on Beauty , Liquor, Foods and Souvenirs. I led the team through an 8 million euro refurbishment in Terminal 1, which had won several
I love a challenge, I thought the move
awards , one global award being the Best
to Canada would challenge me both
Airport Retail of the year for 2016 which
personally and professionally and it has.
role where I can make a positive impact on
was presented at the annual Frontier
I was about to have a milestone birthday
a wider scale.
awards in Cannes. In September 2016 , I
the following year and I thought this was
was promoted to General Manager of Aer
great timing to start something new, learn
Rianta Ireland.
French and immerse myself in a new
I was offered the opportunity to be
country while making a difference.
the General Manager for Aer Rianta North America where we operate the duty free in 4 airports in Canada. We have our warehouse, HR, Finance and IT departments based in our offices in Ville
I would like to progress into a global
What advice do you have for young women getting into business today? My advice is to be open to learning and
How are things going for the company in Canada? Performance has been strong in Canada
applying that learning to oneself, a process or a project. Asking questions is the best way to learn and understand.
Saint Laurent, Quebec. I was delighted
where we have grown the business by 12%
to accept the position as gaining overseas
in 2017 and a further 11% in 2018. We have
dive deeply and understand why it failed
experience was important to me and I
brought in several new beauty brands and
so improvements can be made. This is how
knew I would learn a lot more by moving
new and exclusive ranges on Liquor. We
we develop and progress.
to Canada. I am living in Montreal since
introduced Keihl’s, Jo Malone and Shiseido
March 2017 and I am loving it. It’s such an
on beauty to name a few. We have done
is also important and if you have the
amazing city with a lot of culture, flair and
some new refurbishments on Chanel and
opportunity to have a good mentor, it
great restaurants. Winters can be tough.
Dior and Armani.
makes a difference.
However, the summers are fantastic and
The Irish Whiskey range has also
Where there may be failure, it’s good to
Building relationships with colleagues
Finally one of the most important
certainly compensate for the long winters. I
expanded greatly by introduction of
areas is good clear and concise
am taking the opportunity to travel when I
Redbreast, Green Spot, Teeling, Knappogue
communication. It’s essential for business.
can so I can see as much as possible on this
and expanded Jameson range
A lot of issues that arise in business
side of the world.
and also our personal lives is either through breakdown in communication,
What are the future plans for AerRianta in North America? Sustainable growth by delivering an
lack of clarity on communications or misinterpreted communications. I have learned that factual and concise
outstanding shopping experience is our
communication prevents these issues quite
primary objective. We would like to expand
a lot. I completed a 6 month course in
our footprint in North America also.
communications some years ago and found it very beneficial to both my career and my personal relationships.
CELTIC CANADA | SPRING 2019
41
Meet Our
Master Craftsmen M
Michael Murphy, Master Sculptor
ichael started his career with Waterford Crystal in 1974. At the age of 15 years, he heard from a friend (who was already employed by Waterford Glass) that the factory was recruiting apprentices. Michael clearly remembers the speed of the hiring process, he was interviewed by the then HR Manager Sean Dunphy on Wednesday, did a medical on Friday and was told he was starting in Waterford Glass on Monday!! Michael lived in Ballyhale, Co Kilkenny with his parents and eight siblings. Michael’s Dad worked all his life in Forestry and Roads with the Council and was very proud to have his son training with the world-renowned Waterford Glass. Michael remembers starting on the first day in the Kilbarry factory, along with a few other new starters. “I had to choose whether I wanted to work in the hot end of the process or the cold end. I chose the cold end of the process and was introduced to George Lye and Frank Leahy in the cutting department. I went on to train as a Rheintour Cutter under their guidance. I trained for five years as an apprentice and then completed a further three years to become a Master Cutter.” Michael worked in the cutting area for twenty-one years in total.
In 1995 a job was advertised internally for two sculptors in the K4 Design department. Michael applied along with twenty other candidates. Each of the candidates had to create a sculpted piece and their work was graded and judged. Michael was successful and was selected for one of the positions as
a Sculptor. With further years of training Michael went on to become a Master Sculptor. Michael has worked on many, amazing prestigious pieces during his career at Waterford. When asked what his favourite pieces were, he says, “I don’t have favourite pieces but have lots of memorable pieces. The first piece that came to mind was the ‘Alotion Club House’, this was a privately commissioned piece for a gentleman from Arkansas. He commissioned Waterford Glass to create an exact replica of the Club House he was building”. This piece took over four months to complete and Michael has vivid memories of creating the balustrades that lined the front of the piece, tedious and time consuming, but necessary to create the stunning finished effect. The piece was displayed in the club house on completion. A spectacular six-foot-high Waterford Crystal Christmas tree, designed by Diarmuid Gavin was another memorable piece Michael created. The tree was auctioned in the UK raising £35,000 for a children’s charity. Michael got to meet Princess Anne who was patron of the charity. Michael remembers well his trips to Venice to the Fincanteri ship yard in Trieste. He travelled with the team from Waterford to install a spectacular piece that were commissioned by the Holland & America Line for four of their cruise liners. Starting in 2002 with the final installation in 2007, the ships were the Zuiderdam where they installed a ‘Crystal Seahorse’, the Oosterdam had a ‘Crystal Globe’, the Westerdam a ‘Crystal HAL Ship’ and finally the Noordam where they installed a ‘Crystal Compass’, these breath taking sculpted piece were installed in the atrium of each ship. The installations took a week or so to complete, over the period of five years.
Michael has ‘rubbed’ shoulders with lots of stars from the music world when Waterford Crystal were commissioned to make five crystal Joshua Trees for the band U2 and their then manager Paul Mc Guinness. The sculpted trees were presented to the group to mark the occasion of being given the Freedom of Dublin City in 2000. During Michael’s career at Waterford he has met numerous people, he has conversed with politicians from all walks of life, who have visited Waterford Crystal, Enda Kenny John Hume, Gerry Adams, Pat Doherty and David Trimble to name but a few. Meeting Alex Ferguson (Manchester United Manager) is another stand out moment for Michael, Alex had commissioned a sculpted crystal replica of the Old Trafford stadium which he gifted to the Club. Even though Michael is more of a GAA man and staunch Kilkenny fan he thoroughly enjoyed meeting with Alex on his visit to Waterford. Michael is very passionate about his work and loves to chat to visitors about his craft and the pieces he has worked on. He loved meeting and chatting with Eugene lambert (Irish puppeteer) and his wife Mai, he found them both to be very interesting people. Michael also met with Millvina Dean (one of the last people to be rescued from the Titanic as a two-month-old baby) Milvina visited Waterford Crystal with her son and Michael had the opportunity to chat with her and hear a little of her fascinating story. Michael Murphy Master Sculptor has created hundreds of pieces, during his 44 years at Waterford Crystal. He has met with royalty, chatted with celebrities, met politicians and people who have led amazingly interesting lives. As Michael reflects on his career the message he would send to himself the 15-year boy who stated work in Waterford Glass back in 1974 would be to work hard, treat people with respect, have pride in all you do and enjoy your journey!!!
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PLEASE ENJOY RESPONSIBLY. Can shown is Hop House 13 Lager Beer 500mL 5.0%