Irish Catholics

Proximity to the United States and wide access to American culture has left a distorted image of the Irish Catholic experience in Canada. Until recently, American myths and images have cast the Canadian Irish in the mould of poor, semi-literate urban dwellers who struggled against Protestant intolerance and institutionalized bigotry. However, recent studies have challenged this approach and cast serious doubt on any attempts to replicate American models when examining the Irish Catholics of Canada.

No one particular locale is typical of Canada’s Irish Catholic experience. Even within provinces, settlement patterns and cultural adaptation varied because of specific economic activities, the time of settlement, and the mix of peoples and religions. Nevertheless, a few general observations may be made. Most important, the Roman Catholic Church emerged early on as one of the primary foci of Irish Catholic life, providing an institutional and devotional network that linked Irish Catholic Canadians from sea to sea. Also, in the nineteenth century Irish Catholics tended to be more rural than their American cousins and certainly did not form lasting urban ghettos in all of Canada’s cities. Likewise, their increasing occupational diversification and participation in national events, particularly the two world wars, demonstrated further adaptation by Irish Catholics to English-Canadian society and its values. Perhaps the clearest testament to their acculturation has been their virtual absence from scholarly studies of ethnic groups in twentieth-century Canada. In the minds of many Canadians, they are part of the charter English-speaking community in their language, political affiliations, economic enterprises, and social behaviour.