A Land of Dreams: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 9780773554054

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Acknowledgments

a land of dreams

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mcgill-queen’s studies in ethnic history series one: donald harman akenson, editor 1 Irish Migrants in the Canadas A New Approach Bruce S. Elliott (Second edition, 2004) 2 Critical Years in Immigration Canada and Australia Compared Freda Hawkins (Second edition, 1991) 3 Italians in Toronto Development of a National Identity, 1875–1935 John E. Zucchi 4 Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs Essays in Honour of the Sesquicentennial of the Birth of Kr. Barons Vaira Vikis-Freibergs 5 Johan Schroder’s Travels in Canada, 1863 Orm Overland 6 Class, Ethnicity, and Social Inequality Christopher McAll 7 The Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict The Maori, the British, and the New Zealand Wars James Belich 8 White Canada Forever Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia W. Peter Ward (Third edition, 2002) 9 The People of Glengarry Highlanders in Transition, 1745–1820 Marianne McLean 10 Vancouver’s Chinatown Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980 Kay J. Anderson 11 Best Left as Indians Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840–1973 Ken Coates 12 Such Hardworking People Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto Franca Iacovetta

13 The Little Slaves of the Harp Italian Child Street Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Paris, London, and New York John E. Zucchi 14 The Light of Nature and the Law of God Antislavery in Ontario, 1833–1877 Allen P. Stouffer 15 Drum Songs Glimpses of Dene History Kerry Abel 16 Canada’s Jews (Reprint of 1939 original) Louis Rosenberg Edited by Morton Weinfeld 17 A New Lease on Life Landlords, Tenants, and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada Catharine Anne Wilson 18 In Search of Paradise The Odyssey of an Italian Family Susan Gabori 19 Ethnicity in the Mainstream Three Studies of English Canadian Culture in Ontario Pauline Greenhill 20 Patriots and Proletarians The Politicization of Hungarian Immigrants in Canada, 1923–1939 Carmela Patrias 21 The Four Quarters of the Night The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh Tara Singh Bains and Hugh Johnston 22 Cultural Power, Resistance, and Pluralism Colonial Guyana, 1838–1900 Brian L. Moore 23 Search Out the Land The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British Colonial America, 1740–1867 Sheldon J. Godfrey and Judith C. Godfrey

Foreword 24 The Development of Elites in Acadian New Brunswick, 1861–1881 Sheila M. Andrew

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25 Journey to Vaja Reconstructing the World of a HungarianJewish Family Elaine Kalman Naves

mcgill-queen’s studies in ethnic history series two: john zucchi, editor 1 Inside Ethnic Families Three Generations of PortugueseCanadians Edite Noivo

12 Tortillas and Tomatoes Transmigrant Mexican Harvesters in Canada Tanya Basok

2 A House of Words Jewish Writing, Identity, and Memory Norman Ravvin

13 Old and New World Highland Bagpiping John G. Gibson

3 Oatmeal and the Catechism Scottish Gaelic Settlers in Quebec Margaret Bennett

14 Nationalism from the Margins The Negotiation of Nationalism and Ethnic Identities among Italian Immigrants in Alberta and British Columbia Patricia Wood

4 With Scarcely a Ripple Anglo-Canadian Migration into the United States and Western Canada, 1880–1920 Randy William Widdis 5 Creating Societies Immigrant Lives in Canada Dirk Hoerder

15 Colonization and Community The Vancouver Island Coalfield and the Making of the British Columbia Working Class John Douglas Belshaw

6 Social Discredit Anti-Semitism, Social Credit, and the Jewish Response Janine Stingel

16 Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War Internment in Canada during the Great War Bohdan S. Kordan

7 Coalescence of Styles The Ethnic Heritage of St John River Valley Regional Furniture, 1763–1851 Jane L. Cook

17 Like Our Mountains A History of Armenians in Canada Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill

8 Brigh an Orain / A Story in Every Song The Songs and Tales of Lauchie MacLellan Translated and edited by John Shaw 9 Demography, State and Society Irish Migration to Britain, 1921–1971 Enda Delaney 10 The West Indians of Costa Rica Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority Ronald N. Harpelle 11 Canada and the Ukrainian Question, 1939–1945 Bohdan S. Kordan

18 Exiles and Islanders The Irish Settlers of Prince Edward Island Brendan O’Grady 19 Ethnic Relations in Canada Institutional Dynamics Raymond Breton Edited by Jeffrey G. Reitz 20 A Kingdom of the Mind The Scots’ Impact on the Development of Canada Edited by Peter Rider and Heather McNabb 21 Vikings to U-Boats The German Experience in Newfoundland and Labrador Gerhard P. Bassler

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22 Being Arab Ethnic and Religious Identity Building among Second Generation Youth in Montreal Paul Eid 23 From Peasants to Labourers Ukrainian and Belarusan Immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada Vadim Kukushkin 24 Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities Migration to Upper Canada in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Elizabeth Jane Errington 25 Jerusalem on the Amur Birobidzhan and the Canadian Jewish Communist Movement, 1924–1951 Henry Felix Srebrnik

35 Building Nations from Diversity Canadian and American Experience Compared Garth Stevenson 36 Hurrah Revolutionaries The Polish Canadian Communist Movement, 1918–1948 Patryk Polec 37 Alice in Shandehland Scandal and Scorn in the Edelson/Horwitz Murder Case Monda Halpern 38 Creating Kashubia History, Memory, and Identity in Canada’s First Polish Community Joshua C. Blank

26 Irish Nationalism in Canada Edited by David A. Wilson

39 No Free Man Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience Bohdan S. Kordan

27 Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939–1945 Ivana Caccia

40 Between Dispersion and Belonging Global Approaches to Diaspora in Practice Edited by Amitava Chowdhury and Donald Harman Akenson

28 Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905–1945 Rebecca Margolis

41 Running on Empty Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975–1980 Michael J. Molloy, Peter Duschinsky, Kurt F. Jensen, and Robert J. Shalka

29 Imposing Their Will An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933–1948 Jack Lipinsky 30 Ireland, Sweden, and the Great European Migration, 1815–1914 Donald H. Akenson 31 The Punjabis in British Columbia Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism Kamala Elizabeth Nayar 32 Growing Up Canadian Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists Edited by Peter Beyer and Rubina Ramji 33 Between Raid and Rebellion The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867–1916 William Jenkins 34 Unpacking the Kists The Scots in New Zealand Brad Patterson, Tom Brooking, and Jim McAloon

42 Twenty-First-Century Immigration to North America Newcomers in Turbulent Times Edited by Victoria M. Esses and Donald E. Abelson 43 Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective John G. Gibson 44 Witness to Loss Race, Culpability, and Memory in the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians Edited by Jordan Stanger-Ross and Pamela Sugiman 45 Mad Flight? The Quebec Emigration to the Coffee Plantations of Brazil John Zucchi 46 A Land of Dreams Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 Patrick Mannion

preface

A Land of Dreams Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923

patrick mannion

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2018 isbn 978-0-7735-5360-6 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-5361-3 (paper) isbn 978-0-7735-5405-4 (epdf) isbn 978-0-7735-5406-1 (epub) Legal deposit second quarter 2018 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book has been published with the help of grants from the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College and the Jackman Foundation.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Mannion, Patrick, author A land of dreams : ethnicity, nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 / Patrick Mannion. (McGill-Queen’s studies in ethnic history. Series two ; 46) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-5360-6 (hardcover). – isbn 978-0-7735-5361-3 (softcover). – isbn 978-0-7735-5405-4 (epdf). – isbn 978-0-7735-5406-1 (epub) 1. Irish Canadians – Newfoundland and Labrador – St. John's – Ethnic identity – History. 2. Irish – Newfoundland and Labrador – St. John's – Ethnic identity – History. 3. Irish Canadians – Nova Scotia – Halifax – Ethnic identity – History. 4. Irish – Nova Scotia – Halifax – Ethnic identity – History. 5. Irish Americans – Maine – Portland – Ethnic identity – History. 6. Irish – Maine – Portland – Ethnic identity – History. 7. Nationalism – Ireland. I. Title. fc106.i6m336 2018

305.8916'20715

c2018-901091-6 c2018-901092-4

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

Foreword

For my parents

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Foreword

preface

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Contents

Tables and Figures xi Acknowledgments xiii Abbreviations

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Introduction: The Irish Diaspora in Comparative Perspective 3 1

The Setting: St John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Portland, Maine 17

2

Everyday Irishness: Associational Life, 1880–1910

3

Charitable Relief, the Land League, and Home Rule Nationalism, 1880–1891 77

4

The Changing Face of Ethnicity: Waning Nationalism and the Catholic Church 121

5

Reinvented Nationalism: The Third Home Rule Bill, the Ulster Crisis, and the First World War, 1911–1918 163

6

An Ethnic Resurgence: Engagement with Irish Nationalism, 1919–1923 197

41

Conclusion: Understanding Irish Ethnicity in the Diaspora 233 appendices a

Occupational Categories 243

b Biographical Details of Members of the Portland Ancient Order of Hibernians, 1912 245

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c Traceable Members of the Portland Land League, 1881–1882 246 d Provisional Dominion Council of the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland, October 1920 248 e Names and Occupations of the 1920 Portland Friends of Irish Freedom Executive 249 Notes 251 Bibliography 293 Index 319

Acknowledgments

Tables and Figures

tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 2.1 2.2 2.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1

Religious denominations in St John’s, 1884–1921 23 Population of St John’s by place of birth, 1884–1921 24 Population of Halifax by religion, 1881–1921 30 Population of Halifax by place of birth, 1881–1921 31 Persons declaring Irish origins (either by birth or ancestry) by ward, Halifax, 1881 32 Population of Portland by place of birth, 1880–1920 36 Irish-born population of Portland by city ward, 1920 39 Occupational profile of the St John’s Benevolent Irish Society, 1909 45 Biographical profile of the 1902 Charitable Irish Society executive 52 Occupational profile of the [Halifax] Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division No. 1, 1902 executive 63 Origins of Catholic priests serving the city of St John’s, 1881–1921 133 Origins of Catholic priests serving the diocese of St John’s, 1881–1921 133 Training of Newfoundland-born clerics serving the city of St John’s, 1881–1921 135 Origins of Halifax Roman Catholic clergy, 1881–1919 141 Origins of Portland Roman Catholic clergy, 1881–1919 146 Occupational profile of proposed members of the Halifax Charitable Irish Society, 1914 175

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Tables and Figures

6.1 Names and occupations of the 1923 executive of the Newfoundland Gaelic League 213 6.2 Places of birth of Portland subscribers to the 1920 Irish Republican Bond Drive 225 6.3 Occupational breakdown of Portland subscribers to the 1920 Irish Republican Bond Drive 226

figures 0.1 St John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Portland, Maine xix 0.2 View of St John’s from Lower Signal Hill, c. 1925 xx 0.3 Halifax panorama from the Citadel, 1883 xxi 0.4 View from the Portland Observatory, c. 1900 xxii 1.1 Map of St John’s, Newfoundland, 1909 21 1.2 Map of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1878 27 1.3 Map of Portland, Maine, 1900 34 2.1 St Patrick’s Hall, home of the St John’s Benevolent Irish Society, pre-1900 46 2.2 1919 AOH parade, Halifax 73 6.1 Portland City Hall, c. 1910 223

Foreword

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Acknowledgments

As the Newfoundland-born son of Irish immigrants, I have always been interested in how people of Irish descent identified with their ancestral homeland and in the various, evolving understandings of “being Irish” that mark the diasporic experience. Over the course of my undergraduate and graduate studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, these broad interests became focused on the historical processes that defined and constructed Irish identities through space and time. What did it mean to be Irish overseas, and how did these meanings vary from place to place? When I moved to Toronto in September 2008 to begin my PhD, I had already decided to pursue a comparative study of two or more diasporic Irish communities. Building upon my master’s thesis on Irish-Newfoundland nationalism in the twentieth century, I always intended St John’s to be a central component of this study. It is my home, and I remain motivated by a desire to understand the passionate intergenerational Irish-Newfoundland identities that I observed during my formative years. Eventually, I settled on Halifax and Portland as the other centres for comparison. Like St John’s, both were medium-sized North Atlantic ports and both were home to substantial numbers of Irish. They offered the possibility of examining how Irish communities in different stages of development and situated in different national settings remained connected to the broader diaspora. Over the course of numerous research trips, I have developed a great affinity for both of these cities. They are beautiful places, and I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet and work with wonderful people in each.

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Acknowledgments

The first thanks, though, must go to my professors, colleagues, and friends at the University of Toronto. I am deeply indebted to Mark McGowan. Without his questions, comments, criticisms, and, especially, support, this project would not have been possible. I also thank David Wilson and Rick Halpern, for their continued support and editorial input. Kevin Kenny served as my external examiner and, subsequently, as my postdoctoral supervisor at Boston College, where the final revision of this manuscript took place. His suggestions and advice have been instrumental in revising the dissertation into monograph form. Warm and special thanks go to James H. Murphy and the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College for their generous financial support, without which this book might not have been published. Additional funding in support of this publication has been provided by the Jackman Foundation, courtesy of Father Edward Jackman. At McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kyla Madden cheerfully responded to my many questions, and I am especially grateful for her frequent encouragement and genuine enthusiasm for this project. My thanks also to Eleanor Gasparik for her eagle-eyed and exceptionally thorough copy-editing, and to my anonymous peer reviewers, whose insightful suggestions have greatly enhanced the depth and quality of the manuscript. In St John’s, numerous historians, archivists, and librarians assisted me during the research phase of this project. Specifically, I thank Larry Dohey for facilitating my access to the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St John’s as well as Bert Riggs, Joan Ritcey, and the entire staff of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies at Memorial University. Special thanks go to David Mercer of Memorial’s Map Room for his assistance in preparing maps. The staff at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (The Rooms) were always courteous and helpful during my visits there. In Halifax, thanks go to everyone I dealt with at the Nova Scotia Archives and to Sharon Riel at the Archdiocese of Halifax Roman Catholic Archives. In Portland, I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of the Irish community. For their support, advice, and enthusiasm for this project, I thank Matthew Jude Barker, Patricia McBride, and everyone involved with the Maine Irish Heritage Center. Finally, deep gratitude must be extended to Michael Connolly, Becky Hitchcock, and the McCarrons, whom I have come to regard as my “Portland family.”

Acknowledgments

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Closer to home, my family’s neighbours, the late O’Brien brothers – John, Mike, and Aloysius (Aly) – taught me from a young age about the depth and complexity of Irish-Newfoundland identity. The influence of our many conversations about Ireland and Irishness resonates throughout these chapters. The love and encouragement of my friends and family in St John’s cannot be overstated. They are too numerous to name, though specific thanks must go to Heather Kenny and, especially, to my parents, John and Maura. My debt to you is too great to put into words. Go raibh maith agaibh.

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Prologue

Foreword

Abbreviations

AARIR AOH BIS CIS CMBA FOIF IARA INL IPP IRA IRB OAS PLSBS RIC SDIL SDILN SOS TABS UIL UILA UVF

American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic Ancient Order of Hibernians Benevolent Irish Society (St John’s) Charitable Irish Society (Halifax) Catholic Mutual Benefit Association Friends of Irish Freedom Irish American Relief Association (Portland) Irish National League Irish Parliamentary Party Irish Republican Army Irish Republican Brotherhood Orphan Asylum School Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society Royal Irish Constabulary Self-Determination for Ireland League of Canada and Newfoundland Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland Star of the Sea Association (St John’s) Total Abstinence and Benefit Society (St John’s) United Irish League United Irish League of America Ulster Volunteer Force

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Foreword

Foreword

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Figure 0.1 St John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Portland, Maine. Source: Map drawn by David Mercer, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Foreword

Figure 0.2 View of St John’s from Lower Signal Hill, c. 1925. Above the harbour, the city skyline is dominated by the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist. Source: Geography Collection of Historical Photographs of Newfoundland and Labrador, Archives and Special Collections, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Foreword

Figure 0.3 Halifax panorama from the Citadel, 1883. The view towards the harbour includes the principal streets of downtown Halifax. Source: “Notman’s Halifax Panorama from the Citadel, Frame Four Looking East Southeast Across Halifax Harbour with Brunswick Street and the Citadel foreground, 1883.” Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives, 1983-310 #A4, Negative no. N-1366.

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Foreword

Figure 0.4 View from the Portland Observatory, c. 1900. From the top of Munjoy Hill, the view includes downtown Portland and the harbour. Source: Collections of Maine Maritime Museum, courtesy of www.vintagemaineimages.com.

The Backstory

a land of dreams

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2

On the House

introduction

The Irish Diaspora in Comparative Perspective

On 5 June 1920, the students of St Bonaventure’s College – an Irish Christian Brothers’ school in St John’s, Newfoundland – sent a letter to Brother J.B. Ryan on the eve of his departure for Ireland. After wishing him a safe journey, they asked their teacher to “salute for us the hills and valleys of Ireland. For us it is a land of dreams, known only … through the medium of song, story and history, and ere we separate we venture to express the fervent hope that upon your return to our shores you will bring with you good tidings of great joy that all is well in the old land – that ’tis dawn on the hills of Ireland.”1 This short note, penned by boys who were almost certainly several generations removed from their ancestral homeland, raises some of the central questions that dominate the scholarship of the Irish diaspora. How, and to what extent, was a sense of Irish identity passed from one generation to the next, and how did these identities vary from place to place? The question of identity is complex. Through time and across space, the phrase “I am Irish” has carried many different meanings, and can be modified to encompass a wide variety of experiences: what was it to be an Irish man versus an Irish woman? Emigrant versus nativeborn? Upper- versus lower-class? Urban versus rural? Catholic versus Protestant? This book is concerned with diasporic experiences and the networks that connected the Irish abroad to one another and to their contemporaries in Ireland. Why did the “old land” continue to mean so much for some, and so little to others? Between 1815 and 1870, between 4 million and 4.5 million people emigrated from Ireland, and by the 1990s, there were over 70 million individuals of Irish descent scattered across the globe.2 In order to study this vast diaspora

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A Land of Dreams

coherently, we require a more refined definition, and here, Irish identity becomes central. Membership in the broader Irish ethnic group depends upon at least some self-identification with the ancestral homeland or, at the most basic level, an awareness and appreciation of one’s Irish origins.3 A critical question for the historical scholar of the diaspora becomes: how were such Irish identities constructed and how did they evolve over time and space? This work is a comparative study of Irish-Catholic community and identity in St John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Portland, Maine from 1880 to 1923. Whether they settled in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere, the Irish abroad did not share a common experience. Emigrants from Ireland and their descendants reshaped their ethnic identities in response to local circumstances. A comparative study of three mostly Catholic Irish communities in different stages of development reveals the variability of ethnicity, as well as how these communities remained connected to a broader, transnational diaspora until well into the twentieth century. In St John’s and Halifax, emigration from Ireland was largely an early-nineteenth-century, pre-famine phenomenon. By the 1880s, the Irish communities were long established, were overwhelmingly native-born, and had achieved relative political and economic independence. Those of Irish descent in St John’s formed a majority of the city’s population, while those in Halifax were a strong minority. The Irish in Portland, Maine, by contrast, arrived during and after the potato famine of the 1840s and were a smaller minority in a predominantly Yankee-Protestant milieu. In these differing settings, was a sense of “Irishness” transmitted generationally? How, and to what extent, could a sense of ethnic community be maintained? How did relations with other ethnoreligious groups influence identity? What was the role of religion, gender, and class? How did local and external forces combine to influence expressions and understandings of Irishness? My primary argument is that Irish identities did not develop in isolation. They were created and sustained by the complex interaction of local, regional, national, and transnational networks. At the local level, Irishness was constructed in distinct social and spatial contexts. Beyond home and family, conceptions of what it meant to be Irish emerged at the meetings, lectures, and social events of ethnic and benevolent associations, such as the Benevolent Irish Society (BIS) in St John’s or the Charitable Irish Society (CIS) in Halifax, where

Introduction

5

connections to the ancestral homeland were explicitly discussed; in the columns of local newspapers, which provided a forum for popular debate on Irish matters, both domestic and external; through the ritual celebration of St Patrick’s Day, which occurred in all three cities throughout this period; in the workplace, such as on Portland’s ethnically divided waterfront; in schools; and in the Catholic parish, where the ever-shifting, complex relationship between ethnicity and religion was played out. At the regional level and beyond, we must remember that these are port cities. As some of North America’s closest centres to Ireland, they offered the possibility of a continuing flow of people and ideas from old world to new, as well as direct connections to one another and to other coastal cities on the continent. In most cases, however, such networks had little impact upon ethnicity. Direct transatlantic connections to these centres were few by the 1880s, and although there were commercial links, as well as a consistent movement of people, between St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, the Irishness of each place was seldom affected. Instead, the regional networks that influenced the construction of Irishness were predominantly North American. Groups like the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) as well as nationalist associations like the Irish National League (INL) and the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) connected these communities to others further west. Even in medium-sized port cities on the continental periphery, North American ethnic networks were ascendant, and Irish identities were thoroughly reinvented in the new world. This is a comparative study of three cities in different national settings, and these had a significant impact on the ways in which Irishness was understood.4 In the two British North American centres, there was considerable overlap between British, imperial, and Irish identities. Although there were exceptions, as Anglo-Irish tensions increased and the nationalist movement radicalized in the early twentieth century, individuals of Irish descent in St John’s and Halifax continued to embrace their own as well as Ireland’s position within the British Empire. Their counterparts in Portland, by contrast, expressed significantly more anglophobic identities, imbued with a strong sense of Irish and American republicanism.5 Despite the loyal, pro-imperial construction of Irishness, support for the Irish nationalist movement in St John’s and Halifax was more overtly and publicly opposed than in Portland, thanks largely to the transatlantic fraternal networks of the Orange Order.

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A Land of Dreams

At the transnational level, we must examine the institutions and associations that connected those of Irish birth and descent to the broader, global diaspora as well as to their ancestral homeland in Ireland. Although there were tremendous differences in how Irishness was constructed and understood from place to place and over time, there were threads that bound diasporic communities together. The networks of the Roman Catholic Church were essential here, but the primary focus of this work is diasporic nationalism. Direct participation in the political affairs of Ireland brought communities scattered throughout the diaspora together, and the Irish communities of St John’s, Halifax, and Portland remained connected to these international Irish networks throughout the period. This book, then, is about how the Irish-Catholic diaspora varied over time and space, and how three communities on the eastern prow of North America engaged with the broader diaspora. Ethnic identity was constantly reinvented over time and across generations, but engagement with the ancestral homeland continued well into the twentieth century in each city. What follows not only enhances our knowledge of Irishness in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland but also contributes to our understanding of the Irish diaspora as an interconnected, transnational phenomenon.

approach and method The starting point for this study is that Irish identities were neither fixed nor immutable. An emotional attachment to the ancestral homeland was not imported directly from Ireland with the immigrant generation and was not passed on in a linear fashion from one generation to the next. Rather, ethnicity was in large part a response to conditions in the adopted homeland and, as such, varied widely depending on local circumstances. Formulaic definitions of ethnicity and diaspora that establish what James Clifford refers to as an “ideal type” are of little use in understanding the variety of ways in which Irish identities were articulated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.6 The most relevant approaches, such as Kathleen Neils Conzen’s “invented” model, deal with how ethnicity evolved over time and space. Conzen defines ethnicity as a “process of construction and invention which incorporates, adapts and amplifies preexisting communal solidarities, cultural attributes and historical memories.”7 The strength of ethnicity can rise and fall over time, and its evolution

Introduction

7

depends heavily on local temporal and spatial contexts.8 Geographic factors such as settlement patterns and proximity to other ethnic populations have had a significant impact on the evolution of ethnicity, while crises that challenge a group’s core values – such as political developments in the ancestral homeland – can mobilize “latent ethnic constituencies,” causing a resurgence in expressions of identity.9 Rogers Brubaker makes a similar point in his seminal work on ethnicity without groups: identities “may wax and wane over time, peaking during exceptional – but unsustainable – moments of collective effervescence.”10 If we accept that ethnicity was predominantly a new-world construction, key questions emerge: why did some individuals of Irish descent maintain a strong, emotional attachment to the old country while others did not, and what factors influenced these identities? Much of the literature examines ethnicity as a tool in the struggle for economic and political resources with perceived “others.”11 However, the chapters that follow suggest that Irish identities went beyond communal defence strategies. Migration from Ireland to St John’s and Halifax was virtually over a decade before the great potato famine of 1845–50. Irish migration to Portland, by contrast, occurred during and after the famine, with a substantial wave arriving in the 1880s. An examination of the period between the 1880s and the 1920s allows us to compare two well-established, overwhelmingly native-born Irish populations with a largely first- and second-generation one. In the case of Portland, we do see ethnicity being employed as a defence mechanism, particularly through an Irish-dominated labour union, the Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society (PLSBS). In St John’s and Halifax, however, those of Irish descent could be found across all socio-economic classes and were not isolated from the corridors of economic and political power or prestige. They were, however, capable of expressing their Irishness just as passionately as their counterparts in Portland. This ethnic expression, as well as the periodic rise and fall of popular identification with Ireland in all three places, displays some features of what Herbert Gans called “symbolic ethnicity.” Gans studied third- and fourth-generation ethnics in 1960s and 1970s America to probe the idea of a perceived “ethnic revival.”12 By the 1970s, the descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants were, in many cases, middle class and “scattered throughout suburbia.”13 The old ethnic networks and institutions that had been important for

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A Land of Dreams

their immigrant ancestors in adjusting to life in the new world – securing employment, learning English, and providing venues for socializing – were no longer relevant. Instead, the descendants of these immigrants articulated their ethnic identities through “symbols” such as food, religious rites, celebrating ethnic feast days, and, occasionally, engaging in the politics of the homeland.14 Symbolic ethnicity, therefore, may be defined as “a nostalgic allegiance to the culture of the immigrant generation, or that of the old country; a love for and a pride in a tradition that can be felt without having to be incorporated in everyday behaviour.”15 After three or four generations, the expression of ethnic identity had essentially become a leisure activity, and the extent to which an individual subscribed to a particular ethnic affiliation was a personal choice. Of course, Gans’s theoretical framework is far too broad to encapsulate the wide, complex range of ethnic expression demonstrated in these three cities, since for many of the individuals studied here, ethnicity ran far deeper than a “leisure activity,” but it does help us understand why such variability existed. This study is not, therefore, a broad investigation of all those of Irish birth or descent in the three cities. We cannot assume that entire Irish communities maintained a sense of Irishness, and that this was transmitted across generations. The reality is that particular networks, institutions, and symbols encouraged some individuals to maintain a strong connection to the land of their ancestors, while many others did not. As Brubaker cautions: the strength and depth of ethnic identity can vary considerably even within a particular group.16 Irish identities were often subservient to class, gender, and regional or national identities, and the relative balance between these modes of self-identification could change considerably. The focus here is on how a sense or awareness of Irishness made its way into individual lives, and how Irish identity was understood and articulated. Much of the historical literature on the Irish diaspora focuses on singular local, regional, or national communities. Many of these works concentrate on the immigrant generation, and largely from the perspective of social or economic adjustment to life in the new world.17 Some scholars have tackled the question of intergenerational community and identity directly. John Belchem’s work on Liverpool, Mark McGowan’s on Toronto, and Timothy Meagher’s on Worcester, Massachusetts, all share common methodological features with this study.18 All acknowledge the “complex interplay of cultural and struc-

Introduction

9

tural factors”19 that shaped Irish identities, and explicitly examine how Irishness was transmitted from one generation to the next. To varying degrees, these historians study similar themes in order to understand how ethnicity was conceived, including associational life, religion and the networks of the Catholic Church, political culture, and engagement with Irish nationalism. Irish ethnic and benevolent associations created public contexts in which conceptions of Irishness evolved, and these were frequently dependent on class and gender. Likewise, the Catholic Church in each city had a profound impact on ethnicity. All three were diocesan centres, and Irish clergymen and religious orders, as well as Catholic education, reinforced connections to the old country while promoting Canadian, British-imperial, and American identities alongside devout, ultramontane Catholicism. Political culture, too, could reinforce people’s conceptions of being Irish, as distinctly Irish questions frequently became part of local political debates. Finally, engagement with Irish nationalism was one of the most direct, unambiguous ways in which those of Irish birth and descent expressed their ethnicity. Irish nationalist associations were active in all three cities, and not only did these reinforce a sense of ethnic identity but they also connected the respective communities to the broader diasporic movement for Irish self-government. These four themes form the core of this study of identity, and through them we should come to a more complete understanding of how Irishness was constructed in each place, and how ethnicity related to religion, gender, class, and nationality. The most significant distinguishing feature of this study is its comparative approach. Although focused examinations of particular cities, regions, or countries have contributed significantly to our understanding of ethnicity and identity in the Irish diaspora, some of these scholars have questioned whether the communities they study are typical or representative of a broader diasporic experience.20 Others, such as Donald H. Akenson, have lamented the tendency to “slice up” the diaspora for the purposes of analysis.21 As revealing as urban or regional microstudies can be, they often struggle to inform us about how Irish communities interacted and engaged with one another, as well as with broader regional, national, and transnational Irish networks. A recent trend in the historiography has been a movement towards comparative, transnational studies of the diasporic experience. Foremost in promoting this potentially revealing method

10

A Land of Dreams

has been Kevin Kenny. In his influential article, “Diaspora and Comparison,” Kenny calls for future studies of diaspora to be both “transnational” – focusing on the movement of peoples from one country to another, as well as on continued links to the ancestral homeland – and “cross-national” – comparing the settled communities in two or more national contexts, usually at the urban or regional level.22 This approach allows historians to understand how the construction of Irish ethnicity varied depending on national or regional settings.23 My study of St John’s, Halifax, and Portland is heavily influenced by Kenny’s call. A number of comparative studies have emerged as a result of Kenny’s foundational article. In his work on the United States and Australia, Malcolm Campbell highlights the need to overcome the idea of “Irishness” as a “homogeneous, coherent, and constant phenomenon” by focusing on the significance of local conditions and ideologies in defining diasporic experiences.24 William Jenkins’s work on Toronto and Buffalo is another significant addition to the comparative literature. For Jenkins, the comparative method allows us to deconstruct “totalising notions of a singular or unified ‘global’ or ‘North American’ Irish diaspora,” and establish that there was “not one, but several, Irish diasporas with multiple ways of envisioning and relating to their homeland.”25 Although the comparative study is, to some extent, just another way of “slicing up” the diaspora, it provides the historian with a more complete, in-depth understanding of how Irish experiences varied from place to place. More recently, Cian McMahon has made another significant addition to the comparative and transnational literature. Like Campbell, he compares the United States and Australia, arguing that expressions of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism, as well as broader conceptions of Irish ethnicity and “race,” were significantly influenced by the global Irish newspaper press, constituting a “transnational public sphere.”26 McMahon’s work, like the others cited above, calls on us to consider the Irish diaspora as an interconnected, transnational phenomenon. Irish identities, though created and expressed locally, were also constructed in a far broader diasporic context, where “fluctuating notions of race and nation were formulated and exchanged.”27 Essential to understanding Irish ethnicity is to understand the networks that connected “domestic” and “diasporic” Irishness. In the introduction to his study of Toronto and Buffalo, Jenkins discusses the methodological difficulties associated with comparative

Introduction

11

histories of this sort, noting the “unenviable task” of combining two monographs into one.28 In this case, the comparison becomes even more complex, as we are dealing with three cities rather than two. Although it presents significant challenges, the choice of three cities adds considerable depth to the analysis. St John’s, Halifax, and Portland are excellent candidates for comparison. They were, during this period, relatively similar in size and were home to prominent Irish ethnic communities. A study of, for example, St John’s and New York City would be considerably less effective, as Irish associational culture and the construction of ethnicity occurred on entirely different scales. When placed next to one another, the three examples highlight different features of the diasporic experience. There is a great deal of similarity in how Irish identities evolved in St John’s and Halifax in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both cities were home to primarily Catholic, native-born Irish populations who lived in a British North American setting and demonstrated comparable relationships between ethnic, national, imperial, and religious identities. There were, however, considerable differences in how clerical, associational, and nationalist networks combined to influence Irishness in each place, so the contexts in which Irishness developed were unique. The addition of Portland adds another dimension to the study. There, we examine a newly settled Irish community within the American republic. This comparison allows us to study the impact of generational distance from Ireland as well as national contexts in a way that would not be possible in a study of just St John’s and Halifax. These three cities, then, permit a holistic investigation of the local, regional, national, and transnational factors that combined to construct ethnicity. Unsurprisingly, the comparative study of three Irish communities in different national settings presents a number of methodological problems. Finding comparable data sets has been a considerable challenge since many of the documents traditionally relied upon by historians are incomplete or missing for at least one of the cases. Nominal census data for Newfoundland do not exist prior to 1921, while the 1890 census of Maine was destroyed by fire.29 Alternative sources, such as parish censuses, are likewise unavailable. City directories are an important source here, but they did not record ethnicity or religion, and generally only list heads of household. Even in cases where a comparison of census data is possible, differences in how statistics were recorded make broad conclusions about Irish ethnic

12

A Land of Dreams

populations cumbersome and potentially inaccurate. American censuses, for example, did not record religion, a problem highlighted by Akenson as presenting considerable difficulties in reconstructing the Irish-American ethnic group.30 Owing to these incompatibilities, this study relies on qualitative sources to investigate how Irish ethnicity was conceived and articulated. Wherever possible, I do use censuses and city directories to reconstruct the socio-occupational backgrounds of Irish benevolent and nationalist associations in order to study the relationship between ethnicity and class. The most important sources for this study, however, are local newspapers. For the Irish of St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, the daily press provided the most consistent means of following events in the ancestral homeland, establishing, as McMahon notes, the “intellectual basis for an international imagined community.”31 Reports on Irish affairs were consistently printed throughout the period. Columns titled “Affairs in Ireland” or “Irish News” were frequent. In most cases, these would take the form of telegraphed reports from London documenting the activities of Irish nationalist parties and political leaders. Generally, Irish news was readily available for those who sought it. The papers also provide considerable information about associational life, as details of meetings, social events, executives, and, occasionally, lists of members were featured. This is particularly useful since the records of many of these organizations have not survived. Fundraising for Irish causes, the formation of nationalist associations, resolutions on Irish affairs, and the participation of local delegates in regional, national, and international conferences were also reported in the press. Locally written editorials and letters to the editor on Irish affairs appeared relatively frequently and provide a more direct means of gauging popular opinion. Finally, newspapers assist in charting Irish political involvement, and in informing us about important educational and devotional matters – though it is important to remember that, during this period, they were by no means detached, unfiltered reflections of local opinion. Most were intensely partisan, and their commentaries were coloured by distinct political agendas. Whether they were Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican could have a significant impact on their coverage of both domestic and international Irish affairs. Newspapers constitute the most abundant source for this study, but several other key bodies of records supplement their content. For St John’s and Halifax, the minute books of each city’s most prominent

Introduction

13

Irish benevolent association – the BIS and the CIS, respectively – have survived. Their contents are essential in reconstructing associational life and the ways in which Irish identities were understood and articulated at the local level. In Portland, the records of the PLSBS are analogous; furthermore, they facilitate an examination of the Irish-dominated labour union. Some documents relating to Portland’s Irish American Relief Association (IARA), St Patrick’s Benevolent Society, and the Portland Catholic Union are also used. Church documents from all three cities are significant. Bishops’ correspondences, for example, reveal the ways in which the Catholic clergy in each port fostered links with the ancestral homeland as well as important information on Catholic education. Church publications, such as Portland’s Maine Catholic Historical Magazine, likewise provide an alternative way of gauging Irish-Catholic opinions. Together with material gleaned from newspapers, the range of sources employed here provides a basis for understanding how Irish identities made their way into day-to-day lives in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland.

structure and organization In addition to providing considerable research challenges, comparative history of this sort is difficult to present in a coherent, readable manner. There are a number of possibilities for the comparative historian. For example, one option is to have three separate sections on each city, tied together by an analytical conclusion. I have chosen a more integrated approach in which Irish experiences from each city are placed side by side in an essentially chronological structure. This approach highlights narrative aspects – the story – of Irishness in each place, while clearly articulating the study’s central arguments. The first chapter introduces St John’s, Halifax, and Portland and their respective Irish communities, focusing on their evolution from 1880 to 1923 and establishing the spatial contexts for the comparisons that follow. An understanding of how these communities developed demographically and geographically over the course of the period is essential before beginning to analyze the construction and evolution of Irish identities. Chapter 2 examines ethnic associational networks from 1880 to 1910. It introduces predominantly middle-class groups such as the St John’s BIS, Halifax’s CIS, and Portland’s IARA, examining how they changed the domestic contexts in which Irishness was understood

14

A Land of Dreams

and expressed. The second part of the chapter focuses on the more working-class AOH and its establishment in Halifax and Portland, versus its failure to take root in St John’s, in addition to other Irishdominated societies. From a comparison of ethnic associational networks, we move to a more focused analysis of the political aspects of diasporic identities. Chapter 3 covers responses to Irish nationalism from 1880 to 1891. It begins by examining the 1880 Irish Relief Fund, which was taken in all three ports, focusing particularly on the role of the Roman Catholic clergy in maintaining direct connections to Ireland. The second part of the chapter compares Land League activity. Branches of the organization were established in Portland and Halifax, but like the AOH, it did not reach Newfoundland. There, as with the 1880 relief fund, a clerically led fundraising drive took place. In Halifax, the Land League was entirely secular and heavily working class, and unlike Land League support in St John’s and Portland, the organization’s presence in Halifax was strongly opposed. Meanwhile, Portland’s Ladies’ Land League adds a fascinating gender dimension to the evolution of Irish identity. Chapter 3 concludes by examining how each community responded to Charles Stewart Parnell’s constitutional movement for Irish Home Rule, beginning with the formation of the INL in 1883 and ending with Parnell’s death in 1891. These years saw considerable symmetry in how Catholics of Irish birth and descent engaged with Irish affairs in each centre. Thanks to Parnell, Irish nationalism became increasingly respectable and middle class, support for Home Rule was widespread, and in all three cases involved both Irish-Catholic and Anglo-Protestant communities. Chapter 4 begins with a discussion of waning ethnic networks in the three cities from 1891 to 1911. The second part analyzes the changing nature of clerical connections to Ireland through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early part of the period, the Church in all three ports was vital in fostering connections between those of Irish descent and their ancestral homeland, but after 1900, clerical indigenization took place in each centre, and a more North American–oriented Church emerged. The chapter concludes by comparing the role of education in creating and sustaining an ethnic attachment to Ireland from generation to generation. In chapter 5, we see the first significant divergence in how Irishness was understood in Portland versus the two British North American

Introduction

15

cities through an examination of growing popular engagement with diasporic nationalism between 1911 and 1918. In St John’s and Halifax, both Irish-Catholic and Anglo-Protestant populations saw the 1916 Easter Rising as a treasonous rebellion, while in Portland, it was perceived as a brave, though foolhardy, stand against unjust British rule. From this point on, Irish identities in Portland became increasingly radical and republican, while those of Irish descent in St John’s and Halifax maintained a strong sense of British or imperial loyalty and staunchly supported Britain’s war effort. Finally, chapter 6 examines the end of the period, 1919–1923, which represented the climax of ethnic expression in the three cities. North American–based Irish nationalist associations were established in each, allowing individuals to become directly involved in Ireland’s fight for self-government. The chapter focuses on the organizations that led this ethnic resurgence: the FOIF, active in St John’s and Portland; the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Canada and Newfoundland (SDIL), established in St John’s and Halifax; and Portland’s American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR). The BIS, the CIS, and the AOH also mediated local responses to Irish nationalism. Public support for Irish nationalism in St John’s and Halifax remained couched in loyal, pro-imperial language, though the existence of a branch of the republican FOIF in St John’s suggests that wartime pro-imperial sentiment was in decline, at least for some individuals of Irish descent. Therefore, the chapter reinforces and concludes the book’s most significant arguments: a resurgence of Irish identity after a period of relative quiescence demonstrates the variability of ethnicity through time and space; British North American support for Irish nationalism was overwhelmingly framed in loyal, pro-imperial terms, even after the Easter Rising; and the nationalist networks that fostered the ethnic resurgence were primarily of North American origin, transplanted into Atlantic ports from the west. It should be clear to the reader that this is not a study of immigration, settlement patterns, or economic adjustment to life in the new world. The focus is on ethnic identity, and how, through studying it comparatively, we may come to a more thorough understanding of what constitutes the Irish diaspora. This is, of course, an examination of just one small corner of a much larger North American and global Irish diaspora, but even in these three geographically proximate ports, there were considerable differences in how Irishness was

16

A Land of Dreams

constructed, expressed, and articulated. In all three places, however, diasporic networks transcended space, and connected those of Irish descent to the ancestral homeland, as well as to their counterparts scattered throughout the world. It is thanks to such regional, national, and transnational networks that we may begin to speak coherently about a “global” Irish diaspora.

1 The Setting St John’s, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Portland, Maine

An understanding of space and place is essential to any study of diasporic community and identity. In her work on “a global sense of place,” Doreen Massey demonstrates that communities are not insular, isolated, or rigidly geographically bounded; rather, they are “open and porous networks of social relations.” Moreover, specific places – cities, neighbourhoods, or streets – can be home to a variety of overlapping communities.1 Taking from Massey that “the understanding of any locality must precisely draw on the links beyond its boundaries,” this book focuses on the ways in which these three Irish-Catholic communities branched out: how they influenced and were influenced by the transnational networks of the Irish diaspora.2 However, we must not lose sight of the differing local contexts involved in the construction, evolution, and expression of Irish ethnicity. The lives of the individuals chronicled here were affected most significantly by the spaces and places they inhabited every day. This chapter introduces and compares each of the three port cities, focusing on their early development, their evolution from the 1880s to the 1920s, and, especially, their Irish communities. St John’s, Halifax, and Portland were similar in terms of natural endowment and climate, and were of relatively comparable size. Each possessed sheltered harbours facing the Atlantic Ocean that could accommodate deep-sea vessels, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the port were common features. Their Irish populations, however, were quite different. In St John’s, Catholics of Irish descent formed a majority of the city’s inhabitants and were overwhelmingly native-born. Migration and settlement from the Irish southeast to Newfoundland

18

A Land of Dreams

was a largely late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century phenomenon. The Irish were fully integrated into the colony’s corridors of economic and political power by the 1880s, were dispersed across the town, and were well represented in all socio-economic classes. The Irish community of Halifax was similar. They, too, originated in Ireland’s south and southeast, a product of migration in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As in Newfoundland’s chief port, the Irish were socially, politically, and economically well integrated with their Anglo-Protestant neighbours. The key differences between Halifax and St John’s were that those of Irish birth and descent in Nova Scotia’s capital formed a strong minority, rather than a majority, of the city’s total population, and Halifax was home to more Protestants of Irish descent. Furthermore, Halifax’s Irish Catholics shared the institutions of the Catholic Church with Scots, French-speaking Acadians, and Mi’kmaq, while in St John’s, Catholics were almost exclusively Irish. Within the institutions of the Catholic Church, and in the city more broadly, those of Irish descent in Halifax lived amidst greater ethnoreligious diversity than their counterparts in St John’s. Portland’s Irish community differed considerably from those in St John’s and Halifax. Migration from Ireland to the American port occurred during and after the potato famine of the 1840s. A substantial number arrived in the early 1880s, not from the south or southeast, but rather from the far west of Ireland, primarily from Connemara, in County Galway. Irish immigration continued into the twentieth century, and the city was home to a significantly larger Irish-born population than the British North American ports. Proportionally, however, Portland’s Irish community was much smaller than the others studied here. Catholics of Irish birth and descent were a minority in a Yankee Protestant–dominated milieu. Although the Irish could be found in each of Portland’s urban wards, they tended to cluster in the workingclass neighbourhoods of Gorham’s Corner and Munjoy Hill, and were more socially and economically marginalized than their counterparts in St John’s and Halifax.

st john’s, newfoundland Located on the northeast arm of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, the city of St John’s extends up a steep slope from the shores of a natural, sheltered harbour. The site has been occupied by Europeans

The Setting

19

since the early-to-mid sixteenth century, when Breton, Basque, Norman, and Portuguese fishing vessels used it as a seasonal base for the migratory cod fishery.3 They were succeeded around 1600 by fishers from the English West Country. A year-round English population, including families, almost certainly existed by the 1620s.4 By North American standards, growth was slow. After two centuries of migration, the population of St John’s was still under 4,000.5 The town, though, had taken over from ports in the West Country as the administrative centre of the fishery. Merchants built brick and stone premises adjacent to public houses, small shops, and wooden dwellings. These were centred along the two principal commercial streets, later named Water and Duckworth, which ran parallel to the northwest shore of the harbour.6 Permanent settlement increased dramatically in the early nineteenth century as urban settlement spread up the hill away from the water. By the 1880s, the population had grown to over 28,000, increasing to about 37,000 in 1921.7 Development extended over the hill to the middle-class mansions and estates on King’s Bridge and Circular roads, and west to the working-class neighbourhood of Riverhead. In 1883, Presbyterian minister and prominent essayist Moses Harvey praised the city’s appearance: Already, on the summits overlooking the business parts of the city, houses of a superior description are erected; and these will ere long grow into crescents and squares, and form the fashionable quarter. Water Street, the principal business street, presents a very substantial though not handsome appearance, the houses being of stone or brick. Shops, stores, and mercantile counting-houses occupy the ground floors, while the merchants and shop-keepers live in the upper stories. Many of the shops present a handsome appearance. In other parts of the city the houses are for the most part built of wood and many of them are dingy and commonplace. Of late years, however, taste has been developing and houses have been built of a superior description.8 A report from New Brunswick’s St Croix Courier, which was reprinted in the St John’s Evening Telegram in August 1883, described the town as “one of the most picturesque in North America.” The author lauded the harbour as “one of the finest in the world,” while singling out several prominent structures for praise, including

20

A Land of Dreams

Government House, the Colonial Building, the Athenaeum, and the Cath-olic cathedral.9 Class rather than ethnicity or religion defined the city’s neighbourhoods. Irish-Catholics and Anglo-Protestants lived side by side throughout the town. The upper and middle classes lived atop the hill, on Military, Rennie’s Mill, Monkstown, King’s Bridge, and Circular roads. The working classes tended to live closer to the waterfront, in congested lanes leading to their workplaces.10 Despite the positive descriptions of Moses Harvey and others, conditions in some of these working-class tenements were appalling, even up to the 1920s. In 1910, a government inquiry noted that “a very large number of tenements are totally unsafe for human habitation. They are so bad that they cannot but degrade those who live in them physically, mentally and morally.”11 In his Lenten pastoral of 1917, which was reprinted in the Daily News in 1919, Roman Catholic archbishop Edward Patrick Roche echoed this description: “It is impossible to associate the ideals of home life with the environment and surroundings in which many of our people are compelled to live. The houses in some of the congested parts of the city are small, overcrowded, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, and generally unsuited for habitation.”12 In the centre of town – an area between Springdale Street and Carter’s Hill – 4,000 to 5,000 people had no sewage connection. Owing to the unsanitary conditions, the death rate, particularly for children, was extremely high. In the 1910s, the municipal government attempted to move some of these residents to better housing in the suburbs, but by the end of 1920, only fifty community houses had been constructed.13 To the north and west of St John’s lay its agricultural hinterland. In 1911, the town was surrounded by 450 farms, the majority of which were owned and operated by Catholics of Irish descent. These comprised over 10,000 “improved” acres and continued to supply the town with eggs, milk, potatoes, cabbage, and other fresh vegetables well into the twentieth century.14 From early in its history, St John’s maintained close links with Ireland. In order to support the English migratory cod fishery, provisions had to be imported from Europe. Up to 1675, salted meat, butter, bread, peas, and other victuals came mainly from England. Around that date, English fishing vessels increasingly tended to call into Ireland’s south-coast ports, most notably Waterford and Cork, to take on supplies. This provisions trade forged the links that would eventually lead to migration from the Irish southeast to Newfoundland.15 By the

Figure 1.1 Map of St John’s, Newfoundland, 1909. Source: W.P. Ryan, “Plan of the City of St. John’s” [Map] (Halifax: McAlpine Publishing Company, 1909). Courtesy of Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The Setting 21

22

A Land of Dreams

eighteenth century, West Country fishing vessels recruited young male Irish labourers in these ports, particularly Waterford. This migration was seasonal. Few overwintered in Newfoundland, and fewer still remained permanently.16 With the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars at the end of the century, the migratory fishery collapsed. Fewer migrants returned home, and “seasonal migration became emigration.”17 During the first third of the nineteenth century, some 35,000 Irish passengers were recorded – most arriving in St John’s. Growing numbers of female immigrants ensured that natural population growth would follow. The vast majority of these migrants came from within 50 kilometres of the port of Waterford: southwest Wexford, south Kilkenny, southeast Tipperary, southeast Cork, and County Waterford. One of the most significant characteristics of Irish-Newfoundland migration is that “no other province or state in America drew such an overwhelming proportion of their immigrants from so geographically compact an area in Ireland for so prolonged a period of time.”18 The outflow was increased by dramatic population growth, an increasing shortage of land, and the decline of the domestic textile industry in the Irish southeast. While some left out of necessity, most made a conscious decision to emigrate in order to improve their economic fortunes. Direct migration from Ireland trailed off dramatically in the 1830s; by 1840, it had virtually ceased. St John’s and the rest of Newfoundland were largely unaffected by the vast waves of emigrants fleeing the Irish potato famine in the late 1840s.19 The Irish-Catholic community of St John’s consistently formed a majority of the population in the nineteenth century. With some 15,000 inhabitants in 1836, St John’s was one of British North America’s primary ports. Close to three-quarters of its population was Catholic. Even allowing for some intermarriage and conversion, owing to the absence of any other sustained Catholic migration, almost all were of Irish birth or descent. The 1845 census recorded 16,285 Catholics out of a population of 20,941 (78 per cent), while by 1857 the proportion had dropped to 18,249 out of 24,851 (73 per cent).20 The percentage of Catholics to Protestants in St John’s decreased as the century wore on, falling to 62 per cent by the 1880s, before exhibiting a much slower decline after 1900 (see table 1.1). The drop in the relative size of St John’s Irish-Catholic population was largely owing to their propensity to emigrate to Canada and the United States in the late nineteenth century. Edward Chafe has established

19,396 (62.3%) 16,590 (57.2%) 16,093 (52.6%) 16,446 (50.2%) 18,179 (49.6%)

Roman Catholic

6,332 (20.3%) 6,395 (22.0%) 6,677 (21.8%) 7,367 (22.4%) 8,214 (22.4%)

Church of England

3,820 (12.2%) 4,453 (15.4%) 5,823 (19.0%) 6,471 (19.7%) 7,469 (20.4%)

Methodist

1,048 (3.4%) 1,018 (3.5%) 981 (3.2%) 1,158 (3.5%) 1,109 (3.0%)

Presbyterian

546 (1.8%) 551 (1.9%) 1,027 (3.4%) 1,390 (4.2%) 1,699 (4.6%)

Other (includes Congregationalist, Baptist, Salvation Army, and other faiths)

36,670

32,832

30,601

29,007

31,142

Total population

are calculated by adding the figures for the five urban wards in St John’s East and West.

Note: For 1884, 1891, and 1901, the figures are calculated by adding “City and Suburbs” columns for both St John’s East and West electoral districts. For 1911 and 1921, they

Sources: Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1884, Table I; 1891, Table I; 1901, Table I; 1911, Table I; 1921, Table I.

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down.

1921

1911

1901

1891

1884

Year

Table 1.1 Population of St John’s by religion, census years between 1884 and 1921 (percentage of total population)

The Setting 23

28,446 (91.3%) 27,147 (93.6%) 29,059 (95%) 31,365 (95.5%) 35,013 (95.5%)

1884

590 (1.9%) 518 (1.8%) 368 (1.2%) 396 (1.2%) 359 (1%)

England

1079 (3.5%) 623 (2.1%) 295 (1%) 204 (0.6%) 127 (0.3%)

Ireland

318 (1%) 263 (0.9%) 208 (0.7%) 210 (0.6%) 252 (0.7%)

Scotland

495 (1.5%) 294 (1.0%) 413 (1.3%) 401 (1.2%) 476 (1.3%)

British colonies

214 (0.7%) 159 (0.5%) 258 (0.8%) 256 (0.8%) 443 (1.2%)

Foreign/Other

36,670

32,832

30,601

29,004

31,142

Total population

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1884, Table I; 1891, Table I; 1901, Table I; 1911, Table I; 1921, Table I. Note: For 1884, 1891, and 1901, the figures are calculated by adding “City and Suburbs” columns for both St John’s East and West electoral districts. For 1911 and 1921, they are calculated by adding the figures for the five urban wards in St John’s East and West. Figures for 1891 show a small discrepancy from the “total” St John’s figure in table 1.1, likely due to three individuals failing to report a place of birth.

1921

1911

1901

1891

Newfoundland

Year

Table 1.2 Population of St John’s by place of birth, census years between 1884 and 1921 (percentage of total population)

24 A Land of Dreams

The Setting

25

that almost 80 per cent of those who left the island in the mid-nineteenth century were Catholics of Irish birth or descent, though, unfortunately, no reliable data exist for peak decades of emigration.21 Although the Irish ethnic population in St John’s was considerable during this period, the proportion of residents born in Ireland dropped from 3.5 per cent in 1884 to 0.3 per cent in 1921 (see table 1.2). A salient feature, then, of the population studied here is that it was almost entirely a Newfoundland-born multi-generational ethnic group, spanning up to four generations. The Irish Catholics of St John’s were well integrated into the colony’s political and economic structures. In her study of occupational mobility in the nineteenth century, Carolyn Lambert concludes that those of Irish descent generally matched their Anglo-Protestant neighbours in most aspects of the economy. They were particularly well represented in skilled and semi-skilled trades such as coopering, tailoring, butchering, and baking. Catholics were likewise prevalent within the St John’s elite, composed of merchants, traders, civil servants, businessmen, and lawyers. Many of these well-to-do Irish Catholics used their wealth and prominence to enter colonial politics. Only in the highest economic strata, occupied by those who owned the largest merchant firms, were those of Irish descent under-represented. Relations between Catholics and Protestants were usually harmonious, and incidents of ethnic or sectarian violence were rare.22 The study of St John’s, then, provides us with an opportunity to examine a successful, multi-generational Irish ethnic group that existed in a British North American context on the far northeastern edge of the continent.

halifax, nova scotia Halifax sits on a peninsula inside a large, natural harbour on the southeast coast of Nova Scotia. Its founding and early history were less haphazard than St John’s. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht established mainland Nova Scotia as a British possession, while Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) remained French. During the early years of British occupation in Nova Scotia, the government demonstrated little interest in planting permanent settlers in the newly acquired territory. This attitude changed in the mid-eighteenth century, however, as the British aimed to establish a rival fortification to the thriving French fortress at Louisbourg on the eastern shore of Île Royale. The Board of Trade and Plantations in London, led by the Earl of Halifax,

26

A Land of Dreams

developed a plan for a settlement and military garrison in Mi’kmaq territory on Chebucto Bay. Each settler was to receive fifty acres of land, plus ten acres for each additional family member. Military officers were to be granted even more land, depending on rank.23 On 21 June 1749, an expedition of almost 2,000 settlers – mostly English – under Edward Cornwallis arrived at Chebucto and began clearing a site for the town, soon christened Halifax. The original settlement was at the base of a hill, where, as in St John’s, deep water would allow ships to anchor.24 Early growth was slow, and many of the initial settlers left for New England.25 Their departures were offset by the arrival of other Yankees, lured by the prospect of government land grants.26 In 1752, the town’s first newspaper, the Halifax Gazette, was founded, and by the end of the 1750s, the citadel fort was completed near the summit of the hill overlooking the harbour.27 Following the American Revolution, the town’s population swelled with an influx of loyalists. It reached 4,000 in the 1780s, including about 400 ex-slaves freed by British forces during the conflict. Although many of them left for Sierra Leone in 1792, those who remained ensured that a black community would persist in Halifax, near the Bedford Basin, until well into the twentieth century.28 A German-Protestant minority also resided in the town’s northern suburbs.29 By 1800, Halifax, though only fifty years old, had grown to twice the population of St John’s. Growth and expansion continued, and by the beginning of our period, the population exceeded 36,000. In 1921, it was close to 60,000.30 Many commentators were quick to praise the town’s pleasant appearance and environs. One commentator from Portland, whose observations were printed in the Halifax Herald in 1883, noted that “the first view of the city from whatever quarter is beautiful, and every other survey … continues the impression that in beauty of location and surroundings few cities on the continent match it.”31 While delays on the Intercolonial Railway meant that Halifax could not rival Portland’s status as “Canada’s winter port” until the mid-1920s, the city’s significance as a centre for export did increase substantially during this period.32 By 1900, the city covered much of the peninsula. In the north end, the neighbourhood of Richmond had developed considerably, and expansion continued to the west and to the south.33 While some commentators were keen to emphasize the town’s positive qualities, urban problems persisted through the nineteenth and early twentieth

Figure 1.2 Map of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1878. Numbers indicate the locations of the city’s urban wards. The principal streets of the town are located between the Citadel and the harbour. Source: H.W. Hopkins, City Atlas of Halifax [Map] (Halifax: Provincial Surveying and Publishing Co., 1878). Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives.

The Setting 27

28

A Land of Dreams

centuries. Many streets and sidewalks outside the commercial heart of the city were unpaved, and complaints about their dusty or muddy conditions were common. Working-class housing, such as on Albemarle Street, was described as “appalling” in the 1880s. By 1900, temperance activists were working in these disadvantaged areas to improve the city’s material and moral condition.34 An important feature of life in Halifax between 1880 and the 1920s was the increasingly diverse ethnic profile of the city. In the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mostly from southern and eastern Europe, passed through the city on their way to central Canada and the Prairies. In 1913, for example, 96,000 immigrants arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax and made their way west.35 Although few of these migrants remained in Halifax more than a day or two, small Jewish, Chinese, and southern European communities were established. In 1894, the first synagogue was opened, and by 1901, there were 120 Jews in the city.36 Small numbers of Italians, Galicians, Russians, and Greeks also settled in Halifax before and during the First World War.37 The Irish connection, like that in St John’s, goes back almost to the city’s inception. There were Irish residents in Halifax from shortly after its founding. Most of these were Protestant, and it was not until the 1760s that there were enough Irish Catholics in Halifax for Terrence Punch to refer to them as the town’s “first minority group.”38 In 1767, out of a population of 3,022, about 470 (15.6 per cent) were Irish Catholics – a significant number, though a far smaller proportion than in eighteenth-century St John’s. In the early nineteenth century, Irish-Catholic immigration to Halifax increased substantially. Parallels between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland existed from the outset. Some came directly from the Irish southeast; others arrived from Newfoundland as part of a “two boat” movement. In 1797, a priest, James Jones, noted that most of his congregation had arrived from Placentia.39 After 1820, Newfoundland declined as a source for migrants, but direct migration from the Irish southeast continued, in addition to a small influx from the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, where the Irish were engaged in agriculture and the timber trade. Regardless of their origins, most of those who came to the city simply earned enough for passage to Boston or New York. Those who remained were lured by construction projects and other work on the waterfront, the Shubenacadie Canal, or the renovation of the fort on Citadel Hill in 1828.40

The Setting

29

An examination of marriage, death, and baptismal records confirms that the Irish-Catholic population of Halifax, like that of St John’s, came largely from southeast Ireland. Over 80 per cent of those who can be identified by place of birth in Ireland were from Waterford, Wexford, Cork, Carlow, Tipperary, and Kilkenny, as well as Kerry in the southwest. In the nineteenth century, Dungarvan and Waterford City in County Waterford, Clonmel in Tipperary, Callan and Thomastown in Kilkenny, and Middleton and Cork City in Cork were the most frequently reported places of birth.41 By the 1880s, Catholics of Irish birth or descent were a significant minority in Halifax. In 1881, 12,802 persons (36 per cent of the total population) described themselves as “Irish.” The great majority were Catholic. By the early 1900s, this number had dropped to 10,427 (25.4 per cent), and the proportion continued to fall.42 The total number of Catholics was always slightly higher, with 14,705 (41 per cent) recorded in 1881. There were French, German, and Scottish Catholics in the city, so the formula “Catholic equals Irish” does not hold true for Halifax as closely as it does for St John’s. However, the great majority of Catholics were of Irish birth or descent. Overall, the proportion of Catholics remained relatively stable throughout the period (see table 1.3). As in St John’s, migration from Ireland virtually ceased prior to the famine, so by the late nineteenth century, the Irish ethnic community in Halifax was overwhelmingly native-born (see table 1.4). The Irish could be found living throughout the peninsula, though there were concentrations along Upper Water, Lower Water, Albemarle, and Salter streets. Even here, though, they mixed with other ethnoreligious groups. Although there was a slightly higher concentration in the smaller ward four, as well as wards two and three, the 1881 Canadian census confirms that the Irish were spread throughout the city, as was the case in St John’s (see table 1.5). James White’s quantitative analysis of Irish-Catholic Halifax, based upon a sample of over 4,000 first- and second-generation Irish individuals from the 1891 census, likewise suggests a dispersed Irish community. White found particular concentrations around St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s churches in wards five and six, as well as in the working-class streets north of Citadel Hill, and noted a growing movement into the suburban areas of the northern ward six.43 The Irish, though, could be found on virtually every street in urban Halifax. They demonstrated a tremendous range of occupational diversity – White’s sample recorded over 200 different occupations.44 His conclusion is telling: “Irish Catholics in

14,705 (40.7%) 15,638 (40.6%) 16,693 (40.6%) 19,334 (41.5%) 23,140 (39.6%)

1881

9,332 (25.9%) 9,964 (25.9%) 10,877 (26.4%) 13,174 (28.3%) 16,367 (28.0%)

Church of England

3,680 (10.2%) 3,798 (9.9%) 4,507 (11.0%) 4,591 (9.8%) 5,634 (9.7%)

Methodist

4,985 (13.8%) 4,876 (12.7%) 4,864 (11.8%) 5,133 (11.0%) 6,628 (11.4%)

Presbyterian

3,398 (9.4%) 4,219 (11.0%) 4,191 (10.2%) 4,387 (9.4%) 6,603 (11.3%)

Other & Unknown

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Census of Canada, 1881, Vol. 1, Table II; 1891, Vol. 1, Table IV; 1901, Vol. 1, Table X; 1911, Vol. 2, Table II; 1921, Vol. 1, Table 38. Note: These figures are calculated by adding the totals for each of Halifax’s six urban wards.

1921

1911

1901

1891

Roman Catholic

Year

Table 1.3 Population of Halifax by religion, census years between 1881 and 1921 (percentage of total population)

58,372

46,619

41,132

38,495

36,100

Total population

30 A Land of Dreams

27,872 (77.3%) 29,586 (76.9%) N/A 38,023 (81.6%) 46,091 (79.0%)

1881

2,310 (6.4%) 2,809 (7.3%) N/A 3,222 (6.9%) 6,004 (10.3%)

Elsewhere in Canada & Newfoundland

2,249 (6.2%) 1,557 (4.0%) N/A 683 (1.5%) 478 (0.8%)

Ireland

2,413 (6.7%) 3,238 (8.4%) N/A 404 (0.9%) 3,544 (6.1%)

England, Wales, & Scotland

263 (0.7%) 129 (0.3%) N/A 994 (2.1%) 288 (0.5%)

Elsewhere in British Empire

927 (2.7%) 1,176 (3.1%) N/A 3,293 (7.1%) 1,967 (3.4%)

Foreign or Unknown

58,372

41,132 46,619

38,495

36,034

Total population

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Census of Canada, 1881, Vol. 1, Table IV; 1891, Vol. 1, Table V; 1901, Vol. 1, Table XIV; 1911, Vol. 2, Table XVI; 1921, Vol. 1, Table 54. Note: These totals are calculated by adding figures for Halifax’s six urban wards. The 1881 figures do not include Sable Island, and there is a slight discrepancy between the total reported population of 36,100 and those recorded by place of birth (36,034). The 1901 census did not tally birthplace by ward, only accounting for the much larger area of Halifax County.

1921

1901 1911

1891

Nova Scotia

Year

Table 1.4 Population of Halifax by place of birth, census years between 1881 and 1921 (percentage of total population)

The Setting 31

32

A Land of Dreams

Table 1.5 Persons declaring Irish origins (either by birth or ancestry) by ward, Halifax, 1881 Ward

Persons of Irish Origin

% of total population of ward

One Two Three Four Five (Section one) Five (Section two) Six Total

2,436 1,580 1,216 925 1,707 3,063 1,875 12,802

30.5% 44.9% 43.4% 47.6% 40.4% 32.9% 30.4% 35.5%

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Source: Census of Canada, 1881, Vol. 1, Table III. Note: In this case, “Irish origins” refers to self-declaration on the census to the “origins” question, and includes both Catholics and Protestants of Irish birth and descent. After 1901, enumerators were instructed to record “origin” based on the ethnicity of an individual’s father. See Fourth Census of Canada, 1901: Instructions to Chief Officers Commissioners and Enumerators, 13–14.

Halifax enjoyed considerable social mobility and were well-integrated into the urban economy during the second half of the nineteenth century.”45 Distinct Irish neighbourhoods did not exist; Halifax neighbourhoods were defined by class rather than ethnicity.

portland, maine Five hundred kilometres southwest of Halifax, around the southern tip of Nova Scotia and across the Gulf of Maine, lies Portland. Like Nova Scotia’s capital, the city is situated on a peninsula, known as the Neck, jutting out into Casco Bay. The peninsula is 5 kilometres long and is dominated by two hills: Munjoy Hill to the east and Bramhall Hill to the west.46 The earliest European attempts at settlement were precarious. In 1633, George Cleeve and Richard Tucker established a fishing, lumbering, and fur-trading outpost, first known as Casco and, later, Falmouth. By 1675, about forty families, mostly English, had settled, but indigenous Wabanaki destroyed the embryonic community in 1676. Falmouth was resettled by 1678; ten years later 600 to 700 residents occupied the site. Further conflicts with the Wabanaki and the French resulted in it being effectively

The Setting

33

abandoned a second time. In 1715, a third attempt at settlement resulted in a town that endured.47 Falmouth was incorporated in 1718 and evolved as a timber port with a thriving shipbuilding industry. In 1786, it was renamed Portland.48 The most significant individual in the development of nineteenthcentury Portland was John Alfred Poor. He envisioned a city fit to rival New York and Boston as a shipping centre to Europe. Poor convinced Montreal merchants that Canadian grain could be shipped through Portland to Europe during the months when the St Lawrence River was frozen. The Atlantic and St Lawrence Railroad – later leased to the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada – was completed in 1853, and Portland’s positioning as Canada’s winter port was established. It would retain this designation until the 1920s, when the development of port facilities in Halifax and Saint John, New Brunswick, finally eroded Portland’s status.49 As the railway was being completed, the wharves that had formed the centre of the shipbuilding industry were demolished, and the southern shore of the peninsula filled in to create Commercial Street. This thoroughfare was over 30 metres wide, and quickly became the centre of the city’s maritime trade. Fore, Middle, Congress, and Cumberland streets were the other principal commercial avenues, which ran east to west through the peninsula.50 Like the two British North American ports, Portland developed significantly after 1880. The city spread beyond the peninsula, a trend facilitated, first, by horse-drawn streetcars and then by electric ones from the 1890s. The suburb of Deering, to the northwest of the peninsula, was annexed in 1899, adding 7,500 to the population and swelling it to over 50,000.51 The industrial core was centred around Back Cove, an area of reclaimed land on the northern side of the peninsula, described by Mayor James P. Baxter in 1895 as “a slimy and ill-odored waste not only offensive to the nostril and eye, but a menace to the health of the city.”52 Travellers to Portland would have been struck by the constant railroad sounds of an active, bustling port. Despite Mayor Baxter’s comments about Back Cove, the views over Casco Bay were beautiful, and, as a journalist from New York noted in 1889, Portland was an ideal summer vacation spot: “the loveliness and beauty of the city beckon with a thousand graceful hands to men of all lands; lovely homes spring up everywhere, and Portland rejoices for her history of trials is in the past, and her future is all before her.”53 Promenades were built on the eastern and western

Figure 1.3 Map of Portland, Maine, 1900. Numbers indicate the locations of the city’s urban wards. After 1900, the suburb of Deering, to the north of Back Cove, was annexed by Portland and comprised wards eight and nine. Source: “Map of Portland, Me. and Vicinity” [Map] (Portland: The Thurston Print, 1900). From the Collections of the Maine Historical Society, courtesy of www.vintagemaineimages.com.

34 A Land of Dreams

The Setting

35

sides of the peninsula, and parks were created throughout the town, ensuring that during this period it combined an active port and industrial core with an attractive summer resort.54 Portland was more ethnically diverse than St John’s or even Halifax. Although the early settlement was a “predominantly English place with scatterings of Scots and Scots-Irish,” a degree of ethnic plurality was present by 1800.55 Like other Atlantic seaports, Portland traded extensively with the West Indies, and this brought small numbers of Hispanics and blacks to the city by the mid-nineteenth century.56 At this time, Portland’s African-American population was concentrated along the base of Munjoy Hill. Most worked on the waterfront. However, as the West Indian trade collapsed and their socio-economic niche in the community was eroded, the black population of Portland declined. By the 1930s, only 268 African Americans remained in the city.57 While its racial profile became increasingly homogenous, the city’s ethnic makeup became more diverse. In addition to the Irish Catholics, large numbers of Canadians (English and French), Portuguese, and Scandinavians arrived in the late nineteenth century. By the early 1900s, they were followed by Italians, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Russians, and Poles (see table 1.6). Despite the city’s ethnic diversity, throughout the period under investigation here, approximately 80 per cent of all residents were American-born. Many of the immigrants congregated in the working-class areas of Munjoy Hill, while the town’s upper-middle-class Yankee population dominated the west end.58 As in many other New England cities, a degree of racism and nativism persisted, perhaps best exemplified by the growth of the anti-black, anti-immigrant, and anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s.59 As in Halifax, many of the early Irish residents of Portland were Protestants. Thaddeus Clark, who was later killed by Wabanaki raiders, was the first Irishman recorded in Portland, in 1662. Several prominent Irish-Protestant families were present during the eighteenth century, and some early Catholic residents converted to Protestantism. In 1718, the vessel McCallum arrived from Derry carrying around twenty Presbyterian families. Most settled in New Hampshire, but some remained in the town.60 It was not until the early nineteenth century that an Irish-Catholic population began to emerge in Portland. By the 1820s, Irish immigrants, many from Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, arrived to work on the Cumberland and Oxford Canal. Father Charles Daniel Ffrench of County Galway was the first Catholic priest to serve

N/A 28,600 (78.5%) 39,710 (79.2%) 46,493 (79.4%) 56,043 (80.9%)

1880 1890

N/A 3,140 (8.6%) 3,273 (6.5%) 2,952 (5.0%) 2,425 (3.5%)

Ireland N/A 2,923 (8.0%) 4,376 (8.7%) 4,492 (7.7%) 5,004 (7.2%)

Canada & Newfoundland N/A 544 (1.5%) 598 (1.2%) 656 (1.1%) 744 (1.1%)

England N/A

31 (0.1%) 148 (0.3%) 783 (1.3%) 1,229 (1.8%)

187 (0.5%) 436 (0.9%) 1,333 (2.3%) 1,794 (2.6%)

Italy

N/A

Poland & Russia

N/A 1,000 (2.7%) 1,604 (3.2%) 1,862 (3.2%) 2,033 (2.9%)

Other

69,272

58,571

50,145

33,810 36,425

Total population

Note: Figures are calculated by adding totals for Portland’s nine urban wards. The 1880 census did not provide specific data on place of birth for municipalities.

35; Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Vol. 2, Table 2; Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Vol. 3, “Population – Maine,” Table 13.

Sources: Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Table 25; Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, Vol. 1, Table 34; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Vol. 1, Table

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down.

1920

1910

1900

United States

Year

Table 1.6 Population of Portland by place of birth, census years between 1880 and 1920 (percentage of total population)

36 A Land of Dreams

The Setting

37

in Portland, and a Catholic chapel, St Dominic’s, was constructed between 1828 and 1833. Although small, there was a distinct IrishCatholic presence in Portland by the early 1840s.61 While Irish settlement in St John’s and Halifax was an overwhelmingly pre-famine phenomenon, Irish-Catholic immigration to Portland, like other parts of the northeastern United States, increased substantially in the 1840s. The Catholic parish of St Dominic’s had 1,000 members in 1846, but by the end of 1847, this number had risen to over 1,500, almost entirely due to the influx of Irish-famine migrants.62 These immigrants came primarily from the west of Ireland, particularly County Galway. By the 1860s, some 2,600 of Portland’s 37,400 residents were Irish. Almost all were Catholic.63 A second Irish influx in the 1880s increased the Galway-born population of the city. Many were Irish-speakers from Cois Fharraige, along the Connemara coast to the west of Galway City. The promise of unskilled jobs on railways or on the waterfront for men, and domestic work in Yankee households for women, reinforced chain migration from the west of Ireland; a stream of predominantly young unmarried immigrants came to join their relatives in Portland.64 The Connemara Irish were unique in that most were fluent speakers of Gaelic. Kenneth E. Nilsen suggested that twentieth-century Portland may have had “the highest percentage of Irish speakers among its Irish-born residents of any American city.”65 The language was frequently spoken in family settings or along the waterfront well into the twentieth century. It was not taught in schools and was rarely passed on to a second generation.66 Unlike the Irish in St John’s and Halifax, those in Portland did tend to congregate in particular parts of the city. The two most significant locales were the slopes of Munjoy Hill, on the eastern end of the peninsula, and Gorham’s Corner at the meeting of Pleasant, Center, Danforth, York, and Fore streets to the west of the city centre, while a smaller concentration lived on the streets adjacent to St Dominic’s.67 In the early twentieth century, Gorham’s Corner had the greatest concentration of Irish Catholics, while the base of Munjoy Hill – formerly Portland’s most substantial AfricanAmerican neighbourhood – was an ethnically diverse working-class area. Conditions, particularly in Gorham’s Corner, were rough. Nineteenth-century author and local historian Edward H. Elwell referred to the district as “an unsavoury locality of the town, in bad repute because of the turbulent character of its inhabitants, the center of

38

A Land of Dreams

sailor boarding houses, and the scene of street brawls and drunken rows.”68 Although there was a small elite, most Irish Catholics were working class, with a particular concentration in the longshoremen’s and domestic industries.69 The figures in table 1.6 show that the percentage of Irish-born residents in Portland was decreasing by 1920. Most of the immigrants who had arrived during and in the decade or so after the famine were deceased, and the percentage was further eroded by the annexation of the largely Yankee suburb of Deering in 1899. The census of 1900 provides a better idea of the size of this multi-generational Irish ethnic group. In that year, 7,644 residents of Portland (15.2 per cent of the total population) reported having two Irish-born parents, while a further 2,272 had at least one.70 While these figures do not account for those whose grandparents emigrated from Ireland, or the English Canadians who were of Irish descent, it is safe to say that there were significant numbers of Catholics of Irish birth or descent in Portland at the beginning of the twentieth century, but they remained a minority. The town was indeed a “Yankee stronghold.” Irish Catholics dominated the longshore industry and were “clearly a force to be reckoned with in other areas, especially within the field of manual labor” while Portland boomed as an exporting port.71 By the end of our period, second-generation Irish Catholics were moving further up Munjoy Hill, west of Gorham’s Corner, north of Congress Street, and into the suburbs, resulting in a diverse, widely spread, multi-generational Irish community. The census of 1920 allows us to see how the Irish-born population of Portland was spread throughout the city’s nine urban wards (see table 1.7). Slightly higher concentrations remained in wards two (near Munjoy Hill), four (Gorham’s Corner), six (near St Dominic’s Church), and seven, but Irish Catholics could be found throughout the town. Between 1880 and the 1920s, Portland was essentially “an ethnic city, and its largest ethnic group was Irish.”72

conclusion Thanks to their relative proximity, comparable size, status as ports, yet notably different Irish-Catholic communities, St John’s, Halifax, and Portland present an excellent opportunity for comparison. Clearly, there are many parallels between the Irish of St John’s and Halifax.

223 8,779 2.5

Number of Irish-born Total population % Irish-born

439 6,547 6.7

2

171 6,554 2.6

3

305 4,606 6.6

4

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Source: Census of the United States, 1920, Vol. 3, “Maine – Population,” Table 13.

1

Ward

Table 1.7 Irish-born population of Portland by city ward, 1920

215 5,869 3.7

5

394 7,584 5.2

6

443 10,434 4.2

7

110 8,711 1.3

8

125 10,188 1.2

9

2,425 69,272 3.5

Total

The Setting 39

40

A Land of Dreams

Both drew a great proportion of their migrants from the southeast of Ireland, and Irish settlement occurred before the famine. By the 1880s, both communities consisted of multi-generational ethnic groups a generation or more removed from the land of their ancestors, and those of Irish descent were fully integrated into each city’s political and economic establishment. Identities were articulated within a strong British-imperial context, so how “Irishness” and “Britishness” overlapped is a major theme when comparing the construction of Irish ethnicity in both places. One critical difference between the two: in St John’s, Catholics of Irish birth or descent formed a majority of the population, while in Halifax they were a minority, though a substantial one. Moreover, the presence of more Protestants of Irish descent in Halifax influenced how ethnic networks evolved in that city, particularly the British North American and transatlantic networks of the Orange Order. The Irish Catholics of Halifax shared the institutions of their Church with French-Acadian, Scottish, and Mi’kmaq Catholics, compared to the overwhelmingly Irish Church of St John’s. This had considerable bearing on how Catholicism served to foster and reinforce Irish ethnicity in the two ports. The inclusion of Portland as the third city adds a further transnational dimension to this study. Beyond the narrower generational gap between the bulk of the Irish population and their ancestral homeland, the American context provides a revealing foil to the British North American centres. Irish associational, clerical, and nationalist networks evolved quite differently in Portland, resulting in a distinct understanding of being Irish. This study provides a platform for an understanding of Irishness in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, and also reveals the strength and variety of Irish identities in the broader diaspora. The following chapters establish how each of these local settings influenced Irish identities, as well as how the respective populations remained connected to ethnic networks that transcended space. Ethnicity was invented and reinvented by the interaction of domestic and external factors. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, well-established associational networks dominated the construction of Irishness in all three centres. These are the subject of chapter 2.

2 Everyday Irishness Associational Life, 1880–1910

Irish ethnic and benevolent societies were prominent in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and served as essential agents in the creation and transmission of a communal sense of Irishness. As disposable income increased and the time that ordinary people devoted to work diminished, new concepts of leisure culture emerged. Ethnic and benevolent associations functioned as important venues for socialization, particularly for men.1 They vied for primacy within their communities and attempted to offer members a badge of exclusivity that, for most of the societies studied here, came from a shared sense of Irish or Catholic identity.2 How each society displayed its Irishness, though, varied widely depending on the socio-economic origins of the members as well as local contexts. Furthermore, ethnic associations were often connected to broader organizations and demonstrate how each community fit into regional, national, or transnational ethnic networks. This chapter examines Irish associational networks during the opening thirty years of our period. In St John’s and Halifax, the oldest Irish organizations, the BIS and the CIS, respectively, continued to be the most visible and explicit exponents of Irishness, while in Portland the long-standing Irish-American Relief Association and St Patrick’s Benevolent Society were gradually eclipsed by the more proletarian AOH. Through their meetings and social events, as well as the ritual celebration of St Patrick’s Day, Irish ethnic and benevolent associations created many of the public spaces in which Irish identities were negotiated. The expression of ethnicity was a day-to-day reality for many individuals of Irish birth or descent and was significantly influenced by three variables: location, class, and gender. Catholicism,

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A Land of Dreams

meanwhile, was so closely connected to ethnicity that, in some cases, the two were indistinguishable. In St John’s and Halifax, the BIS and CIS were dominated by the middle classes and espoused a vision of Irishness closely interwoven with loyalty to the British monarchy and the Empire. In Portland, the labouring classes tended to be more involved in Irish associational life, largely owing to the composition of its Irish community. A strong loyalty to the American republic was a consistent feature, and the connection between Irishness and the Empire was seldom acknowledged. Finally, in all three cities, the public expression of Irish identity was overwhelmingly masculine from 1880 to 1910. Women did take part, but only through the ladies’ auxiliaries of male organizations.

established irishness: benevolent associations A common feature of associational life in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland around the turn of the twentieth century was the presence of Irish benevolent societies. By the 1880s, these were well established and respected, and presented the most public face of Irishness in each community. They tended to be middle class and were founded on the basis of charitable relief for the poor. In addition to the principles of charity, these associations fostered a middle-class understanding of Irish ethnicity, characterized by loyalty and respectability. In some cases, their charitable objectives became secondary in the early twentieth century, and they offered an increasing variety of pastimes and social opportunities for Irish-Catholic men. Their development, as well as their continued engagement with Ireland and Irish affairs, reveals a great deal about how ethnicity found its way into the day-today lives of the middle classes. The BIS was formed in St John’s in 1806 when a group of Irishmen met at the London Tavern to establish an association for the relief of the local poor. By the beginning of the twentieth century, it remained the town’s only Irish-Catholic ethnic fraternal association.3 Its influence on community and identity has been significant. As John FitzGerald notes in his foreword to the society’s bicentennial history, for the Catholics of St John’s, “only the Roman Catholic Church predated and equalled the BIS in its social and cultural influence.”4 Founded along the principles of “loyalty, true benevolence and philanthropy,” the society’s first meeting was held on 5 February 1806.

Everyday Irishness

43

Membership was restricted to “natives of Ireland” or the “sons of Irish parents.”5 The society was strictly non-denominational. Some of the island’s most prominent Catholics, such as merchants Henry Shea, Patrick Ryan, and Thomas Meagher along with Bishop James Louis O’Donel, were founding members, while Irish Protestants such as merchant James MacBraire, Lieutenant John MacKillop, and Captain Winckworth Tonge were also involved.6 Although the “lady friends” of the society were present at social functions and helped organize fundraisers, full BIS membership was reserved for men only, and a formal Ladies’ Auxiliary was not founded until 1921. Much of the society’s early activity was organized through its committee of charity, which was responsible for distributing aid to the poor.7 Relief took the form of money, food, or clothing. In the final years of the waning migratory cod fishery, the BIS also allocated funds to aid fishermen stranded in Newfoundland after poor seasons.8 After 1823, under the leadership of the society’s first Catholic president, merchant and reform politician Patrick Morris, it increasingly turned its attention towards the education of the city’s poor children, and with this objective in mind, the Orphan Asylum School (OAS) was opened by the BIS in 1827. Early attendance was around 250 and reflected the society’s non-denominational values: both Catholic and Protestant pupils were welcomed.9 Charity and education remained the society’s primary concerns until the twentieth century. Although theoretically non-denominational, as early as the 1820s, the BIS had evolved into a “de facto Catholic society,” and Protestant membership disappeared almost entirely.10 It had been formed in the aftermath of the Society of United Irishmen’s 1798 Rebellion and the associated Catholic mutiny in the St John’s garrison in 1800, a period of intense suspicion of Newfoundland’s Irish Catholics by the British colonial administration. “Loyal” Protestant support was, therefore, essential to the formation of an Irish benevolent association. Over time, however, as Governor Erasmus Gower correctly predicted, the absence of a significant Irish-Protestant population in the town resulted in an ever-increasing proportion of Catholic members. The Catholicization of the society was confirmed by 1848, when Bishop John Thomas Mullock was named co-patron of the society alongside the governor, with the Catholic bishop being elevated to sole patron after 1855.11 The BIS donated money to the development of Catholic infrastructure, including the construction of St Patrick’s Church in the city’s west end, and it maintained a significant presence at major

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A Land of Dreams

Catholic celebrations.12 While the official policy of the BIS remained non-sectarian, in the late nineteenth century, it was essentially an association of Irish Catholics. The society’s members were primarily drawn from the middle classes. Full membership rolls for the period are rare, but the rewritten constitution of 1909 lists the entire complement for that year, and these names can be cross-referenced with data from city directories in order to create an occupational profile of the society (see table 2.1). The city’s wealthiest and most powerful Catholics were represented, particularly on the executive. In 1909, Tipperary-born James D. Ryan, one of the most prominent retailers in St John’s as well as a member of the Legislative Council, served as president. The vice-president was James M. Kent, Newfoundland’s minister of justice and attorney general. The remainder of the executive included John L. Slattery, who was secretary treasurer for the municipal council; Michael A. McCarthy, a manager at John McCarthy’s grocery; W.J. Higgins, a solicitor; Thomas J. Nash, an undertaker; and Philip F. Moore, a member of the House of Assembly. The bulk of the members came from the white-collar and professional middle classes. Fifty were clerks, while seventeen were accountants and thirteen were bookkeepers. Grocers were also well represented. An interesting feature of this table is that only two Catholic priests could be definitively identified. The remaining clergymen were Christian Brothers, both of whom taught at St Patrick’s Hall School, located in the society’s own building. A membership list for 1906 lists nine clergymen, in addition to two Christian Brothers, so there was some variation in clerical participation in the early twentieth century.13 The BIS was the foremost Irish association in St John’s during this period. It organized the city’s annual St Patrick’s Day parade, was the principal venue for public discussions of Irish politics and history, and ensured that many of the city’s young, well-to-do Catholic males maintained an affinity for and awareness of their ancestral origins. By the 1880s, the society was moving away from its benevolent and educational objectives, and began functioning instead as a venue for middle-class, male socialization. Its ethnic orientation ensured that an appreciation for the “old land” remained part of this process. In the mid-1880s, the society’s membership was in decline. In order to ensure its future, a Juvenile Branch was established in 1886, which boys “under twenty years of age of Irish descent” were eligible to join.14 It was formed in close co-operation with the Irish Christian

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Table 2.1 Occupational profile of the St John’s Benevolent Irish Society (BIS), 1909 Type of occupation

Number of BIS members

% of total membership

Professional or white collar workers Druggists, grocers, liquor merchants, shopkeepers Skilled manual workers Clergy Semi- or unskilled manual workers Total

142

56.0

45 56 4 5 252

18.0 22.0 2.0 2.0 100.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Benevolent Irish Society, Constitution and Rules of the Benevolent Irish Society, 36–8; McAlpine’s St John’s Directory, 1908–1909.

Note: In 1909, there were 385 members in the BIS. Analysis is based on 252 of those who could be definitively matched to an occupation in McAlpine’s Directory. The categories are my own, though they closely resemble those used by Mark McGowan and Brian Clarke in their occupational studies of Toronto, originally formulated by Peter Goheen. Given the narrower range of occupations recorded in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, and the smaller sample size, clerical and professional occupations were combined, as were semi- and unskilled manual workers, to produce a more simplified table. Those involved in public service are also included as “white collar or professional.” A full list of occupational categories is included in Appendix A. See McGowan, The Waning of the Green, 295–6; Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 261–2; Goheen, Victorian Toronto. Amongst the occupations considered “Professional or white collar” are: accountants, agents, auctioneers, bank tellers, barristers, bookkeepers, cashiers, clerks, collectors, dentists, editors, insurance agents, law students, managers, morticians, physicians, principals, proprietors, reporters, salesmen, solicitors, teachers, telephone operators, and veterinarians. Public servants are also incorporated into this category, and include the ministers of finance and justice, the deputy minister of finance, the head constable and sub-sheriff of Newfoundland; school, road, health, and revenue inspectors; a colonial secretary’s office messenger; the secretary treasurer of the municipal council, and the Supreme Court’s crier. The “Druggists, grocers, liquor merchants, and shopkeepers” category includes those employed in business, specifically: bartenders, booksellers, dry goods merchants, druggists, grocers, liquor merchants, outfitters, provisions merchants, storekeepers, tobacconists, traders, wholesalers. Those considered “Skilled” are bakers, boilermakers, boot and shoe manufacturers, builders and contractors, butchers, carpenters, coopers, drapers, engineers, foremen, gas fitters, harness makers, locksmiths, machinists, master mariners, painters, patternmakers, plumbers, steamfitters, stenographers, tailors, tidewaiters, undertakers, upholsterers, watchmakers, and wheelwrights. Finally, the “Semi- or unskilled” category includes a caretaker, a cabman, a fisherman, a labourer, and a teamster.

Brothers, who ran the BIS schools. The Brothers encouraged their male pupils as well as recent graduates to join, and by St Patrick’s Day, 1888, 180 boys marched with the main body of the society. In 1889, 42 new members were admitted, with total enrolment reaching 325.15 A BIS membership was seen as positive for the boys, as it would enhance their social skills through an association with “many of the

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Figure 2.1 St Patrick’s Hall, home of the St John’s Benevolent Irish Society, pre-1900. Source: Geography Collection of Historical Photographs of Newfoundland and Labrador, Archives and Special Collections, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

most influential and respectable members of the community.”16 The Juvenile Branch was given its own recreation rooms in the basement of the newly constructed St Patrick’s Hall, and it was these young men who championed the development of a reading room and gymnasium for the use of BIS members.17 Although it was not re-formed after St. John’s devastating Great Fire of 1892, the Juvenile Branch exemplified the society’s movement towards a leisure-oriented association, with socialization and respectability as primary objectives. Several new groups emerged from the movement towards pastimes and leisure. The BIS Dramatic Society, for example, was active from at least 1891. The members, both men and women, were not necessarily society members, but rather individuals interested in raising funds to pay off debts accrued through the construction of the society’s rooms

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at St Patrick’s Hall, as well as to improve facilities for the education of the city’s poor.18 Irish plays, such as Colleen Bawn in 1892, were performed in front of enthusiastic crowds to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.19 Balls and dances were held frequently from the 1870s. In the early 1890s, the BIS’s billiards committee was active, and group excursions to Harbour Grace, Topsail, Donovans, and Bay Bulls became common in summer.20 Debates took place regularly, some of which pertained to Irish topics. The most intriguing of these occurred in March 1901, when the society debated the question: “Should well-wishers of Ireland give their moral and financial support to the Irish Nationalist Party, as presently constituted?” Once both sides of the question had been thoroughly debated, a vote was taken among the attendees, with the affirmative prevailing by fifty to five.”21 By the turn of the century, the literary and amusement committee had grown to fifteen members, three times the size of both the education and charity committees.22 Sports and athletics also became an important feature of BIS activity. The most significant example was its association football (soccer) team, which entered the domestic league in 1897. Known by nicknames such as the “green and white” or the “Irish boys,” the team wore white jerseys and green shorts, with a green badge containing a golden harp.23 Through sports and other pastimes, members of the society “began to frequent St Patrick’s Hall more regularly for the purposes of social intercourse.”24 For the young Catholic men of St John’s, the BIS had become “a place to amuse themselves after the day’s work was finished.”25 Although providing funds and support for the school at St Patrick’s Hall remained important, it was these social opportunities that continued to draw men of Irish descent to the society well into the twentieth century. The extent to which the BIS engaged with Irish affairs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveals a great deal about middle-class Irish identity in St John’s. The mid-nineteenth century saw limited societal involvement with events in Ireland. Expressions of ethnicity were most frequently exhibited on feast days, such as St Patrick’s Day; through occasional engagement with Irish nationalism, such as fundraising for Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal movement in the 1840s or welcoming prominent Irish nationalist and Young Ireland leader William Smith O’Brien to St John’s in 1859; and on occasions of important celebrations, such as the centenary of O’Connell’s birth in 1875.26 By the 1880s, as transatlantic networks of communication improved and Irish news became more accessible to the Catholics of

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St John’s, BIS involvement with Ireland increased, despite the growing generational gap between most BIS members and their ancestral homeland. These expressions of identity always took place within a loyal, British-imperial context. Most pronouncements on events in Ireland, such as toasts or special resolutions, emphasized the strengthening of bonds between Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the loyalty of Catholics in Newfoundland and throughout the diaspora, while concurrently displaying support for Irish self-government. Toasts were an important part of BIS dinners, balls, dances, and other celebrations. A feature from the society’s inception, they are an example of the public expression of Irish identity in St John’s and reveal how the members of the BIS understood their ethnicity. The toasts demonstrate a devotion to the ancestral homeland as well as love and respect for both the British Empire and Newfoundland.27 The format consisted of proposing the toast followed by a short ontopic speech from a member or special guest. In the first half of the nineteenth century, these toasts appear to have adopted an explicitly unionist tone. By the 1860s, toasts to the Union and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland were dropped in favour of a toast to “Ireland as she ought to be.”28 Nevertheless, the toasts never lost their loyal, pro-imperial focus. To take one example, at the St Patrick’s Day dinner of 1882, the first to be held at the new St Patrick’s Hall, the opening toast was to the “pious and immortal memory of St Patrick.” A toast to the Queen and Royal Family immediately followed, which was met with respectful silence. Only after that was a toast to “Ireland as she ought to be” proposed. The phrase “as she ought to be” reflected a desire for peace and prosperity in the ancestral homeland, as well as implied support for Irish self-government, though only in the form of a dominion within the British Empire. In response, Robert J. Kent, BIS vice-president, made a speech on Irish affairs. He referred to reports of Irish unrest and ill feeling that had appeared recently in newspaper reports, and expressed his hope and belief that journalists were exaggerating the situation.29 The format and tone of BIS toasts changed little into the twentieth century. One of the society’s grandest celebrations of the era was its 1906 centenary, when balls, banquets, athletics meets, Masses, and other events marked the one-hundredth anniversary of its founding. At one of the banquets, the toast list was almost identical to the 1882 example. St Patrick was followed by the King, with “Ireland as she ought to be” again third on the list. Other toasts were made to the

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Catholic clergy, Newfoundland’s governor, and the clergy of the Church of England.30 The author of the 1906 Centenary Volume decried the ultra-loyal, pro-Union toasts of the early nineteenth century, noting that “old Ireland as she ought to be” reflected the members’ “keener desire to free the land of their forefathers from the oppression of foreign rule.”31 Despite the rather nationalistic tone of this comment, the society’s toast list consistently reflected its nonsectarian policy and publicly expressed members’ loyalty to the monarchy and the Empire. The BIS engaged with Ireland and Irish affairs even more directly through special meetings and resolutions, most of which involved responses to political circumstances in the old country. Examples are analyzed in detail in the coming chapters and included a special meeting and resolution in 1886 to discuss William Ewart Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill; an assembly and celebration to welcome Gladstonian Member of Parliament Courtney Kenny later that same year; a meeting in 1896 to determine Newfoundland’s representation at the Irish Race Convention; a special gathering in September 1903 to honour the memory of early nineteenth-century Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet on the centenary of his death; a meeting in 1906 to mourn the death that year of Land League founder Michael Davitt; a planned (though aborted) societal excursion to Ireland in 1913 to celebrate the passage of the third Home Rule Bill; a banquet in 1914 to celebrate the same; and numerous meetings and resolutions between 1919 and 1921 during the Anglo-Irish War. Most of these gatherings, while showing a passionate commitment to Home Rule, expressed the desire that Ireland should remain a part of the British Empire. Resolutions on other subjects concerning imperial affairs further demonstrate the members’ close association of Irishness and imperial identity. Following British victories in the South African War (or Second Boer War) in March 1900, likely at Paardeberg and Tugela Heights, the society met to celebrate at St Patrick’s Hall. They passed a resolution noting the Irish contribution to the conflict, praising the “Irish regiments who preferred annihilation to retreat and upheld the best traditions of the fighting race.”32 At no point did the members concede that some Irish Catholics had also fought with the Boers against Britain, or that many Irish Americans had supported the South Africans.33 A similar example occurred following Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, when another assembly was called in order to express condolences to the Royal Family. The resolution mentioned

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the shared grief of the members at the death of their “glorious and beloved sovereign”; went on to discuss the accession of King Edward VII, asserting the society’s “fealty and allegiance to his crown”; and expressed the hope that the “principles of liberty” of the Empire would be maintained throughout his reign.34 The brand of Irishness embraced by the society combined a strong attachment to the ancestral homeland with a devout loyalty to Newfoundland and the Empire. For the members of the BIS, Ireland could not be conceived of without its British connection. Halifax’s CIS displayed many striking similarities to its Newfoundland equivalent. Both were upper- or middle-class benevolent associations, and both expressed devotion to the British Empire as well as to the Irish connection. Perhaps the most critical difference between the two is that while the BIS remained St John’s only ethnic fraternal society, the CIS, after 1902, had to vie with the AOH for the title of Halifax’s principal Irish association. Although it evolved beyond its charitable and benevolent goals, the CIS did not provide its members with the same array of pastimes as did the BIS. However, the society remained a significant presence in Halifax, and membership was seen as an important mark of respectability for men of Irish descent. The CIS was founded on 17 January 1786 at John O’Brien’s inn. About half of the 136 founding members were Irish Protestants, including its first president, Richard John Uniacke. The town’s most influential Catholics were also involved from the outset, including Waterford-born butcher and victualler Michael Tobin as well as Lawrence Kavanagh, a native of Cape Breton, who would become the first Catholic member of Nova Scotia’s legislature in 1822.35 The society’s creed was to aid “any of the Irish nation who shall be reduced by sickness, old age, shipwreck or other misfortune.”36 Emphasis was also placed on respectability, both for the members themselves and throughout the community, as the society aimed to “discourage … the growth of vice and immorality” in the town.37 Early members paid twenty shillings to the relief fund as initial dues, and then two shillings at each quarterly meeting. Non-attendance or non-payment was met with a fine and, eventually, expulsion from the society.38 The CIS was strictly non-denominational, and relief was distributed both to Catholics and Protestants. Discussion of political and sectarian controversies was forbidden at meetings, as the society explicitly encouraged “harmony and good will amongst men.”39

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CIS membership was initially restricted to Irishmen and their sons. As in St John’s, increased Catholic migration to Halifax during the early nineteenth century eroded Irish-Protestant dominance in the society, and by the late 1840s, membership was well over 90 per cent Catholic.40 No full lists of members have survived for this period, but an examination of the society’s executive demonstrates its elite composition. To take one example, the full executive for 1902 was printed in the Halifax Evening Mail. Using a combination of census records and city directories, it is possible to create a basic biographical profile of the CIS’s most prominent members for that year (see table 2.2). Some of Nova Scotia’s most powerful individuals were members of the society, and this elite character was retained into the twentieth century. Even James O’Brien, listed in the census as a hairdresser, was a well-respected businessman: his firm manufactured and sold hairpieces, and he served as a city alderman and as a member of the school board. The primary objective of the CIS remained the charitable relief of Halifax’s poor. In the early years, this often took the form of bread, which was distributed to suffering residents. After 1800, relief generally took the form of monetary donations.41 As in St John’s, the Committee of Charity was responsible for the distribution of aid, which in the 1880s consisted of relieving individual families as well as contributing to local charities. The society held quarterly meetings, usually at the Halifax Hotel, and voted on distribution of funds. For example, in 1903, $300 was voted to the Committee of Charity for the relief of specific cases, while $50 each was pledged to St Teresa’s Home and the Home of the Guardian Angel.42 Social events continued in the early years of the twentieth century but were not as elaborate as those organized by the St John’s BIS. The CIS remained focused on the charitable relief of the poor and suffering until well into the twentieth century. The CIS’s engagement with Irish affairs was similar to that of the BIS in St John’s. Resolutions on political developments in the homeland were common and always showed support for constitutional nationalism along with an explicit loyalty to the British Empire. Most of these resolutions emerged from special meetings called to discuss affairs in the ancestral homeland and frequently demonstrated members’ esteem for the old country. For example, at a meeting to discuss the relief of those afflicted by famine in Ireland in 1880, members drafted a letter to the archbishop of Tuam, signed by CIS president

President Vice-president 1st Vice-president 2nd Vice-president Treasurer Secretary Asst. Secretary Fin. Secretary

A.B. Crosby C.E. Lane Ernest F. Doyle E. Allison W.J. Power James J. O’Brien William Pitts J.T. Murphy

Ship broker and commission merchant [hat] Merchant Agent, Queen and Royal Insurance Co. Barrister [dry goods] Merchant Hairdresser Painter Unknown

Occupation

United States Nova Scotia Nova Scotia New Brunswick Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Unknown

Place of birth

Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Methodist Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Roman Catholic Unknown

Religion

Sources: Evening Mail, 21 February 1902. Biographical details are from McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1900–1901. Places of birth and religion are taken from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with the original information coming from the Census of Canada, 1901.

Position

Name

Table 2.2 Biographical profile of the 1902 Charitable Irish Society executive

52 A Land of Dreams

Everyday Irishness

53

James Butler, stating that “though separated from [our brethren at home] by the heaving waters of the Atlantic Ocean, neither time nor distance has ever been able to make us forget their sufferings … We feel bound as Irishmen and sons of Irishmen to show our sympathy by action as well as word.” The society pledged £100 for the relief of the hungry.43 Most often, special meetings on Irish affairs had to do with political circumstances in the old country. The CIS assembled in 1882 to discuss Home Rule, in 1886 to welcome Irish nationalist politician Justin McCarthy, in 1890 to mark the death of Irish-American newspaper editor John Boyle O’Reilly, and on several occasions in 1913 and 1914, as well as in 1919 and 1920, to discuss Anglo-Irish relations. Support for Irish nationalism was always constitutional, and discussion of an independent Irish Republic did not occur.44 The CIS demonstrated its loyalty to the Empire in a number of other ways. When Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen, the former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, arrived in Halifax in 1895 following his appointment as governor general of Canada, the CIS met to pass a special resolution. It stated that “as Irishmen and sons of Irishmen who made their homes in Nova Scotia, we viewed with admiration and approval the wisdom and justice of Your Excellency’s administration of Irish affairs while Lord Lieutenant, and we beg to assure you of our high appreciation of the value of services rendered by Your Excellency to our Mother Country.”45 As with the BIS St Patrick’s Day dinner in St John’s, a key feature of the CIS annual event was a toast to the monarchy. At the society’s celebration in 1896, “the Queen” was second only to the “immortal memory of St Patrick.” The list of toasts also demonstrated a strong sense of Canadian patriotism. On this occasion, J.C. O’Mullin’s passionate response to the “land we live in” praised Canada’s abundant natural resources as well as Nova Scotia’s educational system. He also linked Irish-Canadian identity with Ireland’s political struggle for self-government – a common feature of CIS pronouncements on Ireland – while also invoking the famous words of Abraham Lincoln: “In Canada, the Irishman enjoys Home Rule in its truest sense: government of the people, by the people, for the people.”46 The pro-imperial orientation of the CIS is hardly surprising. As Katherine Crooks perceptively notes in her study of the Victorian CIS, many of the upwardly mobile Irish Catholics in Halifax owed their success to the commercial and military networks of the Empire present in the garrison town.47 As such, “the discourse of imperial ‘Britishness’ was

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taken up by the Charitable Irish Society in order to operate within the imperial framework in which its members lived and thrived.”48 For the CIS, then, Irishness was expressed next to a strong sense of Canadian patriotism and British loyalty. While the society prominently and publicly displayed its Irish identity, more direct engagement with Irish affairs, such as sending money to the ancestral homeland, tended to evoke controversy. Funds were sent across the Atlantic on a number of occasions in the nineteenth century, such as during the great famine of the 1840s as well as in 1880.49 In 1885, however, a proposed subscription of $100 to an Irish parliamentary fund was rejected on the grounds that it did not reflect the charitable objectives of the society. Instead, a private collection was taken amongst the members, which raised $80 for the cause.50 In 1888, a similar incident took place when the Sisters of Mercy in Galway appealed to the CIS for a donation. The plea was rejected in a close vote.51 The lingering question of precisely what role the society should take in the affairs of the homeland was debated at length as its constitution was being revised in 1892. John Call O’Mullin, a prominent member of the Conservative Party in Halifax who would become president of the society from 1907 to 1909, objected to the phrase “local charity” being included in the society’s mission. According to O’Mullin, such language would prevent the CIS contributing aid to Ireland in the event of a disaster, such as a famine. A debate followed, and it was decided that the “object of the society is to assist people in Nova Scotia.”52 The word “local” was retained, but the policy was not rigidly adhered to, as just two years later, in 1894, the CIS participated in fundraising for the poor of Ireland following an appeal by Archbishop Cornelius O’Brien.53 While members of the CIS seem to have possessed a shared esteem for Ireland, precisely how this should be expressed was a contestable issue, and attitudes towards direct engagement with the ancestral homeland varied over time. Benevolent associations did not thrive in Portland to the same extent as in St John’s or Halifax. This was largely owing to the Irish community’s composition in the late nineteenth century: Portland’s Irish-Catholic middle class was smaller than in the two British North American centres, while later migration meant that relatively few in the city were well enough established to be able to participate in an elite-dominated, charitable organization. The societies that did exist were smaller and younger, and at no point did they dominate the public expression of Irish identity in Portland. As in the two British North

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American ports, these groups offered both financial relief for the poor and social opportunities to their members, but by the early twentieth century, they were overshadowed by the much larger AOH and, later, the Knights of Columbus. The most prominent Irish benevolent association in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Portland was the IARA. On 29 April 1863, some of Portland’s leading Irish residents met to form a relief society. The IARA was eventually organized on 4 February 1865. It functioned as a mutual-benefit association rather than a true benevolent society since charitable aid appears to have been given primarily to its members rather than to the broader Irish community.54 Its objective was “to afford relief to its members when afflicted by sickness, and to embrace the opportunity to do good to one another when the occasion and means of the occasion permit.”55 Little information on membership for our period exists. A rewritten constitution, printed in 1876, lists 272 members, but by 1919, a report in Portland’s Eastern Argus included a total of 41, so it appears as though the IARA’s size and influence waned considerably.56 In order to become a member, an individual had to be in good standing within the community, be of “good moral character,” pay an initial fee of $5 as well as monthly dues of 25 cents, and receive a vote of two-thirds of the members present in favour of admission. The constitution makes no explicit mention of members’ place of birth, ancestry, or religion, so the IARA’s ethnic affiliation seems to have been more implicit than those of either the BIS or the CIS.57 A variety of leisure events and pastimes were organized by the IARA, both for its members and for the broader community. Balls and banquets were held annually for members and their guests. So too were picnics and excursions to various locations around southern Maine. These could be grandiose affairs. A report on the eve of the seventeenth annual excursion to Cushing’s Island in 1880 noted that IARA outings had been known to attract up to 2,500 people. Events included athletics, baseball, and shooting competitions, as well as archery for women. The numbers, even if exaggerated, suggest that the event drew individuals not only from outside the IARA membership but also from beyond Portland’s Irish-Catholic community.58 Unlike the BIS and CIS, direct engagement with Irish affairs through the IARA appears to have been rare, with the most notable example occurring in 1880, when the association pledged $500 to the relief of those suffering from famine in Ireland.59 Although some of the

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society’s social events captured the attention of Portland’s IrishCatholic community, and perhaps the entire city, the IARA rarely displayed its Irishness publicly. Other Irish-Catholic benevolent associations were active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they seldom appeared in press reports. The St Patrick’s Benevolent Society, for example, possessed similar objectives to the BIS and CIS, aiming to promote “kind and fraternal feelings among its members, and affectionate concern for the welfare of all Catholics of Portland.”60 A sickness committee evaluated cases of destitution and recommended to the main body of the society whether financial aid should be provided. Members could be any persons from the community who were approved by the board of trustees and who received a majority vote from those present.61 Furthermore, the society was the only benevolent association investigated here to admit women as well as men. Other than the reference to St Patrick in the association’s name, it does not appear to have publicly expressed any identification with Ireland. Its objective was to relieve all suffering Catholics of Portland, not just those of Irish birth or descent. Charitable and benevolent associations are crucial in understanding how Irish identity was publicly expressed in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland. The most significant conclusion is the striking similarity between the BIS in St John’s and the CIS in Halifax. Both emphasized respectability and a devout loyalty to the British Empire as being important facets of Irishness. For society members, as well as for the Irish populations of both cities, it was this conception of Irish ethnicity that was most visible, both through charitable activities and, especially, the array of social opportunities organized by these associations. The key difference between them is that while in St John’s the BIS remained the pre-eminent Irish association, in Halifax the CIS existed alongside other groups such as the AOH. In Portland, the IARA and other Catholic benevolent societies, despite their wellattended social outings, did not give Irishness the same public face as did their British North American counterparts. Instead, it fell almost entirely to other groups such as the AOH to make the expression of Irish ethnicity a day-to-day reality.

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evolving irishness: the ancient order of hibernians and the expansion of catholic associational life A shared feature of the BIS, CIS, and IARA is that they were primarily local organizations. Other than formal greetings sent to Irish benevolent associations in other North American cities and, occasionally, direct engagement with the politics of the ancestral homeland, the ethnic networks created by these groups rarely extended beyond their respective communities. In the 1880s, the spatial contexts in which public Irish identities were created and expressed began to change. In addition to the loyal, respectable Irishness espoused by the well-established benevolent associations, new groups diffused into these cities, resulting in broader regional, national, and international constructions of ethnicity. In Halifax and Portland, but not St John’s, the most significant example of this extension of Irish ethnic networks was the establishment of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Not only did it change how many individuals of Irish descent engaged with the old country but it also brought them into close co-operation with contemporaries elsewhere in the diaspora. Thus, the growth of the AOH is one of the most significant external factors that affected Irish identities in these two cities. The AOH was formed in New York in 1836, initially as a North American offshoot of secret, agrarian Ribbonmen societies, which were active in nineteenth-century rural Ireland. The early order was mostly confined to New York City, but by the 1870s, it had expanded throughout the United States and into Canada.62 Membership was restricted to Catholic males of Irish birth or descent, although a Ladies’ Auxiliary was founded in 1894. In addition to mutual insurance benefits, the American AOH was part of a broad ethnic defensive strategy that attempted to improve the position of Irish-American Catholics in response to nativism.63 In the United States, the organization championed “the preservation of Irish culture,” specifically through the teaching of Irish language, literature, and history to younger generations of Irish Americans. Staunch support for Irish nationalism was another key feature of the organization during this period. National conventions constantly discussed events in the homeland, passed resolutions in support of Irish independence, and raised funds for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and Home Rule in the 1880s, 1890s, and 1900s.64 Membership was drawn primarily from

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the skilled and unskilled working classes, and reached over 195,000 in 1908 before declining, making the AOH the most significant Irish ethnic organization on the continent in the early twentieth century.65 Owing to its proximity to Boston and other Irish-American population centres where the order thrived, Portland was home to the AOH long before Halifax. Portland Division One was incorporated on 8 February 1876, with stonecutter Daniel M. Mannix as the founding president. At the inaugural meeting, members expressed their dual identities as Irish and American, resolving “to uphold loyalty to the U.S. government, care for sick and infirm members, and to carry on the traditions and history of the Gaelic Race.” A second division was established in November 1881, while third, fourth, and fifth divisions were later organized, as well as two companies of the Hibernian Knights – the AOH’s uniformed branch – and three branches of the Ladies’ Auxiliary.66 Little data on membership has survived. In 1905, of the fifteen individuals named on the executives of divisions One, Two, and Three, ten could be definitively identified in city directories and nominal census records. They included an assistant in the Department of Public Works, a teamster, a finisher, an insurance agent, a blacksmith, a bookbinder, a driver, a currier, a labourer, and a letter carrier. Although there was some occupational variety within the AOH executive, the order appears to have drawn members from the skilled and unskilled working classes, as was the tendency elsewhere in the United States. Eight of the ten were born in North America, with only Division One’s president, Patrick J. Feury, being Irish-born. Only three did not possess at least one Irish-born parent.67 The AOH in Portland grew steadily throughout much of this period. In 1888, the delegates to the state convention reported that there were 200 active members. By 1905, this tally had increased to 600, and the order continued to maintain a prominent presence in the city well into the twentieth century.68 A defining characteristic was that the order helped foster a sense of Irish community and identity across Maine and New England. The Portland branches of the AOH, which together formed the Cumberland County Council, met with other Maine Hibernians at biennial state conventions and also sent delegates to national conferences. Irish-Catholic networks extended beyond the local level and created regional ties, which expanded and strengthened the expression of ethnicity. Hibernian networks in Portland were also transnational. Reflecting the city’s identity as “Canada’s winter port,” and relying on the key

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commercial networks of the Grand Trunk Railway, excursions to Montreal took place on several occasions in this period. In 1896, a group of forty Hibernian Knights applied to the British ambassador in Washington for permission to take their side arms, consisting of swords, across the border to Canada to take part in Montreal’s St Patrick’s Day festivities.69 Five years later, in 1901, the same company of Knights again travelled to Montreal, this time in early July.70 The Portland divisions of the AOH offered their members a variety of social opportunities. Most social activity occurred at the divisional level, with each individual branch of the organization hosting its own dinners and dances. In addition to annual balls, they held picnics, usually at summer resorts like Sebago Lake, that included an athletics program of baseball, track events, and rowing.71 These activities also extended beyond the divisional level, bringing together Hibernians from across Portland and occasionally capturing the attention of the whole community, such as in 1881 when 5,000 were reported to have attended the AOH’s annual picnic at Sebago Lake.72 On or around 4 March of each year, the Hibernians would hold one of their grandest events, which was also a direct expression of their Irish heritage: the celebration of Robert Emmet’s birthday. The Emmet commemoration would generally consist of a lecture on Irish affairs followed by a ball or banquet, which was attended by Portland’s leading citizens, both Irish and non-Irish. Lecturers were not shy about publicly displaying the AOH’s support for Irish nationalism, with the 1912 speaker noting that “the principles that [Emmet] gave his life for one hundred years ago are still as dear to the hearts of present day Irishmen as they were then, and the fruits of their perseverance are unfolding every day with the ultimate hope of Irish independence.”73 Thanks to its expanding membership and ability to transcend local and regional boundaries, the Portland AOH was the city’s most significant Irish institution in the early twentieth century. A great deal of Hibernian activity was concerned with Irishness and Catholicism within the United States, but the Portland divisions were frequently involved in leading local engagement with Irish nationalism, which is analyzed in the chapters that follow. Even as Hibernian networks were expanding, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw further diversification of Irish and Catholic associational life in Portland. One important organization for many Portland Irishmen that did not have an equivalent in either St John’s or Halifax was an Irish-Catholic labour union, the PLSBS.

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Formed on 15 December 1880, the society was dominated by the Irish from the outset.74 It fought for higher wages for its members, and also defended longshore work as an Irish occupational niche when growing numbers of Italians and Poles sought work along Portland’s waterfront.75 As examined in chapters 3, 5, and 6, the PLSBS often served as a mechanism through which the city’s Irish-American workers engaged with the various nationalist movements that emerged in Portland. Moreover, the existence of an ethnic union shows how some Irish workers continued to use their ethnicity to fight for social and occupational security in the face of competition from entrenched Yankee Protestants and other ethnic groups. The Knights of Columbus also became a prominent organization for Portland Catholics in this period. Formed in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882, the Knights quickly grew to become the “largest body of Catholic laymen in the world.”76 Although its original founders were almost all Irish Americans, unlike the AOH, the Knights emphasized loyalty to the American republic instead of old world affiliations, looking “more to the potential of the United States than to the traditions of Europe.”77 The Portland Council No. 101 was organized in the summer of 1894. On 1 August, Thomas H. Cummings, the national organizer, visited Portland to encourage the city’s young Catholic men to establish a local branch. On 13 August, a delegation of 350 Boston Knights arrived to oversee the official establishment of the Portland Council, the first in Maine. Joseph A. McGowan, an Irish-born cashier, was installed as the first Grand Knight. Although McGowan was from Ireland, within ten years the American-born appear to have predominated. Of the 1905 executive, which was listed in a short history of the local council in the Portland Sunday Telegram, only one was born in Ireland. Eight had at least one Irish parent, while two were of French-Canadian extraction. Although the Knights were typically middle class, the 1905 executive reveals a variety of occupational backgrounds. The Grand Knight, William H. Gulliver, was a lawyer, but Deputy Grand Knight John F. Kane was listed as a plumber. The remainder of the executive consisted of three clerks, a treasurer, a physician, a druggist, a restaurant proprietor, a heading maker, and a stonemason.78 There are many parallels between the Irish associational opportunities in Halifax and Portland. The AOH was first established in Halifax in the early weeks of 1902. The association fit into an environment of rapidly expanding social and associational opportunities for

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Roman Catholics. Catholic associational life in Halifax tended to be more closely connected to individual parishes – St Mary’s, St Patrick’s, and St Joseph’s – than in either St John’s or Portland. Each parish possessed its own temperance society, athletics association, dramatic group, and various musical ensembles.79 In the early twentieth century, several Catholic organizations that transcended parish boundaries also came to prominence. One was the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association (CMBA), which was formed as a charitable auxiliary of the Church in Niagara Falls, New York, and quickly became Canada’s most popular Catholic mutual-aid society.80 However, in Halifax, even more prominent than the CMBA were the Knights of Columbus. In Canada, as in the United States, the Knights espoused a North American–oriented identity, actively downplaying old-world, ethnic affiliations; fostering unity among Catholics of all backgrounds; and promoting pan-Catholic prosperity and respectability on the western side of the Atlantic. It spread from New England into the Maritimes in the opening years of the twentieth century, but it was not until 1906 that a branch was established in Halifax. On 26 March, a large delegation of Knights from Antigonish, Sydney, Charlottetown, Saint John, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Boston arrived in the city to oversee the founding of Halifax Council No. 1097. The installation ceremony was presided over by W.J. Mahoney, a well-known New Brunswick attorney. Many of the visiting delegates were “doctors, lawyers and businessmen well known in this city,” and the initial eleven-man Halifax executive supports the impression of the Knights being an elite- or middle-class Catholic organization. Four were lawyers, four were merchants or ran their own companies, and one was a doctor. While this elite representation does not necessarily translate to the Knight’s broader membership, it is safe to assume that in Halifax it was, at the very least, a middle-class association of Catholics.81 The organization seems to have grown quite quickly. It remained connected to others in the region, being part of the Maritime state council, and also transcended national boundaries: “many” Halifax Knights attended a national convention at New Haven in June 1906.82 The AOH in Halifax added to this diverse array of Catholic associations in the opening decade of the century, but unlike the Knights or the CMBA, it fostered a distinct sense of Irish identity amongst its members. Although it has been described as espousing an “aggressive, almost belligerent assertion of Irish interests,” early newspaper reports

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on its founding contained few references to its ethnic affiliation.83 The Acadian Recorder referred to the new order as “purely a benefit association.”84 Those behind the organization in Halifax expected the city’s young Catholic men to flock to the organization because of its generous sick benefits rather than its Irish connections. They argued that most mutual-aid organizations in Halifax were either insurance orders or preached total abstinence. The AOH was neither, and this made it unique for young Catholic Haligonians. The organization also had a close connection to the Church, and a chaplain was to be appointed directly by the archbishop in order to provide spiritual supervision.85 The organizational impetus for establishing the AOH seems to have come from New Brunswick – a clear example of how Irish ethnic networks diffused from place to place. On 15 January 1902, a delegation of New Brunswick Hibernians, led by provincial president J.C. Ferguson, formally installed Halifax Division No. 1. There were twenty-six charter members, but by the time the order was officially established, an additional seventy had applied.86 Although no full list of members has survived, an examination of Division No. 1’s original executive, coupled with data from McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory for 1902 provides some conclusions about members’ occupational status (see table 2.3). While in many American cities, the AOH was an amalgam of semi- and unskilled labourers, those behind the organization in Halifax came from a variety of class backgrounds. The founding president, P.J. McManus, owned his own boot and shoe business, while vice-president F.W. Smith was a press reporter. Two on the founding executive were clerks, while treasurer J.J. O’Donnell was a letter carrier and outside sentinel George Saxton was a painter. The composition of the executive, however, does not necessarily reflect the occupational profile of the entire membership, as those with the most education were the most likely to be elected to executive positions. The key attraction of sick benefits would have appealed to skilled tradesmen and members of the working classes. Unlike American divisions where AOH members tended to be Irish-born, the order in Halifax was predominantly comprised of native-born Catholics of Irish descent. It is noteworthy that there was no overlap with the 1902 executive of the CIS, listed in table 2.2, suggesting that the two organizations drew their memberships from different socio-economic segments of Halifax’s Irish-Catholic community.

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Table 2.3 Occupational profile of the 1902 [Halifax] Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division No. 1 executive Name

Position on executive

Occupation

P.J. McManus F.W. Smith James E. Power James J. O’Donnell Thomas Haley Thomas Dee George Saxton

President Vice-president Financial Secretary Treasurer Sergeant at Arms Inside Sentinel Outside Sentinel

Boot and shoe manufacturer Reporter Clerk Letter carrier Clerk (no data) Painter

Sources: Acadian Recorder, 9 January 1902; McApline’s Halifax City Directory, 1902–1903.

As predicted by its founders, the AOH grew quickly. The New Brunswick provincial council was expanded to include Nova Scotia, and one of the Halifax division’s first big days came in 1906 when that year’s provincial convention was held in the city. At this meeting, members praised the “exceptional” growth of the local branch. Following a High Mass at St Patrick’s Church, the delegates paraded through the city’s principal streets attracting a large crowd of spectators, mostly “those of Irish origin.” On this occasion, references to the AOH’s Irish identification were frequent. A large banner honouring Daniel O’Connell was featured in the parade, and in his speech, Father Charles E. McManus, rector of St Mary’s Collegiate School and chaplain of the Halifax division, praised the organization’s Irish loyalty. McManus specifically highlighted the multi-generational nature of the Halifax Irish, stating that “as sons and daughters of Irish parents, all looked with glowing pride upon the history of Ireland – land of saints, warriors, statesmen and scholars.” Archbishop Edward McCarthy gave a comparable address, while James J. O’Brien gave a speech on behalf of the CIS, and local politician John Call O’Mullin congratulated the AOH on behalf of both the CMBA and the Knights of Columbus. The delegates elected Halifax’s P.J. McManus as their provincial president, and the order’s keen interest in education was shown by the establishment of a $3,000 scholarship fund, to be awarded to students of Irish descent. The convention also passed resolutions both mourning the death of Michael Davitt and formally voicing their opposition

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to the way members of the “Irish race” were sometimes caricatured in the press – a common complaint from Hibernian branches throughout North America around this time.87 The 1906 convention brought important publicity to the AOH in Halifax, and by the spring of 1909, there were approximately 225 members in the city. In early March, about 40 of them signed a petition requesting the establishment of a west-end division. On 25 March, 75 men were inaugurated as charter members of AOH, Halifax Division No. 2. The first president was John W. Churchill, a builder, and the new branch moved into rooms on Quinpool Road.88 Hibernian growth continued, and one year later, in May 1910, a third division was established with a charter membership of 60 men. This branch was centred in St Patrick’s parish and, by June, had moved into rooms on Creighton Street.89 Later in 1910, the three Halifax divisions had a combined membership of over 500.90 The three divisions, in addition to one later formed in Dartmouth, had common representation on the Halifax County AOH Council. They also had representatives on the Maritime Provincial Council, which included New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and eventually Prince Edward Island. Throughout the period, Halifax Hibernians sent delegates to provincial conventions. Canadian national conventions also took place, such as in 1907 when representatives from Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes met in Quebec City. AOH networks also transcended national boundaries as delegates were dispatched to national meetings in the United States.91 Through transnational ethnic associations like the AOH, Catholics of Irish descent belonged to inherently local organizations but were also exposed to and influenced by networks that spanned the diaspora. In addition to sick benefits, prospective members were attracted by the variety of social pastimes and leisure opportunities offered by the AOH. Its first official dinner was held on St Patrick’s Day 1902. By that fall, the order had organized its own athletics meeting, which featured sprints and distance running, weightlifting, a tugof-war competition, and boxing. Sports and athletics remained a feature of Hibernian activity, and an “All-Irish” Halifax baseball team was selected to compete against a Saint John, New Brunswick, team at the 1908 convention in that city. There is no record of Gaelic games ever being played.92 As in Portland, Hibernian group excursions were another prominent social feature of the organization. The first of these was in 1904

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and reflected the close connection between the Maritimes and New England: a large contingent of Hibernians from Halifax and Saint John travelled to Boston.93 Fairs were held to raise funds for the Hibernians’ library and reading rooms, while musical nights were also staged.94 The AOH organized numerous lectures during this period. Occasionally, such as in the winter of 1904, these would take the form of a series spread over the course of a season, frequently addressing Irish topics. As part of the 1904 series, James J. O’Brien gave a talk on his experiences at the 1896 Irish Race Convention in Dublin. He closed by re-emphasizing the esteem felt by members of the Halifax AOH for their ancestral homeland, as well as their hope that Home Rule would eventually become a reality.95 Halifax Hibernians continually re-affirmed their devotion to Ireland but never lost sight of their identity as Canadians or as subjects of the British Empire. At the first AOH St Patrick’s Day dinner, the opening toast proposed by president McManus was to the health of the King. Only after this were toasts made to Ireland, St Patrick, and Home Rule.96 Although the Halifax divisions of the AOH were strictly for men, women eventually became an important part of the broader organization. Within two years of the order’s establishment in the city, plans were underway for the formation of a Ladies’ Auxiliary branch. By 17 October 1904, an executive had been elected, and on the 21st, the auxiliary was officially installed.97 As with the men’s branch two years previously, Hibernian women from New Brunswick travelled to Halifax to give speeches at the ceremony. The branch appears to have had a great deal of institutional freedom. They held their own meetings, elected their own executives, and organized their own provincial conventions – though these were usually in conjunction with the men. Incorporating both men and women into its networks, the AOH grew steadily in early twentieth-century Halifax and, by 1910, rivalled the CIS as the city’s foremost custodian of Irish identity. There was a substantial flow of people from Newfoundland to the Maritimes and New England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but North American Irish institutions like the AOH did not cross the Cabot Strait. For Catholics of Irish descent in St John’s, the BIS was just one component of a vibrant associational life. Most of these groups did not overtly express a sense of ethnic identification. Instead, they brought together different Catholic occupational groups in the name of charity, sociability, temperance, spirituality, or mutual benefit. Although they were rarely involved in the public expression

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of Irish identities, groups such as the St John’s Mechanics’ Society, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, the Total Abstinence and Benefit Society (TABS), St Joseph’s Catholic Institute, the Newfoundland Fishermen’s Star of the Sea Association (SOS), and the Knights of Columbus were important features in the day-to-day lives of Catholics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Mechanics’ Society and the SOS were the city’s most prominent working-class Catholic organizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their success likely accounts for the lack of an associational niche for the Hibernians to fill. Composed primarily of skilled tradesmen, the Mechanics’ Society was formed in 1827 and functioned as a mutual-benefit association. In the 1880s, in the face of Catholic emigration from Newfoundland to the Canadian Maritimes and the United States, the society’s membership declined, but it existed at least until 1915, when it participated in the consecration of Archbishop Edward Roche.98 In the mid-nineteenth century, the Mechanics’ Society was closely involved with Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal movement in St John’s, and the Irish birth or ancestry of many of its members was an important part of their mutual identification.99 By 1900, however, there does not appear to have been any involvement in Irish affairs or public expressions of ethnic identity by this group. The SOS was formed by the Church in 1871 as a benefit organization for Catholic fishermen. It was strictly a denominational association: only Catholic fishermen could become members. Emphasis was placed on respectability and temperance, with members required to be “sober, moral and industrious.”100 Its premises, the Star of the Sea Hall on Henry Street, were built on the site of Bishop O’Donel’s Old Chapel. More than any other non-ethnic Catholic group in St John’s, the SOS did occasionally engage in Irish affairs during the period. The most prominent example was in 1881, when the association held its own subscription for the relief of the Irish poor, which included a concert as well as individual voluntary subscriptions, and raised over £120. The SOS also organized lectures on Irish politics in the 1880s.101 Despite such occasional engagement with the ancestral homeland, the SOS and the Mechanics’ Society were not ethnic organizations. Their shared occupational status and their Roman Catholic religion remained the most salient feature of members’ publicly expressed identities.

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Another prominent Catholic association in St John’s was the TABS. In 1906, a history of the society published in a local paper noted that it included over 500 members, with an additional 300 in its juvenile branch. This almost certainly made it the largest Catholic group in early twentieth-century St John’s.102 It was formed in 1858 as a lay successor to the Church-run Temperance Society, which had been prominent in the 1840s. Membership came largely from the working classes, and its objectives were to encourage sobriety and temperance among the Catholics of St John’s.103 Like the SOS, the TABS also functioned as a benefit society and established a reading room, literary club, athletics clubs, two bands, and a dramatic society as well its own theatre, “equal to any in the province.”104 While the society was certainly a prominent feature in the lives of many St John’s Catholics, the Irish ancestry of the majority of its members seems to have been rarely, if ever, publicly expressed. The origins of the Knights of Columbus in Newfoundland can be traced to 1904, when a group of Catholic men – some of whom were already members of councils in Nova Scotia and New England – met at St Patrick’s Hall in St John’s to discuss the establishment of a local chapter. The Knights required the permission of Michael Francis Howley, the archbishop of St John’s, in order to found the organization in the city. Howley, concerned about the presence of what he considered a secret Catholic society, was initially hesitant to permit the formation of a council, so the Knights would be forced to wait several years before becoming officially incorporated in Newfoundland. This finally occurred, not in St John’s but in Harbour Grace, where Bishop John March was more supportive. In 1909, the Dalton Council of the Knights of Columbus was established in Harbour Grace. Almost immediately thereafter, Howley acquiesced, and on 30 November, the Terra Nova Council was formed in St John’s, with seventy-three men as charter members.105 Membership increased rapidly, but, as in Halifax, active engagement with Irishness was rare. After 1910, the Knights became St John’s foremost association for the Catholic men of the city, but it did not challenge the BIS as the primary public custodian of Irish ethnicity in St John’s. There are numerous parallels between how the AOH functioned in Halifax and Portland. Both drew large numbers of young Catholics, who were primarily attracted by the order’s array of social pastimes as

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well as its sick benefits. In both cities, though, the order continually engaged in Irish affairs and publicly expressed Irish identities. The AOH was one of the most important agents through which an understanding and appreciation of Irishness was conceived, articulated, and passed from one generation to the next. The question remains, though: why did the order flourish in Halifax and Portland, yet establish no presence at all in St John’s? At least part of the answer is that other associations filled many of the roles that had allowed the AOH to achieve success in the two southern ports. The BIS controlled the most important public expressions of Irish ethnicity, while sick benefits and social opportunities for young Catholic men were offered by working-class institutions such as the SOS or the TABS. An equally plausible reason lies in how the Irish-Catholic communities in each port were connected to regional, national, and transnational Irish networks. Portland’s proximity to Boston and other Irish-American centres meant that ideas and organizational frameworks flowed easily into southern Maine, accounting for the relatively early establishment of the AOH in Portland. Similarly in Halifax, momentum flowed into the city from elsewhere in the Maritimes, particularly New Brunswick, and from central Canada and New England, and the AOH fostered links between Halifax’s Irish Catholics and other communities in these regions. Though by no means completely isolated, at the turn of the twentieth century, St John’s was less connected to these regional Irish spheres, making the establishment of a group like the AOH far less likely.

ritual irishness: the celebration of st patrick’s day The manner in which Irish-Catholic communities celebrated St Patrick’s Day has been a prominent theme in the historiography of the diaspora. Parades, banquets, masses, lectures, and other events on or around 17 March served as sites of identity formation, where “group memory is reflected, ritually enacted and reaffirmed, and often redefined.”106 Furthermore, the celebrations tended to involve a far higher proportion of the Catholic population than did the ethnic and benevolent associations discussed above. By investigating the manner in which the feast was marked, we obtain a clearer picture of how Catholics of Irish descent communally understood and constructed their ethnicity. Some events, such as Masses on St Patrick’s

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morning, reinforced the links between ethnicity and religion. Parades, meanwhile, could represent a significant expression of group strength and solidarity, particularly in communities where there was an intense competition for economic and political resources. Lectures and sermons reinforced Irish nationalism amongst diasporic populations, while banquets conveyed images of respectability to other ethnoreligious groups.107 An examination of St Patrick’s Day in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland demonstrates how their respective Irish-Catholic communities came together in large public celebrations. In all three ports, the close, reciprocal relationship between their Irish ethnicity and Roman Catholic religion was the most prominent theme. From the 1880s to the early 1900s, St Patrick’s Day was the foremost occasion on which those of Irish descent in St John’s acknowledged their ancestry. The feast was a public holiday. Shops were closed and newspapers did not publish, allowing for a large public participation in the festivities. Some aspects of the celebration, such as the BIS’s annual parade, remained relatively constant, but in general, the period was marked by an increasing variety of social and cultural events.108 The BIS was the most prominent organization involved in the celebration of St Patrick’s Day. It began marking the occasion in the early nineteenth century through Masses and dinners, and staged an annual parade beginning in 1851, largely motivated by similar marches that were becoming popular elsewhere in the diaspora.109 The parade travelled along the city’s principal streets and included visits to the Roman Catholic bishop as well as the governor of Newfoundland. Despite the theoretically non-denominational status of the BIS, an overwhelmingly Catholic membership by the 1880s meant the celebration emphasized an unambiguously Catholic conception of Irish ethnicity. Mass was held at the Catholic cathedral until 1881, when it moved to St Patrick’s Church in the west end, before reverting to its original location in 1899.110 The parade was an opportunity for the BIS to demonstrate its numerical strength, its Irish identity, its devotion to St Patrick, and, through the visit to the governor, its loyalty to Newfoundland and the British Empire. A fairly typical example occurred in 1893. The society met at St Bonaventure’s College since St Patrick’s Hall was still being rebuilt in the wake of the Great Fire of 1892. The assembly then marched west along the city’s main streets to St Patrick’s for High

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Mass, which included a lengthy sermon on the life and work of Ireland’s patron saint. Following the service, the members proceeded east along Water and Duckworth streets to Government House, where president John T. O’Mara gave a speech praising the governor and emphasizing the members’ loyalty to the monarchy. “God Save the Queen” was played before the society marched up Military Road to the Episcopal Palace, where Bishop Thomas Joseph Power delivered an address on Irish Home Rule.111 This pattern was essentially repeated year after year by the BIS, though on occasions when the feast fell on a Sunday, the parade tended to be staged on the preceding Saturday.112 Group dinners were held sporadically in the 1880s, but were gradually abandoned.113 This was in part owing to apathy among the participants and falling membership in the mid-1880s, as well as general economic conditions. In 1887, a debate took place in the local press as to the propriety of holding a dinner that year, given the colony’s economic distress. One correspondent called it a needless expense in the midst of an economic depression. Responses defended the dinner, with one arguing that it represented an important expression of “love for the old land,” which recently had been “less abounding … than it ought to be.”114 A letter to the Evening Telegram did not mention the dinner specifically but praised the parade, calling upon Irishmen and their descendants to rally “around their banner of green” in celebration of the feast.115 Despite such defences of traditional practice, the annual dinners had ceased by the 1890s. By the late nineteenth and into the twentieth century, an increasing variety of events were organized in the city to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. In 1896, for example, the TABS organized a “Shamrock Dance” for its members. In 1899, the same year that the High Mass returned to the Cathedral, the BIS Dramatic Society performed The Irish Heiress, while the Old Favourite Troupe put on Kerry Gow. Irish plays became a common occurrence on St Patrick’s Night. In 1901, the pupils and expupils of the Irish Christian Brothers organized an “Irish Night” consisting of Irish music, recitations, and the performance of a “patriotic drama,” Pike O’Callaghan, about the final days of the 1798 Rebellion.116 Another event was added to the 1908 celebration in St John’s. An Irish Night organized by the Ladies’ Association of St Bonaventure’s College featured music and readings, and remained an annual feature throughout the remainder of the period. Plays, musical nights, and lectures on Irish subjects became increasingly frequent as the twentieth

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century progressed, giving the men and women of St John’s a variety of opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate their Irishness. In Halifax, the feast of St Patrick was marked with vigour comparable to St John’s. In the 1880s, the CIS organized Halifax’s most prominent events, and their celebration was almost identical to that of the BIS in St John’s: a parade followed by High Mass in the morning, with an annual societal dinner at night. As they marched through the city’s principal streets towards St Mary’s Cathedral, the members of the CIS carried banners sporting a variety of Irish symbols. The lead banner displayed the slogan “Erin Go Braugh” followed by banners with “Erin and Acadia,” dedications to Daniel O’Connell, and images of the Irish harp. At the head of the parade was the “Brian Boru sword” – an acknowledgement of the society’s romantic affinity for the heroic Irish figure. The processions could also be part of a group response to events in Ireland. In 1889, president James J. O’Brien sent a circular to CIS members requesting that they make a special effort to turn out for that year’s annual St Patrick’s Day parade since, given relations between the British government and Ireland, it would represent an important show of force and solidarity.117 The CIS’s annual dinner, usually held at the Halifax Hotel, was a grand affair, bringing together many of the town’s leading citizens and continuing late into the night.118 The other key feature of St Patrick’s Day celebrations in late nineteenth-century Halifax was the torchlight procession. On St Patrick’s eve, members of the city’s so-called “Young Irish Societies” paraded from the foot of Salter Street through the downtown. The groups involved included the Hibernian Emerald, the Knights of St Patrick, the Shamrock, the North Star, the Young Hibernians, the Sons of Erin, the Blue Star, the Flag of Erin, the Knights of O’Connell, and the South Star. Little is known about their membership, and no reference was ever made to their activities beyond the annual procession. It is possible that they only assembled once a year.119 By 1887, the torchlight procession appears to have been a popular event. The Halifax Herald noted that the streets were lined with spectators. Marchers stopped at the mayor’s residence, where cheers for the Queen and St Patrick were given.120 By the end of the decade, however, the event became embroiled in controversy as the Catholic clergy expressed their opposition. The archbishop objected to “the late hour at which the marches take place, as well as the fact that large numbers of young people of both sexes tramp the streets up to the

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early hours of the morning.” The impact of this clerical opposition appears to have been substantial. In 1888, only small numbers turned out to march, though in 1890 over 1,000 took part. This revival was temporary, and in 1892, the young Irishmen marched with the CIS on St Patrick’s morning. By the mid-1890s, references to their existence had ceased in local papers.121 Through the 1890s, St Patrick’s Day celebrations began to change. As in St John’s, a greater variety of cultural events marked the occasion. The St Patrick’s Minstrels staged musical evenings, while Irish plays were also performed, such as True to Ould Ireland in 1892.122 By 1898, temperance associations from St Mary’s and St Patrick’s parishes joined the CIS’s annual procession, but in 1899 no procession took place. The 1900 march was organized not by the CIS but by the Leinster Regiment, which was stationed in the city’s garrison during the South African War. CIS celebrations appear to have declined dramatically in the early twentieth century. No parade was held for several years, and although the dinner remained an annual event, only eighty members attended in 1901.123 The most significant change in how St Patrick’s Day was celebrated in Halifax was the AOH’s ascension as the city’s most prominent public celebrant of the feast. Organized in 1902, the Hibernians initially lacked the numerical strength to stage a large procession. For the first five years of the AOH’s existence, members celebrated with a societal dinner. In 1907, the order decided to revive the city’s annual parade, though that year’s event was small and received little attention. The second annual AOH procession in 1908 was more substantial. Like the CIS in previous years, the Hibernians assembled at their rooms, on Hollis Street, and marched to St Patrick’s Church, where Archbishop McCarthy said Mass. Members wore silk hats, along with white gloves and green ties. The old CIS banners, as well as the Brian Boru sword, were incorporated into the procession, solidifying the Hibernians’ status as the chief public proponent of Irish ethnicity in early twentiethcentury Halifax.124 Of the three ports investigated here, Portland exhibited the greatest continuity in terms of how St Patrick’s Day was observed. The events of the 1920s were virtually identical to those of the 1880s. The city also presents a puzzle. Despite its relatively small but enthusiastic IrishCatholic community, as well as the presence of assertive ethnic organizations such as the AOH, at no point during the period was there a regular St Patrick’s Day procession in the city.125

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Figure 2.2 1919 AOH parade, Halifax. Members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians march down Granville Street, Halifax, on St Patrick’s Day 1919. Source: “Ancient Order of Hibernians Parade,” Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives, 1986-512, Negative no. N-3915.

The feast day generally began with morning Masses at both the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and St Dominic’s Church. Sermons would involve a retelling of the life and work of St Patrick and frequently emphasized the crucial role of the Irish clergy in spreading and maintaining the Catholic faith across the globe.126 In the evening, the children of the city’s Catholic schools performed Irish music in a concert at city hall, which usually closed with a lecture on an Irish subject. The musical repertoire tended to include a variety of ballads, such as “Hymn to St Patrick,” “Come Back to Erin,” and “Wearing of the Green.”127 This pattern was repeated year after year, although when 17 March fell during Holy Week, the children’s Irish concert would be set aside in favour of a Passion Play.128

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In contrast to St John’s and Halifax, parades were not a feature of the Portland celebration, but some of the city’s Irish participated in parades in nearby towns. In 1893, a delegation of Portland Hibernians marched in the Lewiston parade, while in 1905, members took part in Biddeford’s procession.129 Given that towns throughout New England, and even elsewhere in southern Maine, staged annual St Patrick’s Day processions, it is strange that the tradition never took hold in Portland. Although the city had been described as a “Yankee stronghold,” it was no different in this respect from most other cities and towns in the region. Furthermore, a public procession on St Patrick’s Day could serve as a powerful statement of group solidarity in the face of IrishCatholic competition with Yankee neighbours. The lack of a parade was likely due to a combination of factors, such as the absence of a mid-nineteenth century marching tradition in Portland, a lack of impetus on the part of organizations such as the AOH to start a parade, and perhaps the influence of the clergy, who wished to emphasize the sanctity of the day. Although they did occasionally take on the symbolism of supporting Irish nationalism, the parades in St John’s and Halifax had little to do with demonstrating Irish-Catholic strength to a hostile AngloProtestant population. Instead, the processions in these cities were a symbolic celebration of Irishness and Catholicism, with the longlasting tradition of marching remaining an important motivation. The most significant common feature between St Patrick’s Day celebrations in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland was the prominent role of the Catholic Church. Rather than an assertive display of ethnic solidarity, the feast tended to be a celebration of the relationship between Irishness and Catholicism. The clergy had a great deal of influence over how the events were organized, as can be seen in the abandonment of Halifax’s torchlight procession and the replacement of the children’s Irish concert during Holy Week in Portland. The panegyric on St Patrick was an annual feature in all three cities and frequently focused on St Patrick’s role in establishing Catholicism in Ireland, and the role of Irish men and women in propagating the faith overseas. Although support for Irish nationalism was another prominent theme, as was loyalty to the British Empire in St John’s and Halifax, St Patrick’s Day in the three ports most clearly reflected a “deeply Catholic interpretation of Irish history and communal identity.”130 The continuation and, in some cases, expansion of St Patrick’s Day celebrations reveals a strong connection to the

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ancestral homeland, and also how deeply interwoven Irish and Catholic identities could be.

conclusion Ethnic identities were profoundly personal and varied widely from one individual to another, as well as over time and from place to place. Investigating Irish associational life allows us to see how such private identities became public. Groups like the BIS in St John’s or the AOH in Halifax and Portland provided those of Irish birth or descent with the frameworks through which public expressions of ethnicity were organized and articulated. Several key characteristics of Irish-Catholic identity in the three centres become obvious when comparing their ethnic and benevolent associations. In St John’s, the BIS and its middle-class membership emphasized a devout loyalty to Britain and the Empire alongside a strong romantic attachment to Ireland and a desire for Irish Home Rule. The working-class Irish Catholics of the city tended to join non-ethnic associations, such as the SOS or the TABS. Through these societies, it was the Catholic religion that formed the basis of their group identity, despite occasional acknowledgments of their Irish heritage. Therefore, the public expression of Irish ethnicity in St John’s remained a largely middle-class, masculine phenomenon into the early twentieth century. Furthermore, associational Irish networks did not extend beyond the local level. Instead, such “diasporic” connections in St John’s emerged through responses to Irish nationalism, as well as the institutions of the Catholic Church. These are examined in the coming chapters. In contrast, the AOH in Halifax and Portland demonstrates how these communities did not exist in isolation. Through their regional and national conventions, and through social events that brought together members from different cities, regions, and countries, the Hibernians linked their local experiences to broader diasporic networks and facilitated the flow of information in and out of each centre. Finally, St Patrick’s Day celebrations elicited public engagement with Irish ethnicity on a much broader scale than did ethnic or benevolent associations. The manner in which St Patrick’s Day was celebrated in the three ports reveals a close link between Irish and Catholic identities. For many, an identification as Roman Catholic would have been a stronger affiliation, expressed far more frequently and publicly than their ethnicity – but on 17 March, the connection

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between the two was emphasized. While the associations examined here formed the basis for day-to-day public engagement with Irish affairs throughout this period, equally important in fostering late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish identities were the short-term organizations established to oversee direct participation in the politics of Ireland. It is these that we turn to next.

3 Charitable Relief, the Land League, and Home Rule Nationalism, 1880–1891

No feature of the diasporic experience has attracted as much scholarly attention as responses to Irish nationalism. Engagement with the politics of the ancestral homeland was the most direct, unambiguous manner in which those of Irish birth and descent expressed their ethnicity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Irish abroad contributed substantial sums of money to movements in Ireland, joined nationalist organizations, and commented extensively and enthusiastically on affairs in the old country. By studying how the Irish of St John’s, Halifax, and Portland engaged with nationalism, it is possible to obtain a clearer impression of the strength, depth, and variety of their ethnic identities. This chapter examines engagement with Irish nationalism from the beginning of our period in 1880 to the death of Charles Stewart Parnell in late 1891. The focus here is on how organizations such as the Land League and its successor, the INL, were established in each locality, and how they linked the Irish communities to movements that spanned the diaspora. Within all three cities, responses to Irish nationalism were inconsistent. Dramatic events in Ireland or visits by prominent nationalist speakers could briefly inflame passions and provoke widespread responses, but these tended to fade quickly. The number of generations removed from Ireland does not seem to have significantly affected responses to nationalism: the third-, fourth-, and fifth-generation Irish of St John’s and Halifax could participate in the affairs of their ancestral homeland just as passionately as the first- and second-generation Irish of Portland. Far more important were the institutional and organizational frameworks within each city that allowed for local populations to participate in nationalist

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movements. Of the three cities examined here, St John’s was most isolated from North American Irish networks in the late nineteenth century. There, local ethnic associations such as the BIS, as well as the Roman Catholic clergy, led public engagement with Irish nationalism. However, associations like the Land League and the INL thrived in Halifax and Portland and assumed a key role in determining the extent to which those of Irish birth and descent participated in the politics of the old country.

the irish relief fund, 1880 In the late 1870s, Ireland was in the midst of an agricultural crisis. Grain and livestock prices were dropping, and the total value of agricultural output in 1879 was less than two-thirds what it had been in 1876. A series of cold, wet summers resulted in poor harvests, exacerbating the situation. With the memory of the Great Hunger of the 1840s still fresh in the minds of many in Ireland, a fear of famine was genuine and widespread. In response, several charitable relief efforts were established in late 1879 and early 1880 to alleviate rural distress. One was championed by nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell in the midst of his 1880 American tour, while another was organized by the Duchess of Marlborough and raised £135,000.1 The most significant relief fund, though, was established in January 1880 by Edmund Dwyer Grey, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the Dublin Mansion House Committee.2 Those of Irish birth and descent in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland all responded to the call, and the 1880 relief fund was the first large-scale public engagement with Ireland during this period. In St John’s, and to a lesser extent in Halifax and Portland, the well-established connections between the local Catholic clergy and Ireland were essential in leading the charitable effort. In Portland, although the relief effort extended beyond the Irish community, the fundraising rhetoric took on the language of Land League nationalism, immediately differentiating responses there from the British North American centres. In St John’s, the movement to relieve Irish suffering began in late January 1880. Several local newspapers reprinted the appeal “to the people of Newfoundland” from the Dublin Mansion House Committee for the Relief of the Distress in Ireland. The telegraphed call for aid was sent throughout the diaspora and appealed to “Irishmen and friends of Irishmen” to help alleviate the famine conditions that

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abounded throughout Ireland.3 There was no immediate response in St John’s: a relief committee was not formally established until a month later, largely owing to a lack of leadership.4 Before this, though, there were some informal attempts to raise funds. An evening of songs, recitations, and dialogues was held on 6 February, while on 9 February, a performance of H.M.S. Pinafore was staged before a large audience, with the proceeds donated to Irish relief.5 On 21 February, a public meeting took place at the courthouse to officially organize an Irish relief drive. Many of Newfoundland’s most prominent politicians attended. Governor John Hawley Glover chaired the meeting, and a relief committee, consisting of both Catholics and Protestants, was established. By that evening, the drive had raised £386.6 The meeting demonstrates co-operation between those of Irish descent and their Anglo-Protestant neighbours in the name of charity, but the most important figure in organizing the movement was Bishop Thomas Joseph Power. Born in Rosbercon, near New Ross in County Wexford, Power was appointed in 1870 following the death of John Thomas Mullock. He was the last in an unbroken chain of Irish-born bishops, though he was the first non-Franciscan to lead the St John’s Church. Power’s tenure is generally regarded as a quiet period in Newfoundland’s Catholic history. He shied away from domestic politics to a greater extent than his predecessors, Michael Anthony Fleming and Mullock, and biographer Hans Rollman has described his character as “irenic.”7 His most significant legacy, essential to the retention of Irishness within St John’s Catholicism, was his successful effort to bring the Irish Christian Brothers to the city, which is examined in chapter 4. Power’s leadership in many ways typified the transatlantic nature of the Newfoundland Church in the late nineteenth century. He maintained close institutional ties to Ireland, while concurrently embracing a sense of Newfoundland patriotism. He was a member of the Dublin Mansion House Committee, and it was he who wrote to the Lord Mayor of Dublin informing him that a local relief committee had been established.8 Meanwhile, the city’s Catholic associations also participated in the movement: the SOS organized its own collection for Irish relief, the TABS held entertainments, and the BIS pledged over £300.9 The 1880 relief fund was not an outward expression of Irish nationalism, and it was not an expressly ethnic movement. Both Irish and non-Irish were involved, and although the language used to justify the

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efforts occasionally referred to the role of Anglo-Irish landlords, most support was rooted in the idea of “Christian charity.”10 Nevertheless, the drive provoked significant opposition within the community, and the debates surrounding the propriety of sending monetary aid to Ireland provide some insight into intergenerational Irish identities in St John’s, particularly how they overlapped with a sense of Newfoundland patriotism. Opposition to the relief drive emerged shortly after the call for aid reached St John’s. A letter in the Morning Herald signed “Another Irishman’s Son” argued that “charity begins at home” and that it was wrong to send financial aid overseas when so many Newfoundlanders were suffering as a result of a poor fishery. A response in the Evening Telegram, signed “A Celt,” conceded that although local populations were in difficulty, the distress in Ireland far outweighed that at home, and those who opposed the fund were motivated by a misguided sense of Newfoundland patriotism.11 The brief exchange demonstrates how, even for those of Irish descent, engagement with the affairs of the old country could be a contentious matter when it clashed with domestic concerns – a theme that was echoed repeatedly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In response to the criticism, a member of the Irish Relief Committee sent a letter to the president of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Joseph Little, pledging £25 to purchase coal for impoverished St John’s families, and several similar contributions followed.12 Nevertheless, the controversy over the Irish relief fund continued to grow. On 18 March, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, a Protestant, conservative press organ, published a piece condemning “local Irish beggary” and unequivocally stated that any further appeals for aid to Ireland should be answered solely by “local Irish wealth.”13 Responses to this editorial in other newspapers vociferously defended the fund as well as efforts to relieve the local poor, of Irish descent or otherwise.14 Many of the correspondents signed their letters with “Irishman’s Son” or “A Newfoundlander of Irish descent,” thereby demonstrating a lineal ethnic awareness. It is important, though, that not all Irish Catholics in St John’s supported the relief fund. Local suffering and poverty were more pressing concerns for most, and those who did contribute may have been motivated as much by charity or philanthropy as by any sense of Irish identity. The question is not whether local patriotism outweighed or surpassed a sense of Irish identity – undoubtedly, for most it did – but rather how ethnicity existed alongside such loyalties.

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At the close of the fundraising campaign, Bishop Power resumed his role as the movement’s central figure. He, rather than the committee, personally remitted the funds to Ireland, and it was he who received a letter of thanks from the Lord Mayor of Dublin in midApril for the efforts of the Newfoundland population.15 Despite the controversial nature of the fundraising endeavours, they were successful. A letter to the Telegram reflecting on the campaign noted that it had raised over £2,000.16 Halifax’s response to the Dublin Mansion House Committee call for aid was quite similar to that of St John’s, although the movement did not spur the same level of debate due to Nova Scotia’s more secure economic position. The initial meeting was called by the mayor of Halifax, Stephen Tobin, himself of Irish-Catholic descent, and was held at the Temperance Hall on 12 January 1880. The meeting involved members of the community from “all sects, nationalities and creeds.” Speeches were made by the mayor; Reverend Chancellor Hill, a member of the Church of England clergy of Anglo-Irish descent; and Malachy Bowes Daly, an IrishCatholic Member of Parliament for Halifax. Any political connection to Irish nationalism was explicitly rejected, and the fundraising effort was characterized as purely philanthropic. Daly referred directly to Land League agitation in Ireland, stating “with that … this meeting has nothing whatsoever to do.” He went on to say that regardless of one’s own opinions on the land question in Ireland, “sympathy cannot be refused to the present movement.” Hill, meanwhile, focused on the Irish as fellow citizens of the Empire, noting that they were brothers, “living under the same flag, and ruled by the same sovereign.” Clearly, a conscious effort was being made to distance the relief fund from any nationalist rhetoric in order to include all inhabitants of Halifax in the spirit of charitable relief.17 By the end of March, almost $1,200 had been collected.18 Most of this was from voluntary donations, but social and cultural events, such as a play about the life of Robert Emmet, also raised money.19 It is not clear whether this sum included a $500 pledge by the CIS, which was raised in keeping with the members’ desires “as Irishmen and sons of Irishmen to show sympathy by action as well as words.” As in St John’s, transatlantic clerical networks were significant: the sum appears to have been sent directly to John MacHale, archbishop of Tuam, rather than to the local relief committee.20 The language of the CIS resolution shows that an identification with the ancestral homeland was a key motivation for their generosity.

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In Portland, similar relief efforts were organized, though these do not appear to have been directly as a result of the Mansion House Committee’s appeal. Rather, momentum for raising funds was connected to Parnell’s ongoing tour of the United States. He had arrived in New York on 1 January 1880 to raise funds for the Land League and to publicize the plight of Ireland’s tenant farmers. Within days of his arrival, Parnell proposed a non-political fund to assist the poor and distressed, resulting in the Irish Relief Fund, established on 9 January.21 The first public discussion of Irish relief efforts in Portland was on 3 February 1880, when the IARA announced that it would pledge $500 to alleviate distress in Ireland.22 The following day, a letter appeared in the Eastern Argus calling on the citizens of Portland to attend a meeting at city hall to organize an official Irish relief drive.23 On the evening of 6 February, James Cunningham, a successful Leitrim-born contractor, called the meeting to order, and Mayor George Walker, a Yankee Protestant, was named chairman and made the opening speech. In stark contrast to Halifax, Walker placed the blame for the Irish crisis squarely on the “oppression of the landlords.” The official resolutions passed at the meeting noted that “the land laws are fatal to the prosperity of Ireland and to the interest of the Irish people. They breed famine, poverty and wretchedness [and] the permanent welfare of Ireland is imperilled as long as they exist.” At the close of the meeting, $1,700 was collected.24 Despite these overtly nationalist tones, fund updates in the Argus later pointed out that the effort was “not for any political purpose,” but rather for the poor and suffering of Ireland – fully in keeping with Parnell’s rhetoric in establishing the fund.25 As in St John’s and Halifax, both Irish and non-Irish contributed to the fund. The original call for a meeting was signed by sixty-four individuals, including some of the city’s most prominent YankeeProtestant citizens as well as non-Irish Catholics such as German tailor William H. Kohing and French consul for Maine Edward P. LeProhon.26 The transatlantic networks of Catholicism were yet again significant, as the funds were sent to several bishops in Ireland for distribution throughout their dioceses, with further remittances being directed to the Irish “relief committee.” The local effort raised almost $4,500, in addition to $800 collected at the city’s Catholic churches, and Father Michael Bradley of the Cathedral parish noted that he had received several letters of thanks from Catholic priests in Ireland.27

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The most significant conclusion to draw from this comparison concerns how relief efforts were rationalized differently in each of the three centres. In St John’s, although some nationalist rhetoric was present, most of the discussion characterized the movement as an exercise in Christian charity. Those who organized the Halifax fund explicitly rejected any political overtones, and residents were called upon to help their fellow imperial citizens, regardless of opinions on the controversial Irish land question. In Portland, however, organizers highlighted the link between landlord oppression, British misgovernment, and Irish suffering – likely a consequence of the city’s close connections to the evolving currents in Irish-American nationalism within the context of Parnell’s tour. This rhetoric was not confined solely to those of Irish birth or descent, as even the Yankee mayor of Portland condemned landlords in his speech. In all three centres, the transatlantic networks of the Catholic Church were key to the success of the fundraising drive and to ensuring that the money reached Ireland’s suffering tenant farmers. In the early 1880s, the clergy remained central figures in facilitating connections between those of Irish birth and descent in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland and their ancestral homeland.

the land league In 1880, Irish nationalism was dominated by the land question. The vast majority of late nineteenth-century Irish farmers did not own the land they cultivated. Instead, they rented it from the almost exclusively Protestant landed gentry, many of whom lived in Great Britain. In the late 1870s, a series of poor harvests coupled with dropping grain and livestock prices resulted in widespread agrarian economic distress, particularly in the western province of Connaught. Throughout 1878, a growing number of tenant farmers approached landlords for rent abatements and found many of them reluctant to grant relief.28 Political organization on the part of the farmers increased, and both revolutionary and constitutional nationalists saw the potential of a mass agrarian movement to alter the political relationship between Great Britain and Ireland. Many ex-Fenians and republicans, such as John Devoy and the Irish-American Clan na Gael, believed that the British government would be unwilling to grant land reform and that the resultant outrage could finally mobilize Ireland’s peasant masses into a widespread revolt, culminating in the establishment of an Irish

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Republic. Constitutional nationalists like Parnell saw the political benefits of a unified agricultural class and believed that if land reform could be obtained by parliamentary methods, so too could Home Rule.29 With comparable objectives, radical and constitutional nationalists co-operated in the “New Departure” of 1879, with a “vigorous agitation of the land question” highlighted as one of the central aspects of the agreement.30 The Irish National Land League emerged largely thanks to the organizational efforts of Michael Davitt – himself a radical nationalist – in County Mayo. It aimed to politically unite tenants of that county against the landlord classes. It was formed as the National Land League of Mayo in Castlebar on 16 August 1879, and by 21 October, Parnell had established the national Land League organization in Dublin to represent the various tenant associations being formed throughout Ireland.31 In a mass agrarian campaign, rents were withheld, evictions were resisted, landlords were socially ostracized, and, in some cases, those who supported the landed interests were attacked or killed.32 The Land League was an overtly transnational organization. Both Parnell and Davitt toured the United States in 1880 to gain popular and financial support, and in New York on 4 March 1880, Parnell oversaw its formal establishment in America. The American Land League expanded rapidly, and by September 1881, there were more than 1,500 branches throughout the United States. Hundreds of thousands of men and women attended its meetings and social events, and branches were also established in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia.33 It was a tremendously varied organization. In America, branches brought together middle-class, conservative Irish nationalists, who desired moderate transformations in Ireland’s system of land tenure, with working-class Irish-American radicals, who advocated major social changes in both Ireland and the United States.34 Although there was no official Land League in St John’s, the Irish land question was a frequent topic of discussion in the press, and the Irish of the city sent money to Ireland to support the movement. Carolyn Lambert’s research on late nineteenth-century nationalism suggests that the local press were generally supportive of the ideas and principles of the Land League, if not their tactics, though some debates between newspaper editors did occur.35 In December 1880, following the decision of the British government to deploy additional troops in Ireland, the St John’s Morning Chronicle described the

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Land League agitation as the actions of a “misguided people.” This phrase inspired a stinging response from the Catholic-edited Terra Nova Advocate, which argued that the Irish were “misgoverned” rather than misguided. The Advocate’s editor produced a lengthy summary of British land laws and their effects on Ireland, praised Parnell’s efforts to correct the government’s “deplorable wrong and injustice,” and concluded by noting that what was needed was not military intervention but rather coercion of “England to do justice for Ireland.”36 Despite the objections of the Chronicle’s editor, most St John’s newspapermen seem to have agreed that the British government was mishandling the situation. A.A. Parsons, the Liberal-Protestant editor of the Evening Telegram also castigated the government’s role: “the fact is that the Irish people have suffered and are suffering from the variations of treatment received from successive political administrations in England … In such circumstances, it is difficult to blame the people altogether for a state of matters to which the government itself has partly conduced.”37 Although there was never any overt support of agrarian violence, sympathy with the Irish tenants was widespread, and was not limited solely to Catholics of Irish descent. Certainly, most do not appear to have perceived the Land League as a disloyal or seditious organization. Support for the Land League in the press was mostly rhetorical, and examples of more direct action on the part of St John’s Catholics are rare. No branch was officially established in the city, unlike in many other North American centres. On at least one occasion, though, fundraising for the Land League did occur. The Advocate published a list of subscribers in August 1881, in addition to a report from the Dublin Weekly News that acknowledged £60.7s from the “old stock” Irish of St John’s, Newfoundland. The report referred to the “St John’s, Nfld, branch of the Land League,” though the collection appears to be an isolated endeavour, given the lack of any other organized league activity in the port. Akin to Bishop Power’s influential role in the 1880 Irish Relief Fund, the list of subscribers suggests that the local Catholic clergy had a prominent role in leading the movement. Of the fifty-seven names that appear on the list, sixteen were priests. Most were based in St John’s, though there were donations from clergymen as far away as Bonavista and Renews. The top clerical contributor was Rev. Richard O’Donnell, a native of Cahir, County Tipperary, and the parish priest at St Mary’s.

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Most lay contributions were from St John’s, though some came from Conception Bay communities such as Brigus, Harbour Grace, and Harbour Main. Higher-level clergy were generally absent from the list, and most clerical donations seem to have come from parish priests. Bishop Power did not contribute to the fund, while only two of the priests listed – Jeremiah O’Donnell of Harbour Main and William Forristal of St John’s – possessed the title “Right Reverend.” Michael Francis Howley, the Newfoundland-born priest who would become bishop in 1894, pledged £1. Reminiscent of the previous year’s Irish Relief Fund, the money was not sent to the Land League organization in Dublin, but rather to the archbishop of Cashel, T.W. Croke. This further suggests that the fund was clerically inspired, and that in the late nineteenth century, Church networks remained the most direct connections between the Catholics of St John’s and their ancestral homeland.38 Land League activity in Halifax was more consistent and organized than in St John’s, but also evoked greater controversy and opposition. On 23 January 1881, a meeting was held at the Halifax Lyceum to organize a local branch of the Land League. It drew a large attendance and was chaired by Patrick J. O’Brien, an Irish-born butcher who resided on Brunswick Lane.39 O’Brien had organized the gathering based upon the “earnest solicitations of many persons.” A preliminary meeting had drawn up a constitution and a set of bylaws, so all that remained was for those present to ratify them. Once this was accomplished, the attendees paid an unspecified amount as initial dues and signed the roll to become members, resolving to “assist, by any lawful means, their fellow countrymen in Ireland.” The Halifax Herald’s report on the meeting praised the Land League in Canada, noting that branches had “been formed in nearly every city and town in the Dominion.” It concluded by highlighting the intergenerational nature of the Halifax branch, stating that “many of the old stock have disappeared from this earth, but their offspring are impressed with the spirit of their ancestors and appear to be determined to assist their friends across the Atlantic.”40 As was the case for many American branches, the Halifax Land League seems to have been primarily concerned with raising funds for the movement in Ireland. In the spring and summer of 1881, it organized lectures covering a variety of Irish historical topics as well as current affairs.41 At a meeting on 5 January 1882, the members of the local branch agreed to support the call of the Chicago national

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convention to raise $250,000 by 1 February. A large amount of money was collected at the meeting, while the members resolved to solicit contributions from the broader Halifax and Nova Scotia community. Several outside contributions were passed on to members, but the precise results of these efforts are not clear.42 Very little information on Halifax Land League membership has survived. It is not known how many individuals were part of the organization, though in 1882, it was said to be “in a favourable condition.”43 Executive lists for 1881 and 1882 were printed in the Acadian Recorder and Halifax Herald, respectively. The lists rarely gave full names, instead printing first initials, so only a handful of individuals could be definitively traced using a combination of city directories and nominal census records. Despite the tiny sample, the few identifiable members provide some insight into the origins of the membership. The founder and president in both 1881 and 1882 was Patrick J. O’Brien, a butcher, born in Ireland in 1829. O’Brien lived in Halifax with his young family, which, according to the 1881 Canadian census, consisted of a wife, Margaret, born in Newfoundland; seven-year-old twin boys born in the United States; and a two-year-old daughter, born in Newfoundland. The children’s places of birth suggest that O’Brien was a fairly recent arrival in Halifax. His presence in the city appears to have been relatively brief – records of him in city directories disappear after 1885. Of the 1881 executive, only one other, John Connolly, an Irish-born shoemaker, could be positively identified. In 1882, the first vice-president was John J. Murphy, probably a jeweller, born in Ireland in 1846. Recording secretary Simon Cummings was an Irish-born grocer and corresponding secretary Daniel J. Sullivan was likely a fish dealer born in Nova Scotia of Irish parents, while finance committee member Richard Kinsman was a tailor from Newfoundland and his colleague Arthur Monoghan was either a dry goods merchant or a carpenter. Although this sample is extremely limited, it does suggest a few trends. First, compared to other Irish-Catholic associations in Halifax such as the CIS, the Land League had a more working-class membership, with even the executive positions being filled by butchers, grocers, tailors, and fish dealers. The Catholic elite of Halifax – doctors, lawyers, and merchants – do not appear to have been involved, nor were the Catholic clergy. This is not surprising as other Canadian branches, such as Toronto’s, were similarly dominated by the working classes – especially those involved in the labour movement.44 Second,

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despite comprising only a small percentage of the Irish ethnic population of the city, the Irish-born appear to have had a strong representation on the executive. Although the Land League’s founders praised the intergenerational identities of those of Irish descent in Halifax, it is possible that those born in Ireland, having direct experience of the suffering of Irish tenants, were the key individuals involved in setting up the local branch. Once this institutional framework was in place, the “latent ethnic constituency” of Nova Scotia–born Catholics could be mobilized to participate directly in Irish affairs. But this conclusion must remain speculative as the majority of the executives for 1881 and 1882 could not be traced, and we know nothing of the organization’s rank and file.45 The opposition the Halifax Land League provoked remains one of its most interesting features. While most editorials in St John’s on the Irish land question expressed sympathy with the objectives of the organization, this was not the case in Nova Scotia’s capital. Shortly after the British government suppressed the Land League in Ireland, the city’s Liberal press organ, the Morning Chronicle, published celebratory editorials. The paper referred to the action as “an extreme step, but one which … most sensible men will admit was called for,” and went on to suggest that all friends of Ireland should rejoice at the Land League’s suppression.46 Several days later, John Murdoch, an editor from Inverness, Scotland, who had recently assisted in the establishment of a Land League branch in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was in Halifax to give a lecture to the local organization. While there, he wrote a scathing letter to the Chronicle’s editor, attacking his attitude regarding Irish affairs and accusing him of “upholding a vicious and violent system.” The paper printed the letter, but appended a sarcastic editorial note at the end, proclaiming that they “need not waste space in a reply.”47 A more concentrated debate about the local Land League occurred in 1883 in the Halifax Herald, towards the end of the organization’s turbulent existence in North America. On 27 March, a letter to the editor attacked the Land League and its supporters on both sides of the Atlantic. The author made a direct connection between the organization and lawlessness, blaming it directly for the murders of Lord Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke in Dublin’s Phoenix Park in 1882. He accused Land League leaders in Ireland of “uttering language from the public platform only calculated to incite deeds of outrage and crime against the peace of the country,” and that it was the

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duty of people in both Great Britain and Canada to “hold these men, this Association, responsible for the fruits which the seed sown has produced.”48 The letter drew a response two days later from an “Irishman” repudiating any connection between the Land League and physical-force nationalism and, in particular, the implied connection to the Phoenix Park murders, noting that this was “a terrible charge to bring against any body of men,” while also pointing out that branches in Ireland, Great Britain, and Canada had passed resolutions condemning the violence.49 The final word in this exchange came from the Halifax Land League itself. A 3 April letter to the Herald pointed out that the branch had recently sent $100 to Father F.W. Gallagher in Donegal and a further $100 to Father William Fitzgerald of Cork for the relief of the Irish poor. The letter concluded: “the work of the Land League is that of charity, although some unprincipled beings would have people think that the work of the League is that of wickedness … we work only for one object, and that is the amelioration of the suffering misgoverned of Ireland.”50 By August, however, support in Halifax for land agitation ceased as the local organization was transformed into a branch of the Home Rule–oriented INL, with Patrick J. O’Brien again installed as president.51 Land League activity in Portland was more organized than in either St John’s or Halifax. It provided social opportunities for the Irish Catholics of the city, and, crucially, involved women directly in the movement. The initial meeting to establish a Portland branch of the Land League was held on 22 November 1880. Frank W. Cunningham, an Irish-born stonemason and one of Portland’s leading Catholics, whose company “constructed many of the largest structures of the city and state,” called the meeting to order.52 Maine-born attorney William H. Looney, who would go on to become a state representative in 1888 and 1890 and a state senator in 1908, acted as secretary.53 The procedure was quite similar to the establishment of the Halifax branch. A constitution had been prepared in advance and was ratified by those present, and then forty-one men paid initial dues of $1 and signed the membership roll. Any resident of Portland was eligible to join the local branch following payment of the initiation fee and a monthly rate of ten cents. Regular meetings were set for the third Monday of each month at the IARA’s hall on Plum Street. The meeting closed with a short address by Charles McCarthy Jr, a wealthy clothing merchant and another of the city’s most prominent Irishmen, in which he highlighted the respectability and legality of the Land League. McCarthy

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stated that “the revolution that it is sought to effect must be a bloodless one. That man is no friend of Ireland that would plunge her people into the horrors of civil war. The work of the Land League is done under cover of law, and not by resisting it.” He concluded by establishing the principal goal of the Portland branch: to raise funds in order to support a “peaceful settlement of the matter.”54 As in Halifax, the founders of the Portland Land League were keen to distance themselves from any association with revolutionary Irish nationalism, or even agrarian unrest. Ideologically, the Portland branch was aligned with the “conservative” strain of Land League nationalism, espoused by Boston journalist John Boyle O’Reilly and others, which was particularly strong in New England.55 In its early months, the Land League’s activity was focused on increasing its membership and, as in Halifax, on organizing lectures on Irish affairs. Many of the addresses were by local members, but several prominent speakers from outside the city were invited to give public talks in order to raise funds. One of the first was by American journalist James Redpath, who had been covering the situation in the west of Ireland. The event raised almost $50, allowing the treasurer to forward $100 to the American Land League’s national organization.56 The most prominent speakers to come to Portland were nationalist politicians T.P. O’Connor and T.M. Healy, both members of the British House of Commons, who gave lectures in front of large crowds in the autumn of 1881.57 Such lectures not only served to keep Portland’s Irish Catholics up to date with the land agitation in Ireland but also forged connections between the local community and the broader diaspora. The Portland Land League also organized an array of social functions in order to raise funds. A ball was held at city hall on 1 March 1881, attended by over 350 couples. Dances, dinners, and balls continued on behalf of the Land League for the next two years. One of the most significant events was held in July 1882 and transcended the local organization, bringing together supporters from across Maine. Branches from throughout the state combined to organize a mass excursion to Maranacook Lake, near Augusta, where dancing and amusements were combined with speeches by Irish-American nationalist leaders. Organizers hoped that up to 5,000 would attend, but rain on the day kept the attendance closer to 1,000.58 Through large social events, the Land League was able to engage a sizable proportion of Portland’s Catholics in Irish affairs. Through either

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membership in the organization itself or, more likely, participation in its sponsored events, support for the Land League and Irish tenant farmers was widespread. The Portland branch also attempted to take advantage of local Catholic associational networks in order to raise funds for Ireland. Following the 1881 Chicago convention’s call to raise $250,000, the Land League’s financial committee organized a meeting with representatives from Portland’s most prominent Catholic societies to organize a drive. The AOH, the Montgomery Guards, the IARA, the PLSBS, the Boilermakers Association, and the Grattan Literary Association were all involved, though the precise outcome of these discussions is unclear.59 As noted by Ely Janis, such co-operation was typical of many Land League branches throughout the United States. Pre-existing Irish associational networks were essential to the growth, expansion, and day-today operation of the local branches.60 The Land League brought together middle-class and working-class ethnic and benevolent associations: this can clearly be seen in Portland as heavily Irish labour unions like the Boilermakers and the PLSBS, proletarian groups like the AOH, and middle-class associations like the IARA worked together to improve conditions in Ireland. From the outset, the members of the Portland Land League maintained a close association between land agitation and the political battle for Irish self-government. At a 21 December 1880 meeting, Elliott King, a Portland-born Catholic lawyer, addressed the assembly, arguing that “with the force of global opinion against [Britain], she will be compelled not only to give the land to the people of Ireland at a fair price, but she will be forced to give the Irish people a parliament in their own country.” Newspaper editor F.M. Fogg followed up this comment by calling on the members to “help the cause of Irish freedom.”61 The Land League continued to discuss the national question alongside their support for tenant farmers. In April 1881, two full meetings were devoted to a debate on whether Irish self-government should take the form of Dominion Home Rule or an independent republic. Local members presented speeches supporting both perspectives, with neither side reportedly winning over a majority of opinion.62 The Land League’s most direct discussion of the land question itself occurred in the wake of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone’s 1881 Land Act. Although the legislation did not meet all of Parnell and Davitt’s demands, it did provide relief and additional security for

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many of Ireland’s tenant farmers. In America, passing of the Act raised questions as to what direction the movement should take. On 16 August 1881, the Portland branch held a special meeting at which the merits of the bill were debated at length. Charles McCarthy Jr argued that it was a positive outcome, and though not all demands were met, it constituted a vital step in the relief of Ireland’s Catholic tenants. Thomas F. Sheehan, a shoemaker, argued against the Act, taking issue with McCarthy’s views, though “in a very gentlemanly manner.” Sheehan questioned whether Gladstone had any real interest in the well-being of the Irish tenants. Despite the disagreement, one month later the Land League resolved that the Act failed to “effect a permanent settlement of the land question, and the agitation should continue until landlordism was a thing of the past.”63 Full membership rolls for the Portland Land League have not survived, but the Democratic press organ, the Eastern Argus, frequently provided lists of executives and subcommittees. At its peak, membership probably did not exceed 300.64 From the pages of the Argus, 40 of these could be definitively identified using city directories and the 1880 United States census, and this sample size is sufficient to provide some reliable conclusions regarding the origins of Land League members (see appendix C). In terms of place of birth, the members appear to have been split more or less equally between Irish- and North American-born. Twenty of the forty members traced here were born in Ireland, one in England of Irish parents, and nineteen in the United States and Canada. Only seven of those born in North America did not possess at least one Irish parent. Unlike the Halifax branch of the Land League, the upper- and middle-class Catholic elite of Portland fully participated in the movement. Like many other branches in the United States, the membership reveals a broad range of occupational diversity, as attorneys, bookkeepers, editors, and clerks sat on committees alongside labourers and skilled tradesmen.65 Involvement was also not exclusively Irish-Catholic, as, in some cases, political affiliations and opportunism brought individuals into the organization. This was the case in 1882 when Darius H. Ingraham, an Episcopalian member of the Democratic Party who would become mayor in 1891, was chosen to represent Portland at that year’s national Land League convention. It is likely that Ingraham participated in order to gain support amongst the Irish-Catholic electorate of the city, most of whom supported the Democrats.66 Another prominent Yankee

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Democrat, former mayor and temperance advocate Neal Dow, gave a stirring speech denouncing landlordism in Ireland at a January 1882 meeting.67 In sum, the Land League brought together individuals from a wide range of backgrounds. Both the American-born and Irish-born generation were more or less equally represented, and members were drawn from all socio-economic strata. Perhaps the most significant factor that separates Land League activity in Portland from the two British North American ports is the active role played by women in the movement. On 27 January 1881, a meeting was held to establish a branch of the Ladies’ Land League in Portland. About thirty women attended, and twenty-seven-year-old Callie Springer was chosen as president. Lizzie Walsh, a teacher at Center Street School, was appointed secretary.68 The Ladies’ Land League was established by Fanny Parnell, the New Jersey–based sister of Charles Stewart. In the autumn of 1880, she believed that the American Land League was not growing fast enough, and that a women’s organization would add critical momentum.69 In Portland, as in many other American centres, the Ladies’ Land League appears to have operated independently from the men’s organization. The two co-operated closely, with members often attending each other’s meetings, but the women organized their own assemblies, elected their own executives, and remitted their own funds to Ireland. The ladies engaged with the Catholic clergy in Portland more directly than the men did, such as in May 1881, when Bishop James Augustine Healy met with representative from the Ladies’ Land League praising their efforts and expressing his support for their objectives.70 The Ladies’ Land League’s most prominent role was in the organization of social events. In Portland, the branch sponsored the grand ball of 1881 and, for over two years, continued to plan dances, musical evenings, promenade concerts, and dinners.71 The branch was also important in fostering links between Portland and broader IrishAmerican networks. At the 1882 national Land League convention in Washington, attended by both men’s and women’s organizations, Springer was named a vice-president of the national Ladies’ Land League.72 By 1882, the ladies’ league in Portland had 175 members.73 It is not clear why the women’s branch flourished there but not in Halifax. The proximity of other New England branches likely encouraged the diffusion of the organization into southern Maine, while the individual leadership of women like Springer was undoubtedly significant. In some centres, such as Cleveland, Ohio, the Catholic clergy

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opposed the Ladies’ Land League: Bishop Richard Gilmour even threatened to excommunicate its members.74 In Portland, however, Bishop Healy fully supported the women’s organization, and there is no evidence to suggest that clerical opposition was a factor in the failure to establish a branch in Halifax. In the aftermath of Parnell’s Kilmainham Treaty, Land League activism in the United States gradually drew to a close. Nevertheless, the organizational frameworks of both the men’s and women’s institutions remained in place well into 1883; however, with the cessation of agitation in Ireland, the movement in America lacked direction. The Portland Land League branch held a meeting on 15 January 1883 to discuss its future where, after a lengthy debate, it was decided to hold regular meetings until a national convention in the spring could provide leadership and direction for the local branches.75 The ladies’ branch continued to organize social events, including a well-attended ball on 1 February to celebrate two years of Land League activity in the city. Fundraising also continued, and one week after the ball, the women’s branch sent $110 to Ireland, though on this occasion, it was for the general relief of the poor rather than to promote land agitation.76 Acting on a call from the national organization, the men’s branch also raised funds for the Irish poor that winter – though W.H. Looney expressed disappointment at the $80 raised for the cause. The Land League had clearly lost momentum as casual supporters lost interest in the movement. In April, local president John A. Gallagher attended the national convention, which established the Home Rule–oriented INL. In June, this organization was officially established in Portland, and Land League activity ceased.77 Comparing Land League activity in Portland, Halifax, and St John’s reveals the different ways in which those of Irish birth and descent engaged in the affairs of their homeland. Portland undoubtedly saw the most concentrated activity. Through both men’s and women’s organizations, Irish- and American-born Catholics from all social classes came together to assist the tenant farmers of Ireland. There are several reasons for the high level of involvement compared to Halifax and St John’s. First, about half of the Portland branch were Irish born, and although this does not necessarily translate into increased interest in the politics of the old country, many would have had first-hand experience of the suffering of Irish tenant farmers in the west of Ireland, which likely made the cause seem more immediate. A second factor was the absence of a British-imperial political context in

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Portland. Although the Land League did flourish in many British, Australian, and Canadian settings, the absence of ardent Tory imperialists in Portland undoubtedly reduced public opposition. Some anti–Land League sentiment no doubt existed in the city, yet it was rarely publicly expressed, as happened in Halifax and, to a lesser extent, in St John’s. This lack of opposition allowed Portland’s elite Catholics, such as W.H. Looney, F.W. Cunningham, and Charles McCarthy Jr, to participate in the organization, which lent it considerable credibility. In Halifax, by contrast, the elite tended to shy away from Land League involvement, perhaps fearing that an association with a group perceived by some as disloyal could hinder respectability or political aspirations. Finally, the Portland Land League thrived thanks to its proximity to Irish-American institutional and organizational networks. Branches were established throughout Maine and New England, and the local league had close relationships with these as well as with the national movement through circulars, touring speakers, and national conventions. Although the day-to-day activity of the Land League was highly local, the Portland branch brought the city’s Irish Catholics into a broader, pan-diasporic movement. The Halifax branch also participated in such networks, both in Canada and the United States, but isolation from North American currents was likely a factor in no formal Land League being established in St John’s. Press reports and fundraising activities suggest a strong interest in Irish affairs amongst St John’s Catholics, but in that city, due to the absence of a secular organization, it was the clergy who provided the most direct, tangible links to the old country.

home rule nationalism, 1882–1892 For Charles Stewart Parnell, the land agitation of the early 1880s was just part of a greater campaign to bring legislative independence to Ireland. He was never a radical land reformer, and he remained committed to the principles of non-violent, constitutional nationalism. The Land War was essentially a mechanism through which support for Home Rule could be mobilized.78 In 1881, Parnell’s vociferous opposition to William Ewart Gladstone’s Land Act resulted in his arrest, and subsequent imprisonment elevated his status to that of a national hero. However, a lengthy period in jail would ultimately have curtailed his influence, so in April 1882, he began to negotiate a compromise with government authorities. The resulting Kilmainham

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Treaty of 25 April provided for Parnell’s release on condition that he speak out against agrarian violence, bringing him back “within the parameters of parliamentary and constitutional politics.”79 On 6 May 1882, the murders of the chief secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and his undersecretary, Thomas Henry Burke, in Dublin’s Phoenix Park by radical nationalists known as “The Invincibles” shocked the English-speaking world. The widespread reaction against physical-force nationalism allowed Parnell to further consolidate support for constitutional methods. In October, he formed the INL, which was characterized by an “almost autocratic structure,” giving him tremendous control over the organization. The spirit of the New Departure was over, as Fenian or radical influence within the new organization was severely limited. Instead, Parnell forged an alliance with the Catholic Church in which the IPP would support the clergy’s stance on educational questions, while Ireland’s priests became key agents in mobilizing the Irish-Catholic electorate.80 At Westminster, Parnell presided over a unified party, now committed to voting as a bloc. Electoral reforms in 1884 and 1885 expanded the Catholic franchise in Ireland, and the general election of 1885 saw eighty-five IPP members elected. The close result between Liberals and Conservatives gave Parnell the balance of power, and from this point, the relationship between Gladstone’s Liberals and Parnell’s IPP would dictate the course of Irish nationalism for the remainder of the decade.81 Like its Land League predecessor, the INL was established throughout the diaspora, essentially functioning as a “propaganda and moneycollecting agency.”82 Many Land League branches were converted into INL ones, with the American organization boasting 58,000 members at its peak in the mid-1880s.83 Although the radical Clan na Gael retained influence within the organization, it was mostly an association of conservative, parliamentary nationalists. The constitutional focus lent the movement considerable respectability, and as a result, wealthy Irish Americans supported Parnell and the struggle for Home Rule to an extent not seen during the land agitation. Conversely, many of the radicals who had been prominent in the North American Land League abandoned their active engagement with diasporic nationalism, and women were less directly involved.84 As was the case elsewhere, numerous Irish Catholics in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland became staunch supporters of Parnell and constitutional nationalism during the 1880s.85

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Enthusiasm for Parnell and Home Rule in St John’s was strong, but as with the Land League, there was no official organization to mediate local responses. Instead, the Catholics of the city, as well as many Protestants, expressed their support through letters to the local press, societal resolutions, and occasional fundraising endeavours. As has been argued by Carolyn Lambert, St John’s Catholics’ sense of loyalty to the British monarchy and Empire existed comfortably alongside their expressions of Irish nationalism.86 Meanwhile, through organizations such as the Orange Order, there was also stern opposition to Parnell and Home Rule, so the decade reveals a full range of debate and passionate responses to the Irish Question. Following the cessation of land agitation in 1882, many newspapers, including those edited by liberal Protestants, clearly expressed support for Parnell. In a New Year’s editorial looking forward to 1883, the St John’s Evening Telegram noted that “we should like to see old Ireland as she ought to be, great, glorious and free!”87 A more detailed expression of support appeared in the Terra Nova Advocate following Parnell’s release from Kilmainham in May 1882. The editor said that his release “cannot fail to prove gratifying to the friends of constitutional liberty, especially those bound by the ties of kindred and descent to the Emerald Isle.” He went on to highlight the news as being “like a ray from the glorious traditional sunburst of [Ireland’s] time honoured national banner, bursting through the almost impenetrable gloom.”88 Such language suggests a strong emotional attachment to Ireland and support for Parnell and self-government, in addition to highlighting the intergenerational nature of such sentiment in St John’s. At the same time that newspapers printed pieces supporting Parnell and constitutional nationalism, the people of St John’s expressed their abhorrence of physical-force methods. In reference to the Phoenix Park murders of May 1882, the editor of the Evening Mercury lamented that the optimism for Home Rule had been “blighted by the awful crime perpetrated by cowardly assassins” and also regretted the government’s attempts at coercion, which “gave boldness and impunity to Fenianism and Ribbonism – two systems which aim at securing their end by violence and crime.”89 The Catholic-edited Newfoundlander echoed similar sentiments, regretting that “these awful crimes should be perpetrated in the very noon-day is a calamity unspeakable, deplorable for Ireland, and the bare thought of the consequences is enough to blight hope for the present and fill men’s minds with

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dismay for the future.”90 Condemnation of the murders went beyond the press. In late May, the BIS – perhaps inspired by the action of Halifax’s CIS, which was reported in the Newfoundland press – likewise passed a resolution deploring the tragedy. The resolution, which concluded with the hope that “the cowardly assassins may be detected and brought to speedy justice,” was to be forwarded to Ireland.91 The comments on the Phoenix Park murders reveal that widespread support existed for Home Rule, even from Protestant-Conservative newspaper editors. At the same time, condemnation of physical-force nationalism appears to have been universal. The most concentrated discussions of Irish nationalism in St John’s surrounded Gladstone’s 1886 first Home Rule Bill. In the local press, initial responses to the Bill were positive and optimistic. The editor of the Telegram celebrated its proposal by suggesting that it would end Anglo-Irish hostilities and ultimately strengthen the British Empire: “Irish discontent in the colonies and at home has been forever silenced. Henceforth, the Celt and the Saxon shall meet on terms of equality and grasp each other’s hands in undisguised friendship. Differences in race and national feuds are forever laid at rest and entombed in the history of the past.” The piece went on to address Catholics of Irish descent in the Empire directly, rejoicing that the rights and privileges of responsible government, which those of Irish descent had been so involved in winning, could now be extended to the ancestral homeland. Finally, the editor concluded by bringing in the Irish of Newfoundland: “The sons of Irishmen and all other patriotic natives of this colony will rejoice with unbounded joy in the good fortune of that land that in days gone by sent so many hardy pioneers to our shores … and the snows and frosts of three or four generations have not in the least frozen the ardour and fire of rejoicement which their descendants now experience in Newfoundland at the great privilege conferred on green Erin by England’s greatest statesman!”92 This passage captures the key themes that defined Newfoundlanders’ responses to the Irish Question in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Home Rule was seen as a desirable outcome, not only because it would benefit Ireland but also because it would enhance imperial strength and unity by reducing Anglo-Irish tensions, while also keeping the territory within the Empire. For this reason, support for Home Rule went beyond Catholics of Irish descent. The Irish Question was also an imperial one and, as such, attracted support from many liberal

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Protestants, including most of the Protestant newspaper editors in St John’s. The author of the above passage also referred to the political structures of the overseas dominions, whose benefits Irish Catholics had fought to obtain and had enjoyed for generations, as a model that could be applied to the old country. Finally, the Telegram’s editor highlighted the intergenerational nature of Irish-Catholic identities in St John’s by praising their enthusiasm despite being “three or four generations” removed from Ireland. Perhaps the most direct evidence of widespread support for Home Rule appeared in the pages of the Colonist in early May. The paper printed a series of letters in favour of the 1886 Bill penned by some of Newfoundland’s most prominent men, both Catholic and Protestant. The correspondents included Rev. Moses Harvey, an Ulster-born Presbyterian minister and the editor of the Evening Mercury; Rev. L.G. Macneil, a minister at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church; Rev. George Boyd of George Street Methodist Church; Rev. D. Beaton, a Congregationalist pastor; Thomas Talbot, the high sheriff of Newfoundland; Rev. M.A. Fitzgerald of St Bonaventure’s College; James McLoughlin and Edward P. Morris of the Legislative Council; and Frederick White, a Protestant member of the House of Assembly from Bonavista.93 The themes reflected in these letters parallel those in the Telegram’s initial editorial. The people of Ireland had a right to enjoy the political benefits that their descendants throughout the Empire had enjoyed for so long, while Home Rule would also considerably strengthen imperial unity by resolving the most divisive question of the era and securing harmonious relations between Great Britain and Ireland.94 In the midst of this broad support for Irish Home Rule, the 1886 Bill caused a minor scandal within Newfoundland colonial politics. The island was still reeling from the Harbour Grace Affray, in which, on 26 December 1883, a group of Orangemen attempted to pass through the Catholic settlement of Riverhead in the Conception Bay community of Harbour Grace. A Catholic crowd met them, the confrontation became violent, and five men were killed. Sectarian tensions rose considerably in the aftermath of the affray, and politics became temporarily divided along ethnoreligious lines.95 The controversy surrounded the legislature’s attempts to pass a resolution supporting Home Rule for Ireland. The passion of the debate and its significant political fallout demonstrates how, in the mid-1880s at least, events in Ireland were able to temporarily raise ethnic identities in Newfoundland to a fever pitch. Conversely, however, the episode

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shows how political alliances and party affiliations could trump ethnicity for the colony’s Irish-Catholic representatives. In the second week of May, a letter appeared in the Advocate chastising the LiberalCatholic opposition party for failing to propose a pro–Home Rule motion, as was being done by colonial assemblies throughout the Empire. The author stated that by not introducing a resolution in the assembly, “the politicians of Newfoundland of Irish blood and race have proved themselves recreant to the high principles of their forefathers in their disgraceful and temporizing attitude on a question that the liberalism of the world is in favour,” and further attacked “those of the Liberal interest in our House of Assembly [for] making no effort to arouse public sentiment on the matter, and to telegraph resolutions from the people of Newfoundland to strengthen Mr Gladstone’s hands.”96 On 10 May, as the Bill was set to undergo second reading at Westminster, George Emerson, a Protestant Liberal member for Placentia and St Mary’s, proposed the Home Rule resolution that the Advocate’s correspondent had called for. The Protestant-Reform opposition had provided assurances that they would not oppose the motion, but, astonishingly, at a special meeting, the Catholicdominated Liberals resolved not to support their own member’s resolution. The reasons for this action remain unclear, but, as discussed below, both personal rivalries and politicking were factors. On 13 May, Michael Carty, likely under pressure from his father, informed the opposition leader, Ambrose Shea, of his intention to defy the party’s wishes and second the motion. When Emerson introduced it on 13 May, the Reform party left the house, choosing to abstain rather than actively support or oppose Irish Home Rule. When Carty seconded it, the Liberals followed the Reformers out of the chamber. Only Emerson, Carty, and five Reformers remained, and owing to lack of a quorum, the motion was defeated.97 The response in the local press and amongst Catholics of Irish descent generally was indignant. The Advocate blasted the government, noting that “spite and political jealousy are no justification for this barbarous and vandal-like act of striking at the land of our fathers.”98 A correspondent to the Telegram lamented the cowardly, humiliating actions of the legislature and aimed particular vitriol at the leading Liberals of Irish descent for opposing resolutions to which only the most “anti-Irish, Conservative bigot” could object.99 The editor of the Colonist was similarly outraged, essentially portraying the Liberal members as traitors to their ancestral homeland, and

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called for a public meeting to accomplish what the assembly “had neither the gratitude to Ireland, the love of liberty, nor the respect due itself to perform.”100 Letters attacking the Liberals continued throughout the second half of May and into June. The Clare-born parish priest of Placentia, Rev. Michael A. Clancy, sent a letter to the Colonist that succinctly explains the attitude of most Irish Catholics regarding the episode: “I do not care what notion of expediency or of party exigency influenced the Liberals in their actions on Mr Emerson’s resolution. To sympathize with, and if possible, to second the efforts of a nation struggling to be free, and the genius of a great statesman striving to give a new life and constitution to a long enslaved race, should have been sufficient to raise even the Liberal Party above any petty considerations or personal malice.”101 The situation evoked a great sense of shame and embarrassment amongst Catholics of Irish birth and descent. Echoing Clancy’s sentiments, a letter to the Telegram opined that “Newfoundland, through the treachery of the Liberal Party leaders, stands in unenviable isolation among all the other British colonies,” and suggested that the party’s members, “placed there by the descendants of the Irish in Newfoundland have proved themselves recreants to the land of their forefathers in her hour of anxiety and misgiving.”102 Some commentators even went so far as to call for the Liberal members to be dismissed and a new, pro–Home Rule party set up in its place.103 However, it was Carty who bore direct reprisal: despite clearly having the support of the colony’s Catholics, he was expelled from the Liberal Party for his dissension; he would run as a Reformer in subsequent elections.104 In response to the widespread indignation, the BIS called a special meeting to pass its own pro–Home Rule resolutions. Ironically, its executive was dominated by many of the same Liberals who had walked out of the House of Assembly, but on this occasion, the resolutions were unanimously passed and sent to Gladstone and Parnell. The Catholics of St John’s did formally support Home Rule, but the associational resolutions did not possess the strength of a formal resolution from the government.105 As Carolyn Lambert has noted, “there was no reason for Liberals to oppose Emerson’s moderate resolution.”106 Why, then, did the party refuse to do what their constituents demanded? Some explanations have focused on petty jealousy – in short, Liberal leaders like Shea and BIS president Robert Kent were outraged that a Protestant member on

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the fringes of the party would have the audacity to introduce the resolution. This was likely a factor, though Lambert has put forward a more nuanced, political explanation. She contends that Liberals like Shea and Kent were aware that the sectarianized political divide of post–Harbour Grace Affray politics could not last and that their future political careers would depend on alliances with ProtestantConservative Reformers. Given the tensions of 1885 and 1886, it is possible that the Liberal leaders did not want to condone any action, such as actively supporting Irish self-government, that could alienate them from politicians such as Premier Sir Robert Thorburn, who was a member of the Orange Order.107 This is certainly plausible, though it must be remembered that, like Emerson, many Anglo-Protestant Newfoundlanders supported Irish Home Rule and the Reform government had at no point formally opposed the resolutions. Regardless of the reasons why the Liberals chose to reject Emerson’s motion, the most significant aspect of the debate for the historian of Irish ethnicity is the widespread anger and passion the episode engendered. The Irish Catholics of St John’s perceived it a heinous, shameful act that their political representatives turned their backs on Ireland. At a point when Gladstone’s Bill heightened interest in Ireland throughout the diaspora, the fact that Newfoundland’s “Irish Party” had run so deliberately against these trends was deemed deplorable, and put the colony’s Catholics shamefully out of step with those in other jurisdictions. Irish ethnicity in 1886 was strong enough to become a major issue of contention in local politics, but the circumstances that brought about the incident were temporary. A central theme of this work is how ideas and information about Irish affairs flowed in and out of communities. In St John’s, the press was key, but lecture tours by Irish nationalist speakers represented another way in which Irish people engaged with the broader diaspora. In 1886, the most notable speaker to come to the city was Courtney Kenny, a Gladstonian Member of Parliament from Barnsley in Yorkshire, England. His lecture on Home Rule, delivered to a large crowd at the Athenaeum, provided a thorough recounting of the parliamentary debates that had surrounded the Bill and gave detailed arguments in favour of the measure. Following the talk, Reverend Macneil thanked Kenny, noting that all those present “with the exception of a few out-and-out Tories,” were in favour of Irish self-government.108 Following Kenny’s departure from St John’s, the BIS passed a resolution thanking him for his eloquent

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support of Home Rule, while emphasizing the strength of Irish identity in St John’s: “This society is comprised not alone of Irishmen by birth, but of the descendants of those whom misgovernment in the land of their nativity expatriated to seek a home in this portion of the western world … You may well then believe, dear sir, that the grand effort on behalf of Ireland, of your ever-to-be-honoured leader, Mr Gladstone, and your own noble utterances in his support have awakened within us feelings of gratitude to which our words fail to give adequate expression.”109 As was the case with the Land League, there was little in the way of organized, institutional support for Home Rule in St John’s, though fundraisers did occur. Shortly before the first Home Rule Bill was tabled, the Dublin Freeman’s Journal published a list of Newfoundland contributions to the INL totalling £60.10s. Again, the clergy led the movement, though on this occasion the higher-level clergy were more directly involved, with Bishop Power the top contributor, thanks to his £7 donation. The Colonist’s correspondent lamented the fact that the collection only represented a small number of individuals and hoped that a general, public fundraising campaign would be organized in the city.110 While it did not happen in 1886, a more public collection did take place in 1888, in the form of Parnell’s indemnity fund. The Times of London had printed reports implicating Parnell and other prominent nationalists in the 1882 Phoenix Park murders. The accusations threatened the respectability of the Parnellite movement, and in the interest of seeking out the truth, the government set up a special commission to investigate the accusations. In order to defray the costs of his defence, Parnell established the indemnity fund, and contributions arrived from throughout the diaspora.111 In Newfoundland, participation was again Church-driven. The most prominent figure was Placentia’s Father Clancy. Born in Ennis, County Clare, in 1843, Clancy came to Newfoundland in 1872 after completing his studies at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and in Belgium. He served several parishes throughout rural Newfoundland in the 1870s and taught for a short time at St Bonaventure’s College. In 1883, he left a position in Ferryland to serve as a parish priest in Placentia, about 150 kilometres southwest of St John’s.112 Although stationed outside the city, Clancy frequently wrote letters calling on Irish Newfoundlanders to take an interest in the affairs of their ancestral homeland, and was described by one biographer as “an ardent Irish patriot.”113

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On 22 September, Clancy wrote a letter to the Colonist calling for a local subscription to the Parnell indemnity fund.114 The Colonist’s editor agreed, and a fundraising committee was established with John J. O’Reilly, a respected importer, serving as treasurer. As with the Irish Relief Fund of 1880, the indemnity fund caused controversy in St John’s. A correspondent to the Evening Telegram complained that money should not be sent overseas when there were causes at home worthy of public subscriptions. This drew several responses in the Colonist defending the efforts. One letter argued that an Irish fundraising drive need not draw support away from local charity, with the principal objective of the fund not being to raise a vast sum, but rather “to show Mr Parnell and his followers our sympathy with the cause they advocate is not mere gas and humbug.”115 Another letter called on the Catholics of St John’s to contribute, despite the objections, hoping that “the Irishmen in Newfoundland and their sons will nobly respond to the call which is now made, and show that in Terra Nova the fire is not alone unextinguished, but is burning brightly as in the days of old.”116 Over the following months, numerous updates appeared in the pages of the Colonist. As with the Land League, Catholic priests from all over Newfoundland gave generously. Some of the most prominent Catholic members of the Legislature subscribed, such as future prime minister E.P. Morris, Irish-born James McLoughlin, Michael H. Carty, and Irish-educated Robert J. Kent.117 Most lay contributions were from St John’s, though some came from outport communities.118 In the winter of 1889, the Times’s letters were proven to be forgeries. Father Clancy wrote a glowing celebratory letter to the Colonist, and the paper published an amount of $462.20 as the final tally towards the indemnity fund. In April, a letter from the national treasurer in Dublin was published, acknowledging £94.4s.1d. in remittances from St John’s, and the results of the Newfoundland fund were published in Dublin’s Freeman’s Journal. Treasurer O’Reilly noted that some money was still in his possession and would be sent to Ireland shortly.119 The 1888–89 fundraising efforts demonstrate considerable interest in Irish affairs. Clancy’s involvement again demonstrates the significant influence of the Catholic clergy in leading engagement with Ireland during this period. The language of the letters defending the fund, though, as well as the wide range of contributors suggests support for Parnell was still strong in St John’s as late as 1889.

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Opinions in favour of Irish Home Rule were widespread in 1880s St John’s, but some organized opposition did exist. In Great Britain and Ireland, unionism gained momentum during this period. Many opponents to Home Rule were Irish Protestants, who felt that a Dublin parliament would place them at the mercy of the Catholic majority. In Britain, Conservative opinion held that the concession of self-government to Ireland would be a sign of imperial weakness.120 Because the Irish Question concerned the whole British Empire, attitudes for and against Home Rule spread throughout the dominions. In Canada and Newfoundland, one of the key organizations promoting anti-Parnell sentiment was the Orange Order. The Order was a fraternal, Protestant organization formed in Ulster in 1795 that came to British North America with Irish-Protestant migrants, particularly those involved with military garrisons. Its creed emphasized a defence of Protestantism and loyalty to the British monarchy and Empire. Unlike in parts of mainland Canada, the Orange Order in Newfoundland was comprised not of Irish Protestants – since few ever settled there – but of Protestants of English descent.121 Despite the lack of Irish membership, the Newfoundland order was strongly influenced by branches in Ireland as well as in Canada and developed a staunchly anti–Home Rule stance, articulated in a July 1886 resolution: Resolved: That we, the citizens of this loyal and ancient colony, feel the deepest interest in the unity and integrity of the British Empire, and hereby enter our earnest protest at any measure which would tend toward the dissolution or weakening of the union which has existed between Great Britain and Ireland. We, the members of the Loyal Orange Association of Newfoundland, in Provincial Grand Lodge assembled, recognize the obligation which rests upon us to resist by all lawful means all attempts which may be made to weaken British influence and dismember the British Empire. That this Provincial Grand Lodge regards with the feelings of utmost pride and sympathy the resolute and patriotic attitude assumed by the Loyalists and Orangemen of Ireland in the present crisis, and we pledge ourselves to afford them such assistance as may be in our power.122 This resolution was sent to the Earl of Enniskillen and also printed in the London Mail. Although it contained strong language supporting their Orange Order brethren in Ireland, it does not seem as though

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the local branch ever actively impeded, by lawful means or otherwise, local support for Parnell and Home Rule. A response to this resolution appeared in the Colonist on 12 July – Orangeman’s Day – and provides some rare insight into the opinions of a St John’s Irish Protestant. The letter, simply signed “Irish Protestant,” presented another strong argument in favour of Home Rule, based mainly around the idea that it would lead to Anglo-Irish harmony, thereby strengthening the Empire. The author focused on the non-sectarian history of Irish nationalism, noting that many of Ireland’s most prominent leaders had been Protestants, such as Henry Grattan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, and Robert Emmet. He concluded by expressing his belief that “when an Irish Parliament again sits in Dublin, it will be a signal to all religious sects in my unhappy country to lay aside their mutual hatred, and to live in peace as equal men should live under equal law.”123 This letter, together with other evidence, strongly suggests that the Irish Question in late nineteenthcentury St John’s was not a sectarian one. Instead, differences in opinion seem to have existed more along Liberal-Conservative lines, with particular anti–Home Rule sentiment spreading via the institutional networks of the Orange Order.124 In December 1889, Captain W.H. O’Shea filed for divorce from his wife, Katherine (often known as Kitty), who was Parnell’s mistress. A year later, the two were found to have committed adultery and the resulting scandal shook the British world. Parnell lost crucial clerical and popular support in Ireland and abroad. In early December, following an ultimatum from Gladstone calling on Parnell to resign as leader of the IPP, Justin McCarthy led forty-four members in a split from the main body, leaving twenty-eight loyal to Parnell.125 In St John’s, reaction to the scandal was muted, but it seems that a great deal of the popular support evident in the late 1880s was lost. Editorials in the Colonist in February and July 1891 called for his resignation.126 A more detailed debate on Parnell’s legacy took place after his sudden death later that year. Although the tragic circumstances were universally regretted, a letter to the Colonist described him as “the greatest living obstacle to Home Rule in his final year,” while a subsequent letter praised the decision of the Party to abandon him.127 A response, signed “Another Home Ruler,” lauded Parnell’s legacy, claiming that he had done as much to further the cause of Irish selfgovernment as Daniel O’Connell, Isaac Butt, and Robert Emmet.128 A letter to the Telegram deemed Parnell’s supporter a “foolish and igno-

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rant scribbler” who pretended that the late Irish leader “was what he was not.”129 Anti-Parnell editorials also appeared in the pages of the Evening Herald, while a final, eloquent defence of his legacy appeared in the Colonist, concluding that Parnell “was slain by ingrates in Ireland, and [his] memory is assailed by the ingrate sons of Irishmen in Newfoundland … He was human and, even as Achilles, was vulnerable, but he is above reproach.”130 The passion of the debate shows that, at least for some St John’s Catholics, interest in the political affairs of their ancestral homeland was substantial. In Halifax, responses to Parnell and Home Rule were similar to those in St John’s. The key difference between the two ports was the presence of the INL in Halifax, which formally organized local responses to the Irish Question. Compared to Land League activism, the mid-to-late 1880s saw growing involvement of Halifax’s Catholic elite, as well as the clergy, who were drawn by the respectability and legality of Parnell’s constitutional nationalism. On 13 August 1883, the Halifax Herald included a report on a meeting of the INL. P.J. O’Brien was elected president, and the first and second vice-presidents, as well as the treasurer, were identical to those chosen for the 1882 Land League executive, suggesting that the new organization was essentially a continuation of the old. At the meeting, the members pledged their support for Parnell and his parliamentary agitation, and praised the active role taken by Irishmen in Canada, the United States, and Australia. One of the speeches concluded by calling upon “the descendants in Nova Scotia” to do likewise. Before the assembly disbanded, meetings were set for the first Sunday of every month.131 Late 1883 and 1884 saw little engagement with Ireland on the part of the INL, but in 1885, when the IPP was running its election campaign and subsequently found itself with the balance of power in Westminster, interest in the Irish Question spiked. On 7 October, the Halifax INL announced a fundraising drive to “enable members of the Irish Party to devote their full time to the political affairs of the country, and to obtain for Ireland that right which we enjoy, making laws and management of our own affairs.” The public was urged to submit their donations to any member of the local branch. An initial list of subscribers was printed, though the amounts seem to have been relatively small, with most individuals only pledging $1.132 The language of the call for funds again reflects a theme common to diasporic Irish nationalism, especially those in the British Dominions: Irish self-

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government was necessary to give the old country the political rights enjoyed by those of Irish descent overseas. On 27 October, an interview with John P. Sutton, a Quebec-based INL member who was in Halifax to help organize the local branch, detailed the immediate goals of the organization: to “assist in the election of Parnellite members and to pay them for their services after election.” Sutton went on to praise the growing strength of the organization in Canada, where fifteen branches were already established. Perhaps most significantly, he strongly denied any connection to radical Irish nationalism, stating that “ours is purely a constitutional movement to give moral and financial aid to our struggling brethren in Ireland, and this is all we are asking of Halifax Irishmen. Ireland is only asking for what Nova Scotia obtained nearly half a century ago – responsible local government.”133 The INL’s endeavours went beyond fundraising. On 28 November 1885, a “mass meeting” was held at Halifax’s Academy of Music to build popular support for Irish Home Rule. The meeting was organized by Sutton and involved many of the city’s most prominent residents, both Catholic and Protestant, suggesting broad support for the movement. On the stage were leading clergy, including Archbishop Cornelius O’Brien, as well as politicians such as Halifax’s federal Member of Parliament M.B. Daly and Premier W.S. Fielding. The purpose of the meeting was to express “the sympathy of the citizens of Halifax with the people of Ireland in their struggle for self government.” Lengthy speeches by Sutton and Daly on Irish affairs followed, and the central theme was again the extension of the benefits enjoyed by Irish Catholics in the diaspora to the ancestral homeland. The meeting concluded with a resolution: “We, the citizens of Halifax, in mass meeting assembled, do hereby extend to our fellow subjects our heartfelt sympathy and material support in every legitimate effort to obtain for Ireland some form of self government as ourselves in the Dominion of Canada: a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”134 As in St John’s, support for Irish Home Rule was strong, involving both those who were of Irish descent and those who were not. Although the language here was again drawn from Abraham Lincoln, the stated objective was that a Dominion-style government, similar to Canada’s or Newfoundland’s, be granted to Ireland for the benefit of its people and to enhance imperial integrity. As suggested by their prominent position on the stage at the mass meeting, Halifax’s Catholic clergy were more actively involved in the

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support for Home Rule than they had been during Land League agitation. Further evidence for clerical support comes from a lecture given by Archbishop O’Brien in December 1885. Following a historical talk on Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal movement, O’Brien urged “those present to put forth untiring efforts to help gain for Ireland a local parliament.”135 The INL acknowledged the archbishop’s support in 1887, presenting him with a resolution of thanks, which expressed “their earnest gratitude for the position Your Grace has taken up in the consideration and discussion of the Irish Question in this city.” In appreciation for his support of Home Rule, the INL’s executive presented him with a wooden desk.136 Owing to its proximity to New England and major Canadian centres like Montreal and Quebec City, as well as the existence of rail links to these places, Halifax was more accessible than St John’s and, therefore, able to attract more prominent Irish nationalist speakers. The most significant figure to spend time in the city was IPP Member of Parliament Justin McCarthy. McCarthy came to Halifax in October 1886 to give two lectures on the Irish Question and arrived to a hero’s welcome. The visit raised considerable interest in Irish affairs and was an example of co-operation between Halifax’s elite ethnic association, the CIS, and the nationalist-oriented INL.137 McCarthy arrived on the Quebec City express train and was met by both the INL and CIS executives before a welcome banquet at the prestigious Queen Hotel. T.E. Kenny, one of the city’s wealthiest and most influential Irish Catholics, escorted him during his stay. The local press reported considerable excitement in the town during the visit, and his lectures, which again focused on extending the rights of the British dominions to Ireland, were well attended.138 As was the case when Courtney Kenny came to St John’s, the arrival of an Irish nationalist politician prompted a surge in local interest in Irish affairs. As occurred in Newfoundland in the aftermath of Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill, the Irish Question extended into local political debates following McCarthy’s visit. The most significant debate in late nineteenth-century Nova Scotian politics was the potential repeal of the province’s confederation with Canada. Generally, discussions of whether or not the province should remain part of Canada did not contain ethnic rhetoric. On the eve of the “repeal election” of 1886, for example, the pro-Confederate Herald printed class-based pleas to Halifax’s businessmen, blacksmiths, and shoemakers, but this critical period of debate involved no specific appeals to those of Irish descent.

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Immediately following McCarthy’s lecture, however, Irish examples temporarily took centre stage in the secession debates. Nova Scotia’s anti-Confederate Liberals portrayed the fight for Irish self-government as analogous to their movement for repeal. Such rhetoric drew angry criticism from the editor of the Evening Mail, who, on the eve of McCarthy’s speech, chastised the secessionists, claiming that they would “pose as Parnells and McCarthys,” and countered any use of the Irish example; he called on W.S. Fielding and J.W. Longley to “point out one single grievance which Ireland suffers, of which even the shadow can be found in Nova Scotia.”139 The Herald’s editorial following McCarthy’s speech used his words to bolster the Confederate argument that Irish Home Rule and Nova Scotian repeal were unrelated. His talk had highlighted the Canadian federalist system as an admirable example of a Home Rule–style scheme already in practice within the Empire. This allowed the Tory press to counter “certain erroneous ideas which have been so frequently advanced … on public platforms in this city”: the parallel between Home Rule and secession. McCarthy’s speech not only served to advance the cause of Irish selfgovernment but also exposed “the thorough dishonesty of the secession tacticians.”140 Subsequent editorials went on to re-emphasize the idea that McCarthy, Parnell, and the IPP wished to gain for Ireland what Nova Scotia already possessed: a local parliament. The use of Ireland as a basis for pro-repeal arguments was, therefore, false.141 Within a few weeks, however, Irish examples faded from the debate, probably because the Irish example did not lend itself easily to either side of the question, as evidenced by the attempts of both pro- and anti-Confederates to use McCarthy’s visit to their advantage in late October. Furthermore, the presence of large numbers of Halifax Irish on both sides of the divide may have negated the political effectiveness of the comparison. As such, the example of Ireland only became a primary feature of the repeal debate when public Irish ethnicity was at its peak, in the days before and after Justin McCarthy’s lecture. Not long before the repeal debate surfaced in the Halifax press, the Irish Question had been the subject of discussion within the provincial assembly. Attorney General A.J. White introduced a pro–Home Rule resolution on 5 May 1886. It focused in large part on Irish Catholics’ loyalty to the Empire and declared the body’s unequivocal support for Gladstone and his Home Rule Bill. On 10 May, the resolution was discussed during the afternoon session. A number of speeches in favour of self-government for Ireland were made by both Liberal and Con-

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servative politicians, including J.W. Longley, Murdock McRae, W.S. Fielding, and an Acadian member from Richmond, Isidore LeBlanc. Not a single member opposed the resolution, and it carried unanimously.142 There was no hint whatsoever of the debates and dissension that had wrecked Newfoundland’s attempt at a similar motion. Irish Home Rule was perceived as an important imperial concern, and support for the measure transcended ethnicity and religion. While Nova Scotia’s assembly passed the pro–Home Rule resolution without any drama, the Irish Question was becoming a contentious issue in the Canadian Parliament, and this occasionally evoked responses in the Halifax papers. The debates of 1886 and 1887 were not the first time the affairs of Ireland had become a national political issue in Canada. In April 1882, John Costigan, an IrishCatholic Conservative Member of Parliament from New Brunswick, introduced a pro–Home Rule resolution in the House of Commons. Prime Minster John A. Macdonald feared that the “Costigan Resolutions” could become a major source of embarrassment for the federal Conservatives since opposing them could alienate Irish-Catholic electoral support and endorsing them could spark disharmony between Ottawa and Westminster.143 Rather than allow a potentially divisive debate, Macdonald had the resolutions toned down, such that they did not call for immediate Home Rule to be granted to Ireland. On 20 April 1882, the amended versions were introduced and passed unanimously.144 In Halifax, the city’s Catholics supported the federal government’s action on Home Rule. The CIS held a special meeting on 24 March to discuss a potential House of Commons resolution on Irish affairs. The members pledged that the Irish people were entitled to the same system of government that Canadians enjoyed and requested “that the House of Commons [pass] a resolution in favour of Home Rule.” Furthermore, they specifically called upon Halifax’s federal Members of Parliament to support the measure.145 The 1882 debates set the manner in which the Irish Question would be discussed in Ottawa for the remainder of the decade. Those who supported the Canadian government’s calls for Home Rule believed in extending the political benefits of Canadian federalism to Ireland, while those opposed – such as the editor and correspondents to the Halifax Morning Chronicle in 1882 – claimed that imperial issues were beyond the purview of the federal House of Commons.146 In 1886, the Irish Question again came before the Canadian Parliament. In this instance, it was one of the country’s most prominent

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Liberals, Edward Blake, who took the lead in introducing a strong, pro–Home Rule resolution. Blake was the Canadian-born son of an Anglo-Irish landlord. Over the course of his political career, he had become a staunch advocate of self-government for Ireland, resembling in many ways a “Canadian Parnell.”147 For him, the Irish Question was central to Canada for two reasons. First, a resolution on Ireland would be an example of Canadian independence and symbolize Canada’s influential voice in the affairs of the Empire. Second, support for a Dublin parliament would represent an endorsement of Canadian federalism in an era when federal-provincial relations were very much at the forefront of national political consciousness. Therefore, Blake and the Liberals promoted Irish Home Rule as a non-ethnic question that was relevant to all Canadians, regardless of ancestry or religion.148 Macdonald, who advocated a strong, centralized federal government was keen to avoid all discussions of the Irish Question in Ottawa as support for Home Rule could parallel support for enhanced provincial rights within Canadian Confederation.149 In a reversal of 1882, John Costigan, motivated by his close ties to Macdonald, introduced an amendment downplaying the calls for Irish self-government. This amended version was passed by the house.150 In Nova Scotia, the 1886 federal debates about Ireland were overshadowed by the furore over repeal, and commentary on Blake’s resolutions tended to fall along party lines. Both sides claimed to support the principles of Home Rule. Nova Scotia’s Liberals supported Blake’s original motion, stating that as an imperial issue, colonial assemblies were well within their rights to debate the question. Conservatives, meanwhile, supported Costigan’s amendments.151 Nova Scotia’s federal representatives were more directly involved when the Irish Question was again debated in the House of Commons in 1887. T.E. Kenny had made his support of Home Rule a feature of the campaign that saw him elected as a member for the city earlier that year.152 J.J. Curran, a Conservative Irish-Catholic Member of Parliament from Montreal, introduced pro–Home Rule resolutions. Support for the motion on this occasion was not influenced by party as the Conservatives were split on the issue. The Herald praised Kenny for his eloquent speech in defence of Curran’s resolutions. He lauded Canadian federalism and stated “it would be a wise, prudent and gracious act to give Ireland the same privileges and local government as Canada enjoys.” Kenny went on to condemn British coercion in Ireland and concluded with his hope that “the dark days of Ire-

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land’s trouble were passing by, and a brighter day was beginning to dawn.”153 This was the last time that Irish affairs were debated in the Canadian Parliament. Blake left the country in 1892 to take a seat at Westminster representing the IPP.154 The final public act of Parnellite support in Halifax paralleled that in St John’s: participation in the indemnity fund in 1889. An initial appeal for funds appeared in late January. The effort was promoted as in keeping with those taking place elsewhere in Canada; although door-to-door canvassing would not occur, the residents of Halifax were encouraged to do their share and donate liberally. The Herald published appeals by some of the city’s prominent Catholics, led by Archbishop O’Brien and including T.E. Kenny and Mayor Patrick O’Mullin. The archbishop pledged $50, as did T.E. Kenny and his father, Sir Edward. James Butler, who served as treasurer, was the top subscriber with $100.155 The fundraising appears to have been successful. A letter to the Herald from Butler boasted that the contributions “greatly surpassed any Irish political collection yet made in this province,” apparently raising “three or four times as much money as has henceforth been raised by the most pressing appeal.”156 The fund closed on 20 March 1889, and though the final amount sent to the Dublin treasurer was not given, its success suggests that Parnell remained a popular figure in Halifax even after the failure of the first Home Rule Bill.157 Support for Home Rule in Halifax generally transcended class and ethnoreligious boundaries. Opposition to the measure did exist, although it lacked the institutional support of an organization like the Orange Order, which, though it was active in the city, remained publicly silent on Irish affairs. Most anti-nationalist sentiment that appeared in the local press specifically opposed revolutionary Irish nationalism. In the wake of a series of Fenian dynamite attacks on London in late January 1885, the Morning Chronicle published a series of blistering editorials condemning the atrocities. One passage argued that it was the “duty of all Irishmen to constitute themselves detectives to help bring the criminals to justice” and “to purge the world … of those that have brought disgrace against their good name.158 The tensions that existed throughout the Empire as a result of the dynamite attacks peaked in Halifax a month later when rumours of an impending Fenian attack on the city spread. Stories abounded that the lieutenant-governor had received threatening letters and that shadowy figures had been observed hanging around the powder magazines,

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but no violence ever took place.159 Despite consistent condemnation of radical nationalism, anti-Parnell opinions were rarely expressed publicly. The Chronicle occasionally attacked the INL, noting on one occasion that “a majority of the people earnestly desire to be freed from the grinding tyranny of the League, and would rejoice at its suppression,” but editorials and letters condemning Home Rule were extremely rare.160 Responses to Parnell’s fall from grace and death were scarce in Halifax. The INL fell silent, perhaps suggesting some disillusionment with events in the old country. The Chronicle’s editor lamented that his “patriotism did not match his pluck, and that he did not voluntarily and at the right moment give up his personal position for the sake of the cause to which he had previously rendered such brilliant service.”161 The most significant local response in Halifax came from Archbishop O’Brien, who had previously been a strong supporter of Parnell and the IPP. In an interview with the Herald, O’Brien stated that although Parnell had been a tremendous servant to Home Rule, “there is no consideration under which he can continue to lead the Irish people” and that he would find it “impossible to succeed against the moral forces now arrayed against him.”162 Responses to his death were almost entirely limited to narrative, telegraphed press reports. Local debate over his legacy, which had taken place in St John’s, was absent in Halifax. In Portland, support for Parnell varied considerably throughout the 1880s. There were episodes of widespread popular enthusiasm, while at the same time attempts to organize a local branch of the INL faltered. Those who did express public support for Irish self-government were keen to emphasize the respectability of the Home Rule struggle. Adherence to physical-force nationalism was almost non-existent during this decade.163 As pointed out by a Portland Press editorial, which was reprinted in the Halifax Herald, the city’s radical Clan na Gael branches were defunct by the late 1880s.164 Land League enthusiasm in Portland continued well after the Kilmainham Treaty. It was not until April 1883, when league president J.A. Gallagher returned from the national convention in Philadelphia, that a change in the organizational framework was discussed. At a meeting on 30 April, a committee was formed to organize a new branch of the INL. It was formally established at an assembly on 8 June where a constitution was adopted and a new executive elected. J.J. Lynch, an attorney, was selected as president. The new organization

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did not possess a separate women’s branch, but members of the Ladies’ Land League were invited to join the new INL.165 The association went quickly to work, and on 31 July, as part of a broader United States tour, the former secretary of the Land League in Ireland, Thomas Brennan, gave a lecture on Home Rule. The event was well attended, and many were reported to have signed the membership roll of the INL.166 After 1883, the fate of the Portland INL becomes rather murky as references to the organization led by Lynch disappeared from the local press. In late September 1884, a letter appeared in the Argus announcing a public meeting to organize a new branch of the INL in Portland to provide “moral and financial aid” to those fighting for Ireland’s freedom.167 The following day, the paper printed a memo from the Nebraska-based national executive of the INL, detailing how a local branch should be organized and calling for a parliamentary fund for the IPP to be held in each community. Again, though, the renewed calls for a Portland branch of the INL do not appear to have been successful as there were no further references to a local organization that year.168 Late 1885 finally saw more successful efforts to organize the city’s Irish nationalists. A committee led by J.A. Gallagher, the former Land League president, calling itself the “Irish American Union of Portland” attempted to establish a fundraising drive to assist Parnell’s “heroic struggle” for Home Rule. Collectors were named for each of Portland’s urban wards. On 14 November, an appeal for funds was issued in the Argus from the executive of the new society, calling on Irish Catholics to provide their share of monetary aid, as was being done in cities and towns throughout New England.169 This movement was again slow to gain momentum, and no initial list of subscribers was published. However, sufficient interest in Irish affairs was generated to revive the old 1883 INL branch. A key factor in its re-establishment was the presence of Quebec’s John P. Sutton, who had been essential in the organization of the Halifax mass meeting several weeks earlier. Sutton arrived in Portland and gave a public talk urging all present to join the re-formed INL. His presence is particularly interesting, since it is another example of Portland’s connection to Irish-Canadian nationalist networks via the Grand Trunk Railway. The meeting closed with a number of generous subscriptions to the parliamentary fund.170 A meeting of the INL took place a few days after Sutton’s lecture, and it was declared that all who had donated to the parliamentary

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fund were members of the new local chapter and that an official charter would be obtained from the national executive.171 By Christmas, treasurer W.H. Looney had sent $127 to the national organization for a charter, which was received by 1 January 1886. The results of December’s fundraising drive saw $443.25 raised for the IPP, with Bishop James Augustine Healy and other Catholic clergymen amongst the top subscribers.172 From this point, local support for Parnell and Home Rule increased. As was the case with the Land League, liberal Yankee newspaper editors, such as the Argus’s John M. Adams, pledged their support, praising Parnell’s “magnificent generalship” in one editorial.173 But the most significant example of popular support for Irish nationalism in Portland was a mass meeting on 1 June 1886. The event was called “for the purpose of expressing the feelings of the people of Portland regarding Home Rule for Ireland.” The organizers – the local branch of the INL – hoped that it would command broad interest. Although the question was a foreign one for most residents, all of them were “bound to the mother countries – England, Scotland and Ireland – by the strong ties of kinship.”174 The assembly was organized by some of the city’s most influential Irishmen: Charles McCarthy Jr, William H. Looney, and J.J. Lynch. Speeches in favour of Home Rule were made by a number of prominent speakers, including the governor of Maine, Frederick Robie. His talk focused on a theme frequently observed in British North America: that selfgovernment should be a universal right, as had been the case for the citizens of Maine for generations. Following a number of other patriotic lectures, including one by Boston’s John F. Fitzgerald, maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, a general resolution of support was unanimously passed. It pledged Portland’s sympathy for Parnell and Gladstone for the “double reason that it released a people from bondage, and practically asserts the American doctrine upon which our union was founded – that states have the right to regulate their own domestic affairs.” Other ethnic associations followed suit, with the state AOH convention passing a pro–Home Rule measure several days later.175 As was the case in Halifax, the most significant nationalist speaker to come to Portland in the 1880s was Justin McCarthy.176 He gave a lecture at city hall on “the cause of Ireland” in which he asked that Irish Americans support “that which is the birthright of every American state,” the ability for Ireland to control its own domestic affairs.

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The lecture was well received by a large audience, but by this point the Home Rule Bill had failed, and as the surge in enthusiasm for Irish nationalism waned, so too did the INL organization in Portland.177 A final attempt to revive the Portland branch of the INL occurred in 1888. As in 1885, it was an outside speaker who reinvigorated the movement, and, again, he had recently spoken in Halifax. Sir Thomas Henry Grattan Esmonde, a nationalist Member of Parliament for South Dublin, gave a lengthy talk to the IARA in favour of Home Rule. He specifically appealed to the younger generation of Irish Americans to reorganize Portland’s branch of the INL and to ensure an energetic executive.178 Immediately, steps were taken to re-establish the organization. A meeting was called for 30 January to officially establish a new branch. W.H. Looney gave a pro–Home Rule address, and T.F. Donahue was elected president. Fifty people signed the new membership roll, and a fundraising drive, consisting of the sale of “Irish coercion certificates,” was planned.179 Collecting agents were named for each ward, and 500 coercion certificates were procured from the national INL organization for sale in Portland. Sales seem to have been slow but steady. By June, $200 had been remitted to the national treasurer. A list of subscribers was later published, with Bishop Healy again a top contributor – his $10 exceeded only by the $25 pledged by Irish-born saloon keeper Cornelius Connolly.180 On St Patrick’s Day 1889, new INL president Daniel O’Connell O’Donoghue, who had previously been the head of Portland’s Fenian “Circle,” gave a benefit lecture on the history of Ireland’s fight for self-government, while a final lecture on Home Rule was organized by the INL on 1 May.181After this point, organized activity declined. Local commentary on Parnell’s fall was extremely limited. One editorial in October 1890 noted that the national organization of the INL had effectively disbanded, and it seems as though no formal, organized responses to Irish affairs occurred in Portland in 1890 and 1891. A letter to the editor of the Argus defended the disgraced Irish leader, lamenting the fact that his associates had abandoned him when “the great cause for which he had laboured demanded their unanimous support.”182 Upon his death in October, the Argus’s editor chose to reflect on the positive aspects of his legacy rather than the ignominy of his final years.183 With Parnell’s passing, the enthusiastic but inconsistent support by the Irish Catholics of Portland for Home Rule ceased to be a public matter. It would be decades before explicitly Irish-nationalist associations were again formed in the city.

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The stuttering, stop-start nature of Irish-American nationalism in Portland is not particularly surprising when we consider patterns in evidence elsewhere in the United States at this time. In his study of the American responses to Parnell’s 1880 tour, Alan O’Day suggests that earlier historians such as Thomas Brown have exaggerated diasporic engagement with the politics of Ireland. Although support for Parnell, the Land League, and later the INL was considerable, it still only incorporated a small proportion of those of Irish birth and descent, suggesting a “largely ephemeral communal identity” in the late nineteenth century.184 O’Day links this relative apathy to aspects of Herbert Gans’s “symbolic ethnicity,” in which expressions of identity ceased to be part of everyday life, became associated with symbols, and potentially included short-term engagement with old-country politics. Certainly, this model resonates to some extent in Portland, as well as in St John’s and Halifax, though there are problems with applying symbolic ethnicity here. Irishness was far more than a “leisure activity” for many individuals of Irish descent in these three cities. As O’Day as well as other scholars of intergenerational ethnicity such as Conzen and Brubaker note, Gans’s model struggles to account for the rise-and-fall nature of Irish diasporic nationalism.185 Moving into the twentieth century, this waxing and waning of Irish ethnicity emerges as a key feature of the Irish experience in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland.

conclusion The strength of Irish nationalism in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland depended in large part on local leadership as well as on the associational and organizational networks that brought the Irish in the three cities into the greater, transnational movement for Home Rule. The evolution of these networks varied from place to place. In St John’s, diasporic nationalist associations did not take hold in the 1880s. Instead, the Catholic clergy acted as the key mediators in Irish Newfoundlanders’ involvement with the politics of their ancestral homeland. In Halifax, North American Irish nationalist organizations like the Land League and the INL dominated local responses to events in Ireland. There, as the contentious Land League agitation ceased, the Irish-Catholic elite as well as the clergy became increasingly involved with the Home Rule movement. In Portland, one sees the significant influence of the city’s most prominent Irish laymen, such as Charles

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McCarthy Jr, Frank W. Cunningham, and W.H. Looney: they were central to virtually every nationalist endeavour that took hold in the port. As in Halifax, associations such as the Land League, the Ladies’ Land League, and the stuttering INL were essential in organizing public involvement with events in Ireland. In St John’s and Halifax, expressions of Irish nationalism emerged within a strong imperial context. As such, support for physical-force methods or for an Irish Republic was non-existent. Portland nationalists also tended to be conservative and constitutional during the 1880s since leaders were keen to emphasize the respectability and legality of both the Land League and Parnellite nationalism. Although the United States provided a more hospitable environment for republican support, such views were rarely observed prior to the twentieth century, and even ex-Fenian Daniel O’Connell O’Donoghue came to support Dominion Home Rule during this period. Meanwhile, opposition to Home Rule was publicly expressed in only the two British North American centres, and only in St John’s did this have any institutional backing, through the anti-nationalist resolutions of the Orange Order. In Portland, where the Irish Question was seen by most as a foreign one, opinions against Irish self-government were hardly ever promoted. Nationalist networks in the three cities further demonstrate how the local communities connected to the broader diaspora. Surprisingly, for three Atlantic port cities where direct shipping links to Ireland existed, most of these networks were continental. Nationalist groups like the Land League and the INL were part of larger Irish-American and Canadian organizations, while Irish lecturers almost always – in the cases of Halifax and Portland at least – arrived by train from larger centres such as Boston, Montreal, or Quebec City. Such networks rarely crossed the Cabot Strait into Newfoundland, which accounts for the lack of formal institutional nationalism there. Support for Home Rule in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland in the late nineteenth century was broad, involving Catholics of Irish birth and descent as well as many of their Anglo-Protestant neighbours. Home Rule was the pre-eminent question in imperial politics, and one did not have to be of Irish descent in order to have a strong opinion, either for or against. Support for Home Rule could be an expression of liberalism, rather than ethnicity. Nevertheless, those of Irish descent often framed their nationalism in distinctly ethnic language, expressing a desire to extend the political liberties they enjoyed

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in North America to the land of their ancestors. Among the Irish, although expressions of nationalism in all three ports could involve considerable passion, the intensity of responses varied widely depending on time and local circumstances. The inconsistency suggests the presence of a symbolic ethnic identification with the Irish homeland rather than a strong, cohesive ethnic community. After 1891, support for Irish nationalism waned considerably in all three ports. Although a general interest in the affairs of Ireland was maintained, the Church, as well as ethnic and benevolent associations, resumed their roles as the primary “Irish” institutions in each city from the 1890s to the First World War.

4 The Changing Face of Ethnicity Waning Nationalism and the Catholic Church

A key aspect of this study is how both local and external institutions combined to create and reinvent Irish identities. Thus far, we have focused on the secular ethnic and benevolent associations that were prominent in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century St John’s, Halifax, and Portland as well as the nationalist organizations that connected those of Irish birth and descent to the transatlantic movement for Irish self-government. We now turn to the institution most directly responsible for creating and sustaining Irish-Catholic identities – the Roman Catholic Church. Following a brief survey of responses to Irish nationalism during the quiet years from 1891 to 1911, this chapter investigates how Catholics’ involvement with their faith sustained or complemented Irish identities. How did the clergy reinforce connections to the ancestral homeland? Was the local priesthood indigenized, or did clerics tend to be born or trained in Ireland? Did bishops and archbishops express Irish identities, and did their leadership within the Church help popularize interest in the affairs of the old country? Finally, how were young Catholics educated, and how did their experiences at school affect ethnic and national identities? In each case, the clergy served as key agents in maintaining connections between old world and new, though the “Irishness” of the Church was more significant in St John’s than in either Halifax or Portland, where identities as North American Catholics were reinforced far more directly than Irish ones.

waning nationalism, 1891–1911 Following the death of Parnell and the split in the IPP, the struggle for Home Rule was in disarray, both at home and abroad. In St John’s,

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Halifax, and Portland, enthusiasm for Irish nationalism waned in the 1890s and the first decade of the 1900s. Fewer editorials and letters to the editor appeared in local papers, while the nationalist organizations that had led local responses in the 1880s disappeared. However, engagement with Irish affairs did not cease altogether, and incidents took place in each city that demonstrate a continued, albeit diminished, interest in self-government for Ireland. In St John’s, the first Irish event to elicit a local response was the second Home Rule Bill of 1893. Gladstone had been re-elected with a small Liberal majority in 1892, and despite the disintegration of the IPP, he continued to press the agenda of Home Rule. The Bill was submitted in February 1893, but owing to Gladstone’s small parliamentary majority, a failure to address many of the weaknesses of the 1886 Bill, and continued opposition in the House of Lords, it had little chance of success.1 Compared to the flurry of local activity that surrounded the first Bill, reaction in St John’s was muted this time around. The Bill’s full details were published in the Evening Telegram following “several letters of inquiry,” while a few pieces appeared supporting the measure. Most of these were written in response to a local political scandal, which saw two Irish-born Conservative members of the opposition party speak out against Home Rule, much to the consternation of the Irish-Catholic population. One letter, signed “Clonmel,” condemned Moses Monroe and Maurice Fenelon, stating that “they are about the only two native born Irishmen in any of our colonies who would refuse to Ireland that Home Rule for which our brethren at home, outside of Mr Monroe’s birthplace in Ulster, are fighting for.”2 Editorials addressing this political controversy – which mirrored that of 1886 – reaffirmed the broad support in the colony for Home Rule. Monroe and Fenelon opposed Irish self-government in order to appease Protestant-Conservative politicians such as A.B. Morine, a Nova Scotian of Ulster-Protestant descent, whose “bitter antagonism to the ‘dear little shamrock’ [was] well known.” Realizing their political miscalculation, Fenelon, “with tears in his eyes,” publicly reversed his position, declaring that from now on he would be “the most ardent Home Ruler,” while Monroe seconded this sentiment.3 Responses were fairly limited, however, and the drama did not reach the heights of 1886. Interestingly, it was seldom acknowledged that Monroe came from an Ulster-Protestant background, while Fenelon was a Carlow-born Catholic. Both were equally vilified for betraying the principles of Dominion self-government. The overall

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reaction to the Home Rule Bill was quiet in St John’s, as no public meetings or speeches in favour of the measure took place. When it was predictably defeated in the House of Lords on 8 September, Newfoundland was in the midst of an election campaign, and there is no evidence of local public responses. The most direct involvement of St John’s Irish Catholics in the politics of their ancestral homeland during the 1890s was participation in the Irish Race Convention of 1896. The convention was largely inspired by Irish Americans and Irish Canadians who were “dismayed at the bickering in Ireland and concerned with the impact of feuding on Home Rule’s prospects.”4 The assembly met in Dublin from 1 to 3 September 1896, though its effectiveness was limited as members of the Parnellite faction, as well as supporters of T.M. Healy, refused to attend.5 In St John’s, a meeting was called for 12 August to discuss the colony’s participation. As in the 1880s, the clergy took a leading role, with Bishop Michael F. Howley presiding. The attendees determined that there would be one clerical and one lay representative from Newfoundland. Placentia’s Father Clancy, who had organized the Parnell indemnity fund in 1888, was chosen as the Church delegate, while the long-time BIS president, Tipperary-born merchant James D. Ryan, was selected as his companion. A committee was created to draft a pro–Home Rule statement on behalf of the Irish of Newfoundland; it included Bishop Howley, Brother Fleming of the Irish Christian Brothers, and Maurice Fenelon (apparently recovered from his anti–Home Rule stance of 1893).6 Delivered by Clancy in an address at the convention and printed in Dublin’s Freeman’s Journal and the St John’s Evening Telegram, the statement presented an eloquent appeal for unity in the struggle for Home Rule. Though the population of Newfoundland was small, Clancy maintained that the people were “animated with the same impulsive love of Ireland, the same great desire for Ireland’s freedom that the most bold-hearted in Ireland can possibly feel.” The speech highlighted the oft-expressed hope that a government similar to that of Newfoundland and the dominions could be established in Ireland.7 The colony’s participation in the 1896 convention is an example of a continued, active participation in transnational Irish networks by those of Irish descent. Although public enthusiasm appears to have waned, the Irish of Newfoundland continued to be part of the broader, pan-diasporic fight for Home Rule, largely thanks to the leadership of clergymen like Howley and Clancy.

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In 1898, Irish communities throughout the diaspora celebrated the centenary of the 1798 Rebellion. Commemorative events were held on St Patrick’s Day as well as in June to mark the peak of the fighting. Unlike Canadian centres such as Montreal, St John’s saw no public event memorializing the Rebellion.8 A lack of organization and leadership may have contributed, as well as the absence of transnational organizations such as the AOH, which led the Montreal celebration, but a strong aversion to physical-force nationalism also appears to have been a factor. In an address praised for its “force and patriotism,” Bishop Howley’s St Patrick’s Day sermon provided the only public acknowledgement of the centenary. Citing a nationalist poem, he proclaimed that unlike some in the city, he was not one who “feared to speak of ’98.” The bishop claimed he could not understand the attitudes of those “calling themselves descendants of Irishmen who would attempt to decry or make little of that glorious struggle for liberty, and the resentment of centuries of oppression by an outraged people.”9 Howley’s words suggest that, particularly among the Catholic elite, there was a reluctance to publicly mark the anniversary, perhaps due to the social and political ramifications of any accusations of disloyalty. The anniversary of 1798 passed in St John’s with little fanfare. After 1900, despite the reunification of the IPP under John Redmond, there was little public engagement with Irish affairs in St John’s. Lectures on Irish history and nationalism continued in the early twentieth century, with the most notable examples surrounding the 1906 centenary of the BIS. Several addresses on Irish affairs took place, including a lengthy historical talk by Bishop Howley on the legacy of 1798.10 Though enthusiasm for Ireland’s political destiny was less than it had been in the 1880s, it had not altogether disappeared by 1910, and the stage was set for a younger generation of Irish-Catholic Newfoundlanders to respond to the changing nature of Irish nationalism during the First World War and after. Of the three cities examined here, Halifax saw the most sustained involvement with Irish affairs in the twenty years after Parnell’s death. In the 1880s, nationalist organizations like the Land League and the INL had flourished in the city, but by the 1890s, these had ceased to exist. Instead, the Catholic elite of the CIS were foremost in promoting Haligonians’ engagement with Irish affairs. As in St John’s, responses in Halifax to the second Home Rule Bill were few. Numerous telegraphed reports from London and occa-

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sional narrative editorials appeared in the local papers, but these hardly ever contained any distinguishable local reaction. The first organized involvement with the politics of the old country occurred in 1894, when a special meeting of the CIS was called to organize an Irish parliamentary fund. The attendance was quite different from the meetings of the Land League in the early 1880s, with the clergy and Catholic elite dominating the proceedings. Archbishop O’Brien presided and gave an address on Home Rule before collectors were appointed for each of the city’s urban wards. An organizing committee was named and included Lieutenant-Governor M.B. Daly, T.E. Kenny, Senator Lawrence Geoffrey Power, and Mayor Michael Edwin Keefe. In addition to the CIS members, representatives from Halifax’s other Catholic societies were represented, including the CMBA and the St Mary’s and St Patrick temperance societies.11 Unfortunately, the outcome of these efforts was not reported in the newspapers or the CIS minute book. It does, however, point to the leading role Halifax’s oldest Irish ethnic society was taking in mediating responses to Irish nationalism. Like St John’s, Halifax sent representatives to the 1896 Irish Race Convention in Dublin. The delegates were James J. O’Brien, a prominent businessman, city alderman, and the long-time secretary of the CIS; and Father William J. Foley, who would go on to serve as the rector of St Mary’s Cathedral from 1908 to 1926. O’Brien was born in Halifax of Irish parents – his father, Daniel, had emigrated from Cork – and was described as being “to the end of his life the uncompromising champion of Ireland, and passionately loyal to her.”12 Foley was likewise Halifax born, and educated in Montreal. An avowed Home Ruler, he wrote biographical sketches of leading Irish nationalists for the Herald in the 1880s and was later described by that paper as “essentially and characteristically Irish in personality and sympathies.”13 Like Newfoundland’s Father Clancy, Foley addressed the convention on its opening day. His speech emphasized the commitment of Nova Scotia’s Irish population to Home Rule and their love for the ancestral homeland, and begged the assembly to overcome the divisions of the past in order to build a “platform on which all nationalists can stand.”14 Halifax’s involvement, like Newfoundland’s, demonstrates a continued, direct engagement in Irishdiasporic networks on the part of the Catholics of that city – a moment where Irish identities extended beyond the local level and intersected with the broader nationalist movement.

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The next example of public engagement with Ireland took place in 1897, when Edward Blake, a Canadian-born IPP MP, wrote to the CIS executive calling on them to arrange another parliamentary fund. Societal minutes suggest that a drive was organized, but no record of it appeared in the newspapers, so its scope must have been quite limited – perhaps only within the CIS.15 While the centenary of 1798 was quiet in St John’s, its commemoration in Halifax was virtually non-existent. This is surprising given the CIS’s continued interest in Irish affairs in the 1890s. It seems likely that, as in St John’s, an aversion to physical-force nationalism and a desire on the part of the city’s Irish-Catholic elite to emphasize imperial loyalty were factors. At St Patrick’s Day banquets across North America, Irish societies respectfully acknowledged the United Irishmen – but not in Halifax. Not only did the CIS fail to recognize the Rebellion but they also celebrated a different centenary, that of a 1798 visit by the Duke of Kent, where he was honoured with a societal dinner.16 That the CIS appear to have deliberately shunned the United Irishmen’s centenary in favour of marking a royal visit suggests a strong condemnation of the physical-force tradition. The society’s continued participation in Ireland’s struggle for Home Rule through the 1890s suggests that enthusiasm for the cause of the old country was high, but this support evolved within a staunchly imperialistic framework. At this point, backing for revolutionary nationalism did not exist, at least not amongst those who registered their opinions publicly, such as the middle-class members of the CIS. The first decade of the twentieth century was a quiet one for Irish nationalism in Halifax. There is no record of a branch of William O’Brien’s nationalist organization, the United Irish League (UIL), having been established in the city, and so the CIS continued to lead local responses to the Irish struggle. The most significant event to occur in Halifax prior to the Home Rule crisis of 1912–14 was the visit of Liverpool’s Irish Nationalist MP T.P. O’Connor in November 1910. Enthusiasm for Home Rule was growing again in Ireland and throughout the diaspora. A budgetary crisis at Westminster, precipitated by the Liberal Party’s desire to eliminate the veto of the House of Lords, resulted in elections that gave John Redmond’s IPP the balance of power. An agreement with Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, in addition to the passing of the 1911 Parliament Act, which removed the House of Lords’ power to veto legislation, made the prospects for Home Rule very bright by the beginning of that year.17

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In the midst of this growing enthusiasm, O’Connor came to Halifax on the last stop of a Canadian tour. Like Justin McCarthy twenty years before, the Liverpool MP received a lavish welcome from the CIS. On 3 November, he addressed a large crowd at the city’s Academy of Music. Many of Halifax’s most notable citizens were present on the stage, including Archbishop Edward McCarthy as well as most of the city’s Catholic clergy. The mayor, Halifax’s federal members of Parliament, Archdeacon Armitage of the Church of England, Nova Scotia’s chief justice, several senators, and the executive of the CIS were also involved. The Acadian Recorder called it “one of the largest and most representative crowds ever brought together for a public occasion.” O’Connor’s speech passionately supported Home Rule, praised Canadian federalism, and echoed a theme of McCarthy’s talk in the city in 1886 by highlighting the applicability of a Canadian-style dominion government to Ireland – a common aspect of British North American responses to the Irish Question.18 One of T.P. O’Connor’s final acts in the city was to attend a banquet in his honour given by Halifax’s Scottish ethnic association, the North British Society, where members praised his passion and commitment to Irish Home Rule.19 As in Newfoundland, support for self-government for Ireland was broad and non-sectarian – and the widespread enthusiasm demonstrates Haligonians’ interest in one of imperial politics’ most important questions. For those of Irish descent, though, the visit prompted a more direct engagement with Irish politics through the city’s ethnic networks: the CIS organized another fundraising campaign for Redmond’s IPP. In February 1911, $625 was sent to Ireland, with a further $100 remitted in the following weeks.20 While Halifax saw the greatest participation in Irish affairs between 1892 and 1911, Portland appears to have seen the least. Interest and engagement in the old country’s politics undoubtedly existed, but due to the city’s position outside of the British Empire, the Yankeeowned newspapers perceived Irish Home Rule as a foreign and distant issue and, therefore, hardly ever published letters or editorials on the subject. Furthermore, the absence of associational records, such as those of the AOH, means that Portland’s responses to Irish nationalism in this period are difficult to assess. Reaction to the second Home Rule Bill was limited to telegraphed press reports from Britain and narrative newspaper editorials. Like Halifax, the 1798 centenary does not seem to have been publicly marked. St Patrick’s Day was observed “in a quiet manner” that year,

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with no additional parades or celebrations planned. Instead, as they did on several occasions around the turn of the century, a delegation of 400 Portland Hibernian Knights – the uniformed division of the AOH – went to Montreal to participate in that city’s grand event on 26 June.21 The most significant engagement with Irish nationalism in turn-ofthe-century Portland was the visit of John Redmond and nationalist Lord Mayor of Dublin Daniel Tallon in late 1899. The touring nationalists arrived in Portland on 5 November, met by Charles McCarthy Jr and former Fenian and INL president Daniel O’Connell O’Donoghue. The purpose of their tour was to raise funds for a monument to Charles Stewart Parnell in Dublin and to purchase his family’s estate at Avondale.22 Their speeches, delivered to over 800 people at city hall, were primarily historical and thoroughly constitutional in tone, focusing on Daniel O’Connell, “the mention of whose name had a magical effect on the audience,” as well as Parnell’s own legacy. Redmond discussed how Parnell had “made the Irish tenantry free men instead of abject slaves” and had “forced the English people to recognize the national rights of Ireland.” A collection was taken at the meeting, though no final tally was published.23 Lectures on Irish affairs continued throughout this period. On St Patrick’s Day 1900, during the customary concert at city hall, Michael T. O’Brion of Lawrence, Massachusetts, whose brother was rector of the Cathedral in Portland, gave a short speech on the Home Rule movement. This displayed a far more Anglophobic nationalism than was seen in Halifax or St John’s around the turn of the century. In making a case for Irish independence, O’Brion noted how those of Irish birth and descent had been at the forefront of many battles for freedom, such as the American Revolution and the Civil War – rhetoric that was a common feature of global Irish nationalism in the late nineteenth century. To loud cheers and applause, he concluded by asking, “where, my friends, has there ever been a struggle for liberty in which the Irishmen were not in the front, whether in America or with the brave Boers in the Transvaal?”24 Nevertheless, no branch of the Church-backed, middle-class United Irish League of America (UILA) was established in Portland – unsurprising, given the struggles of the INL to maintain an active presence in the city.25 For some Irish Catholics, passion for nationalism and Home Rule was undoubtedly maintained, but in the wake of Parnell’s death there was no leadership or mechanism to facilitate its public

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expression. Portland, then, despite seeing the greatest levels of nationalist organizations and support in the 1880s, does not appear to have maintained such public support during the twenty years thereafter.

the catholic church and irish identity in st john’s, halifax, and portland As the nationalist associations that had led engagement with Irish affairs in the 1880s and early 1890s faded, other institutions emerged to lead and nurture the ethnic connection with Ireland. Foremost amongst them was the Catholic Church. There can be no doubt that for Irish immigrants and their descendants, religion and ethnicity were closely intertwined. An individual’s faith, whether Catholic or Protestant, could come to embody different, frequently oppositional, cultural identities. For the Catholic diaspora, as with many other immigrant populations, the Church became an essential institution in the adjustment to a new setting – a “centre around which they organized.”26 More than any other organization or association, it was the Catholic parish that formed the basis of an ethnic community, capable of transcending both class and gender by bringing large numbers of Irish men and women together in worship, lay sodalities, and other associations.27 In the United States, Canada, and Newfoundland, religion was the most tangible aspect of Irishness passed from one generation to the next, and it was essential in fostering new, North American identities while at the same time subtly reinforcing awareness of ethnic origins. By the late nineteenth century, the Catholic Church in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland was developing an increasingly North American focus. A persistent theme in the historiography of the Irish diaspora during this period has been the gradual transition from predominantly Irish identities to less-ethnic, nationally focused Newfoundland-, Canadian-, or American-Catholic ones.28 I argue here, however, that a symbolic, romantic ethnic affiliation to Ireland persisted for many Catholics well into the twentieth century. In all three cities, the Church and its personnel remained connected to Ireland throughout the period and served to remind those of Irish descent of their ethnic origins, though the strength and significance of these Irish connections varied considerably. The most significant feature of late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury Catholic life in North America was the growth of devotional,

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ultramontane Catholicism. As noted by Ann Taves and Brian Clarke, by this period the faith was largely standardized, international, and free of national or cultural particularities.29 Social and spiritual life were closely connected to the parish, and in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, associations such as the CMBA, St Joseph’s Catholic Institute, Society of St Vincent de Paul, or parish temperance societies promoted a devout, ultramontane, non-ethnic Catholicism. For the communities studied here, it was not the religion itself – liturgies, devotions, sodalities, or confraternities – that complemented and reinforced Catholics’ sense of Irish identity. Instead, it was the clergy, particularly those of Irish birth or descent, who nurtured popular connections to Ireland from the 1880s into the twentieth century. The focus of this analysis, then, is on the clergy of each city, and how they used their influential positions within the Church to promote particular visions of Irish ethnicity, and how these existed comfortably alongside other loyalties and identities. Catholicism did indeed serve as one of the “twin pillars” of Irish-Catholic identity,30 but it was through its personnel – and, especially, their leadership of local Irish nationalism rather than the day-to-day practice of religion – that connections to the old land were maintained. From its inception, the Catholic Church in Newfoundland maintained a distinctly Irish orientation. The late eighteenth century saw a relaxation of the anti-Catholic penal laws, and faced with growing Irish settlement in St John’s, Governor John Campbell allowed the construction of a chapel in 1783. Not long after, some of the town’s wealthier Irish merchants petitioned the bishop of Waterford and Lismore, William Egan, to send a priest to oversee the establishment of an organized Catholic Church in Newfoundland. They specifically requested that popular, Tipperary-born Franciscan James Louis O’Donel be dispatched to lead the mission. Egan and James Talbot, vicar apostolic of London, who was at that time responsible for the Church in Newfoundland, acquiesced, and the island was established as a separate ecclesiastical territory with O’Donel as prefect apostolic. The establishment of the Church in Newfoundland, therefore, owed much to the links between the Catholics of St John’s and the southeast of Ireland, and these networks would be maintained throughout the nineteenth century.31 The early years of O’Donel’s tenure were fractious, as some priests resented being placed under his supervision, while naval governors frequently exhibited hostility towards the expansion of Catholicism.

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Nevertheless, the Church continued to grow in the late eighteenth century, and several other Irish-speaking priests arrived from Ireland to serve St John’s as well as outport communities such as Ferryland, Placentia, and Harbour Grace. In 1796, O’Donel was elevated to the status of bishop, but after 1800, his health began to decline, and on 1 January 1807, he resigned and returned to Ireland. O’Donel’s successor, Patrick Lambert, was another Irish Franciscan and served as bishop until 1815, when he was replaced by his fellow Wexford-native Thomas Scallan. Catholicism in Newfoundland was, at this stage, far from unified. Bitter factional feuds, often between immigrants from Leinster and those from Munster, prevented the development of a homogenous Irish-Catholic identity. It was Scallan’s successor, Michael Anthony Fleming, who began to forge a unified Catholicism on the island, with its Irishness as a key characteristic.32 Born near Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, in 1797, Fleming first came to Newfoundland in 1823, where he served as a priest in St John’s under Scallan. As the bishop’s health failed, Fleming was named coadjutor and then, upon Scallan’s death in 1830, succeeded him as vicar apostolic. In order to expand and unify the Church, Fleming looked almost exclusively to Ireland. His objective was the creation of a unified Newfoundland Catholicism, sustained by a strong, independent community, “unencumbered by Protestant or British intermeddling.”33 To fortify the Church’s presence on the island, priests were recruited from Ireland, usually from the southeast. He discouraged the development of a native-born, Newfoundland clergy, believing that “the missioners best-suited to this country are those who have hitherto served it, namely young men drafted from Irish colleges.”34 To strengthen the Church, and in keeping with its Irish character, Fleming recruited teaching orders from Ireland – the Presentation Sisters, the Sisters of Mercy and, briefly, a community of Franciscan Brothers – to educate young Catholics. By his death in 1850, virtually all priests were Irish-born or -trained, and young Catholics were taught by Irish nuns or brothers.35 The Church had become “the central part of Irish ethnic identity and culture, acting as a means of preserving both.”36 It was under Fleming’s successor, Limerick’s John Thomas Mullock, whom Carolyn Lambert describes as a “champion of Newfoundland’s progress,”37 that a native, more Newfoundland-focused Catholic Church began to emerge. The island’s earliest bishops had made some attempts to encourage both immigrant and native-born

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Newfoundlanders into the clergy. Bishop Lambert, for example, sent several young men from St John’s to the Séminaire de Québec between 1808 and 1815, but only two, James Sinnott and Willam Herron (or Hearn), both Irish-born, were ordained.38 It was not until Mullock’s era that native-born Catholics began to serve as priests on the island, and the Church began to reflect a more Newfoundlandoriented identity.39 The process of clerical indigenization was slow. In 1857, the bishop established a seminary at St Bonaventure’s College, but in its early years, only a handful of native priests studied there. Instead, most prospective candidates went to Europe, particularly to All Hallows College in Dublin, or the Irish College in Rome.40 Lambert’s research on clerical indigenization in St John’s suggests that by the beginning of this period, the priests serving the city continued, overwhelmingly, to be born in Ireland. She traced twenty-seven priests who served the two urban parishes – the Cathedral and St Patrick’s – from 1844 to 1890 and found that only six were born in Newfoundland. Five of these had been born after 1868. Most were from either Kilkenny or Tipperary, demonstrating the continued links between the St John’s Church and the traditional Irish-Newfoundland homeland.41 Joining these Irish priests were Irish nuns as well as the Irish Christian Brothers, who came to the colony in 1876.42 In the 1880s, the Catholic Church in St John’s remained “essentially Irish in character,” and religion and ethnicity were “inextricably linked.”43 The transformation to a more Newfoundland-oriented Church was underway, however, so one of the central questions of this chapter is in what ways did the Church continue to instill a sense of Irish identity amongst its adherents in St John’s? It was the city’s Irishborn churchmen who frequently took the lead in encouraging popular engagement with Irish affairs. Through their efforts, successive generations of St John’s Catholics were continually reminded of their ethnic origins as well as the political problems of their ancestral homeland. Using a method similar to Carolyn Lambert’s, it is possible to trace the process of clerical indigenization in St John’s urban parishes – the Cathedral, St Patrick’s, and, later, St Joseph’s. The Newfoundland Almanac and Yearbook provides full clergy lists for the period, and examining these at ten-year intervals from 1881 to 1921 yields a sample of thirty-two Catholic priests who served the city. By crossreferencing this list with Monsignor Francis A. Coady’s excellent biographical files on deceased Newfoundland clergy, the changing

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Table 4.1 Origins of Catholic priests serving the city of St John’s, selected years between 1881 and 1921 Year

Irish-born priests

Newfoundlandborn priests

Other priests

% born in Newfoundland

1881 1891 1901 1911 1921

2 6 3 3 2

2 0 3 5 7

0 1 1 0 0

50.0 0.0 43.0 63.0 78.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: The Newfoundland Almanac, 1881; A Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1891; 1901; 1911; Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1921; Coady, ed., Lives Recalled.

Table 4.2 Origins of Catholic priests serving the diocese of St John’s, selected years between 1881 and 1921 Year

Irish-born priests

Newfoundlandborn priests

Other priests

% born in Newfoundland

1881 1891 1901 1911 1921

18 15 9 9 6

9 11 17 21 25

0 1 1 2 2

33.0 41.0 63.0 66.0 76.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: The Newfoundland Almanac, 1881; A Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1891; 1901; 1911; Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1921; Coady, ed., Lives Recalled.

nature of the St John’s Church can be analyzed. Of the thirty-two priests recorded, eleven were born in Ireland, nineteen in Newfoundland, and two, Fathers Edmund Crook (or Cook) and Anthony Fyme, were from England and the Netherlands, respectively.44 Local clergy dominated during this period, though those born in Ireland were a significant minority. An analysis of the parish priests serving the city at various intervals throughout the period reveals the ongoing transition to a domestic clergy (see table 4.1). Although the two Newfoundland-born priests in 1881 – one of whom was future archbishop Michael F. Howley – present a surprising statistic, we see a general rise in the proportion of domestic clerics throughout the period. By the

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twentieth century, clergymen born in Ireland such as Daniel O’Callaghan, Peter Sheehan, and Monsignor J.J. McDermott were a decreasing minority. A similar analysis of the clergy who served the entire diocese reveals an even more pronounced trend towards clerical indigenization (see table 4.2). Newfoundland-born priests dominated the clerical ranks by the end of our period. Some had trained in Ireland and were thereby afforded an opportunity to enhance or develop an affinity for their ancestral homeland. In his history of All Hallow’s College, Kevin Condon notes that “the greatest number of missionaries went to Newfoundland – almost thirty up to 1891. But of these, two-thirds came over from Newfoundland to do their studies in All Hallows – a practice which has continued to the present day.”45 Training at Irish seminaries, as well as the Irish College in Rome, could have a significant influence on how young Irish-Newfoundland priests engaged with Ireland and Irish nationalism, though it is difficult to assess the specific impact of clerical education at the various locations. Reflecting on his training at the Dublin college, Richard V. Howley, brother of Michael, highlighted the nationalist spirit that abounded there in the mid-nineteenth century: “The memory and the mood of ’48 were alive and burning in those young breasts. The College was an essentially Irish College instinct with patriotism.46 All Hallows was known to imbue its pupils with a strident nationalist support.47 Table 4.3 demonstrates that, although most travelled to Europe rather than Canada or the United States for their education, a minority actually completed their theological studies in Ireland. Only six of the nineteen Newfoundland-born priests examined here studied in Ireland, and of the seven serving the city in 1921, none had trained there. Clerical links to Ireland were diminishing, though they had not died out completely. Perhaps more than any other individual, Newfoundland’s first native-born bishop, Michael Francis Howley, epitomizes the shift in Church orientation from Irish to domestic. Howley was renowned for both his Newfoundland and imperial patriotism, but frequently expressed his esteem and admiration for his ancestral homeland. As such, he exemplifies the tripartite sentiment shared by many Catholics in St John’s around the turn of the twentieth century: pride and passion for Newfoundland, for the British Empire, and for Ireland. Like many young St John’s candidates for the priesthood, Howley received his formative education in the town, where he was one of

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Table 4.3 Training of Newfoundland-born clerics serving the city of St John’s, selected years between 1881 and 1921 Training location

Number of Newfoundlandborn candidates trained

Rome, Italy All Hallow’s, Dublin, Ireland Holy Heart Seminary, Halifax Mt Melleray, Cappoquin, Waterford, Ireland St Augustine’s Seminary, Toronto Louvain, Belgium Paris, France Total

7 4 2 2 2 1 1 19

Sources: The Newfoundland Almanac, 1881; 1886; A Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1891; 1896; 1901; 1906; 1911; 1916; Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1921; Coady, ed., Lives Recalled.

the first pupils at St Bonaventure’s College in 1858. He left that institution in 1863 and travelled to Rome, where he studied at the Urban College of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide. Ordained in 1868, the young Father Howley was initially stationed in Scotland, before returning to Newfoundland at the request of Bishop Power in 1870. Throughout the 1870s and early 1880s, he served in various parishes throughout the colony, and in 1886, he took charge of remote St George’s on the west coast of the island. There, he was a popular and effective administrator, and in the early 1890s, he emerged as the “principal spokesman” for western settlers in the debate over French fishing rights. By 1892, St George’s was elevated to a vicarate apostolic, and Howley was installed as Newfoundland’s first native-born bishop. After Power’s death, Howley returned to St John’s in 1894 to lead the Church there. Perhaps the greatest endorsement of his prominence and prestige, as well as the continuing growth of Newfoundland Catholicism, was the elevation of St John’s to an archdiocese in 1904, with Howley serving as the colony’s first archbishop.48 Long before his appointment as bishop, the young Howley frequently commented on Irish affairs, and his letters and lectures were often reprinted in St John’s newspapers. In 1885, for example, while visiting Pictou, Nova Scotia, he gave a St Patrick’s Day address focusing on the life and legacy of Ireland’s patron saint, as well as on the “centuries of wrong and oppression” of British rule in Ireland.49 Also,

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during his youth, Howley developed a keen interest in his Irish ancestry. On the Howley side, his ancestors came from Glengoole in County Tipperary, and throughout his career, he maintained correspondence with relatives in the old country and often collected papers relating to his genealogy.50 His emotional esteem for his ancestral homeland was reinforced by his relatively frequent trips to Ireland. In 1890, Howley gave a speech to a nationalist meeting in Kerry, where he addressed the assembly as “fellow countrymen,” noting that although not born in Ireland, he “belonged to a country which had always claimed for itself the proud honour of being called ‘the Ireland of the west.’” Howley elaborated on the connections between the two islands, concluding that, in many ways, Newfoundlanders were “more Irish than the Irish themselves.”51 In addition to his profound connection to Ireland, Howley’s 1890–91 Irish tour also exemplified his Newfoundland patriotism. Upon his return to the colony, he was roundly praised for convincing the Irish nationalist press of Newfoundland’s position on the French Shore Question.52 In 1902, the bishop made another trip to Ireland, touring the country extensively and spending several weeks in Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, and Cork.53 Back in St John’s, he gave a lecture at St Patrick’s Hall on his impressions of Ireland and the current state of the country – another example of clerical networks fostering a direct connection between those of Irish descent in St John’s and their ancestral homeland.54 Following his appointment as bishop, Howley continued to take an interest in Irish self-government. We have already noted his passionate address on the 1798 Rebellion on St Patrick’s Day 1898. The event was obviously a topic of great interest to Howley. In 1906, to mark the BIS centenary, he gave another address on 1798. Though an ardent constitutional nationalist, he glorified the romantic legacy of the United Irishmen before concluding with a passionate argument for Irish self-government.55 Howley maintained a strong sense of Irish ethnicity, but he is remembered most notably as a Newfoundland patriot. In addition to his advocacy for the colony’s position during the French Shore debates, he wrote and collected patriotic poetry, laid the cornerstone of Cabot Tower on Signal Hill to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Newfoundland’s rediscovery, and was heavily involved in the competition to select the Dominion’s national anthem.56 In his Ecclesiastical History, Howley’s tone demonstrates the pride he felt at the development of a homegrown, Newfoundland-centred Church under

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Mullock, as he suggested that Fleming’s successor held “wider and nobler views” when it came to fostering a domestic Catholicism.57 The archbishop was also an ardent imperialist. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1902 and frequently made strong appeals for Catholic loyalty to the Empire.58 The clergy were keen to maintain and promote amicable relations with their Anglo-Protestant fellow-Newfoundlanders as well as with colonial authorities. Because of this, they avoided actions that could potentially be deemed disloyal or seditious. Examples of clerical loyalty are many, but the best may be seen in the clergy’s participation in significant imperial celebrations, such as royal jubilees and accessions. In 1897, citizens of the Empire came together to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. On 21 June, a Pontifical High Mass was celebrated at the Cathedral, which was elaborately decorated in bunting and lights. A procession led by the orphans of Belvedere and students of the Presentation and Mercy convents and including members of the city’s most prominent Catholic societies – the SOS, the TABS, the Society of the Holy Name, and the BIS – as well as the bishop and local clergy, marched through the Cathedral grounds. Inside were hung banners displaying loyal slogans in English and Latin, such as “God Save Queen Victoria – Domine Salvam Fac Reginam Victoriam.” A marching band provided music for the occasion, and the Cathedral bells rang in celebration. At the conclusion of Mass, the congregation passionately sang “God Save the Queen.”59 A similar display of St John’s Catholic imperial identity occurred after Victoria’s death in 1901. On this occasion, Howley gave another sermon at the Cathedral on Catholics’ duty to the Empire. He emphasized the loyalty of St John’s Irish Catholics, stating that: “It is true that we, children of the Catholic Church in Newfoundland, differ in religious communion from our deceased sovereign. It is true that we (or at least many of us) are not of her race and nationality; but these facts do not in any way slacken the bonds of loyalty and fealty which bind us to the Church of the sovereign … The teachings of the Catholic Church, based as they are upon the inspired words of sacred writ, make it a fundamental principle of our faith to serve with truth, honour and respect the sovereign who rules us.”60 An almost identical message was preached in 1910 following the death of King Edward: “The Catholic Church has ever and always impressed upon her children the great maxim and precept of loyalty and obedience to the sovereign.” Again, the archbishop highlighted the compatibility between

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Irish ethnicity and British loyalty, stating, “to the country of our forefathers, to long-suffering Ireland and her people, he always showed himself sympathetic.”61 Although ethnic and religious differences were acknowledged, for Howley and the Newfoundland Church, loyalty to the monarchy and Empire was part of one’s most basic duty as a Catholic. There was absolutely no perceived conflict between loyalties to the Church, to Ireland, to Newfoundland, and to the Empire. Howley, therefore, represented and actively promoted a triple identity – Newfoundland, imperial, and Irish – espoused by many Catholics in St John’s in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Much like in St John’s, the Catholic Church hierarchy in Halifax maintained close connections to Ireland from the eighteenth century. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, these were not as strong as those observed in Newfoundland’s chief port, and the Church was more locally and Canadian oriented. Nevertheless, thanks largely to a small number of outspoken clergymen, both Irish- and Canadian-born, the Church continued to reinforce Catholic Haligonians’ awareness and engagement with Ireland throughout the period examined here. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Catholicism in Halifax, even more than in St John’s, reinforced settlers’ sense of ethnic distinctiveness. From the time that a number of prominent Irishmen successfully petitioned the Nova Scotian colonial legislature to lift its ban on Catholic Mass in 1784, the local Church was connected to Ireland.62 The ethnicity of its adherents was reinforced not only by continued Irish settlement in the city but also by the Halifax Church’s existence as an Irish enclave within a broader Nova Scotian institution dominated by French and Scottish Catholics and by the minority status of Irish Catholics in a predominantly AngloProtestant town.63 The city’s earliest resident priests were Irish and arrived following appeals from the city’s powerful Catholics to the archbishop of Cork. A Capuchin priest, James Jones, arrived in 1785 but returned to Ireland around 1800. He was succeeded by a Tipperary native, Dominican Edmund Burke, who had served in Placentia in Newfoundland before moving to Halifax.64 Father Burke also returned to Ireland and was replaced by his namesake, Edmund Burke, a native of Queen’s County (modern County Laois). He had been serving on the Great Lakes frontier – probably the first English-speaking priest to work there – when the bishop of Quebec selected him to serve the

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Irish Catholics of Halifax.65 Under Burke, Catholicism flourished in the town. A school was constructed, and swelled by increased settlement from Ireland and by Catholic soldiers in the garrison, his congregation grew.66 Perhaps the most significant feature of Burke’s tenure was his successful effort to have the Maritime region removed from Quebec’s jurisdiction. In 1817, after lengthy negotiations with Rome, Nova Scotia was declared a separate see, with Burke installed as vicar apostolic.67 From this point, the history of Catholicism in Nova Scotia became dominated by ethnic conflict between the Irish of Halifax and the Scots of Cape Breton and the east. For several years after his death, Burke was not replaced, and the Irish in Halifax demanded that a new bishop be sent from Ireland. Despite repeated attempts, no one agreed to take on the mission, so a Highland Scot, William Fraser, was appointed. To add insult to this perceived injury, Fraser chose to administer the diocese from the heavily Scottish community of Antigonish rather than move to Irish-dominated Halifax.68 In an attempt to placate the Haligonians, the bishop dispatched two Irish priests to the city, James Grant and John Loughnan, but throughout the 1830s, the town’s Catholics continued to protest to authorities in Ireland and Rome.69 In 1840, the Holy See sent Monsignor Antonio De Luca to Halifax to report on the situation. His comments highlighted the ethnic tensions within Nova Scotia and noted, in particular, the disaffection of “certain powerful Irishmen living in Halifax.”70 As a result of their influence and De Luca’s report, an Irish coadjutor, Father William Walsh of Dublin, was sent to Halifax in 1842. Fraser was predictably outraged by what he saw as a usurpation of his authority. Owing to the lack of co-operation between the two men, Rome finally decided in 1844 that the diocese should be split in two. Fraser chose the small port of Arichat as his seat, though he remained in Antigonish until his death in 1851, while Walsh remained as the bishop of Halifax.71 Catholicism continued to expand in Halifax through to mid-century, which was recognized in 1852 when the district was raised to an archdiocese. Walsh served as the first archbishop until his death in 1858.72 The archdiocese of Halifax remained an ethnically plural one. In the 1850s, its population consisted of about 30,000 Catholics. The 10,000 or so who resided in the city were predominantly Irish, while those scattered throughout mainland Nova Scotia tended to be Acadian, Mi’kmaq, or Scottish.73 This legacy of ethnic difference within

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Catholicism heightened the Irishness of Halifax’s Irish Catholics, perhaps even more than in Bishop Fleming’s Irish-centred St John’s Church. By the 1860s, however, another Irish-born bishop, Thomas Louis Connolly, was leading the Catholics of Halifax into Canadian Confederation, and this would have a significant impact upon the identity and orientation of the local Church. Unlike in St John’s, where Fleming shunned the development of a homegrown clergy, the facilities for clerical indigenization in Halifax developed relatively early, allowing for a more North American– oriented Church by the late nineteenth century. The movement for indigenization was inspired by Edmund Burke as he struggled to convince Irish and French priests to come to Halifax. A seminary was established as early as 1818, and by 1820, six locally educated men had been ordained. These efforts ceased in the mid-1820s, however, and locals interested in the priesthood were sent to Quebec or Ireland.74 A significant step in the development of a homegrown Halifax Church was the establishment of a seminary at St Mary’s College. Again, this offered the young men of Halifax an opportunity to study for the priesthood locally. The institution was initially staffed by Irish priests Father R.B. O’Brien and Lawrence Dease and, therefore, maintained a strong Irish character. St Mary’s, however, was fraught with difficulties, and even into the late nineteenth century, most of the city’s prospective priests continued to attend seminaries outside Nova Scotia.75 It was not until well into the period studied here that another institution was established in Halifax to facilitate a domestic Catholic clergy: Holy Heart Seminary, founded in 1895. St Mary’s had closed in 1881 owing to a lack of funds, so for fourteen years at the onset of this period, no local facility offered education of clergy and candidates continued to leave the province. Some, such as Gregory O’Brien who was ordained at All Hallows in 1890, went to Ireland.76 Archbishop Cornelius O’Brien saw the lack of domestic educational facilities as a serious problem for the Church in Halifax, so he approached the French Eudist Fathers, asking them to establish a diocesan seminary in the city. Holy Heart was opened on Quinpool Road in 1895 with a class of ten young men, both French- and Canadian-born. In its early years, the seminary was French in “language, character and tradition,” though by the early twentieth century, attempts were being made to encourage Halifax’s Irish Catholics to attend.77 With this objective in mind, the Irish Eudists John B.

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Table 4.4 Origins of Halifax Roman Catholic clergy, selected years between 1881 and 1920 Year

Number born in Ireland

Number born in Nova Scotia

Number born elsewhere

Unknown

% (of known) born in Nova Scotia

1881 1891 1900 1910 1920

4 6 3 3 2

2 4 5 6 12

2 1 0 0 0

0 0 1 1 1

25.0 36.0 62.0 67.0 86.0

Sources: Names of clergy serving Halifax were drawn from: Sadlier’s Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List, 1881; 1891; The Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List Quarterly, 1900; 1910; The Official Catholic Directory, 1920. Biographical information was obtained using a method similar to tables in chapter 2. Places of birth were gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the Census of Canada, 1881; 1891; 1901; 1911; 1921.

O’Reilly, Patrick A. Bray, and Patrick J. Skinner joined the faculty. In 1914, pupils from France were withdrawn, and Holy Heart became an exclusively diocesan seminary.78 From this point, most priests serving Halifax passed through the local college.79 An analysis of clerical origins for Halifax reveals a pattern of indigenization similar to that in St John’s. Catholic directories and almanacs reveal clergy serving at St Mary’s Cathedral, St Patrick’s, St Joseph’s, St Agnes’s, and St Thomas Aquinas parishes at approximately ten-year intervals throughout the period. This list can be crossreferenced with nominal census data in order to determine priests’ places of birth, and a clear trend towards clerical indigenization can be seen in table 4.4. Although Irish priests such as Fathers Nash and Thomas O’Sullivan (more on them below) were still occasionally recruited, the facilities to produce a domestically born and educated clergy were well in place in Halifax by the end of the period – and their effect on the local priesthood was significant. Prior to the 1880s, the Church in Halifax was already adopting a more Canadian focus. From the 1860s, the city’s leading clergy were active regarding questions of national significance, both to Catholics and to the general population. Though born in Cork, Archbishop Thomas Louis Connolly, sometimes referred to as the “Godfather of Confederation,” was instrumental in rallying Halifax-Catholic support for Canadian Confederation in the 1860s as well as securing educational rights for English-speaking Catholics nationwide.80

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Connolly was succeeded in 1877 by Limerick-born Michael Hannan, who only served for five years and left an unremarkable legacy in terms of leading the Catholics of Halifax.81 A far more significant figure for the historian of Irish-Catholic identity in Halifax is Hannan’s successor, Cornelius O’Brien. Born on Prince Edward Island and educated in Rome, his orientation and career in many ways paralleled that of his St John’s contemporary, Archbishop Howley. Both were the first North American–born bishops in their respective sees; both were scholarly and intellectual, producing published works on a variety of subjects; and both espoused a strong national patriotism alongside a devotion to monarchy and Empire while still maintaining a romantic esteem for Ireland. O’Brien was born in 1843, the son of Irish immigrants. His early education was at St Dunstan’s College in Charlottetown, where he worked closely with Bishop Peter McIntyre. Probably thanks to McIntyre’s influence, O’Brien, like Howley, studied for the priesthood at the Urban College in Rome. After being ordained there in 1871, he returned to his home province as a parish priest at St Dunstan’s. He served there until 1883 when, surprisingly, he was selected as Hannan’s successor and named archbishop of Halifax.82 Though the appointment was unexpected, O’Brien possessed many of the characteristics that were deemed necessary to lead the archdiocese. He was British North American–born but of Irish descent – essential in appeasing the urban Irish Catholics – and he spoke French – vital in dealing with the Acadian population elsewhere in the Maritimes.83 During his episcopate, Catholic infrastructure in the city developed considerably, allowing for a more self-contained Catholic community through the establishment of schools, a hospital, reformatories, and infant homes. With largely separate institutions, the educational and social needs of Catholics could be met “in relative isolation from Protestants.”84 Like Howley, O’Brien maintained an interest in Irish affairs long before he was named archbishop, and as a clergyman, he was sought out to give lectures on the affairs of the old country. For example, while still stationed in Charlottetown in 1876, he gave a talk on Daniel O’Connell’s legacy. The speech had a nationalistic tone, noting “centuries of [English] slavery” in Ireland, and ended with an appeal for Irish self-government.85 His pro–Home Rule stance continued to be publicly articulated following his move to Halifax. A similar lecture on O’Connell was delivered there in 1885, while in 1887, he actively

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declared his support for the city’s leading secular Irish-nationalist organization, the INL.86 O’Brien’s support for constitutional nationalism was further demonstrated with a generous contribution to the Parnell indemnity fund in 1889.87 The following year, however, he became the only leading clergyman in any of these three cities to publicly speak out against Parnell in the wake of the Kitty O’Shea divorce scandal, following the lead of the Church hierarchy in Ireland.88 Even though the fall of Parnell significantly damaged the momentum of the nationalist cause in the 1890s, Archbishop O’Brien maintained his esteem for the old land. In 1894, he organized a meeting of Halifax’s Catholic societies to raise funds for the relief of the Irish poor.89 Although his public comments on Ireland became less frequent in the twentieth century, and his personal papers contain few direct references to Irish affairs, O’Brien clearly maintained a great love for his parents’ homeland and, within the constitutional boundaries of the British Empire, strongly supported Home Rule. Far more than for his Irish identity, O’Brien is remembered for his “fervent Canadian patriotism and his attachment to imperial connections.”90 Politically, he supported John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives and the National Policy, and occasionally, such as in 1891, used his influence within the Church to persuade Nova Scotian Catholics to oppose the Liberals. He also became a key player in the Manitoba Schools Question, as Catholic educational rights were nationally contested.91 He advocated a greater role for Canada in imperial affairs, serving on the executive of the Imperial Federation League, which called for a federalist system within the Empire. In 1890, the archbishop served as INL vice-president for Nova Scotia, and he was also the provincial president of the British Empire League.92 O’Brien was concerned with the position of Catholics within the Empire, and his leadership in this regard was demonstrated in 1902, when he personally led Halifax Catholics in a protest of the Royal Accession Oath. On this occasion, the archbishop highlighted the loyalty of Catholics in Halifax and throughout the Empire.93 In similar fashion to Howley in St John’s, the life and career of Cornelius O’Brien demonstrates the mutual compatibility of strong Nova Scotian, Canadian, and imperial loyalty with emotional attachment to Ireland and support for constitutional Irish nationalism. The Halifax Church, like its counterpart in Toronto,94 was unquestionably becoming increasingly Canadian during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Irish connections continued throughout

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the period, however, and, as in St John’s, several individual priests helped maintain popular interest in Ireland. As late as the 1910s, priests still came from Ireland, and the city’s Irish ethnic associations, such as the CIS, often recruited newly arrived clerics to give talks on Irish affairs. Father Michael O’Kelly, for example, arrived from Ireland in the spring of 1910 to serve at St Patrick’s Church. On St Patrick’s Day, not long after he arrived in Halifax, O’Kelly made his first public appearance as a special guest at the CIS’s annual dinner. He gave a lengthy speech on Ireland’s fight for Home Rule, predicting that the movement “was on the verge of a great triumph.”95 The same year, another Irish-born clergyman, Father Nash, gave a similar address to the AOH, which concluded with a stirring rendition of “The Wearing of the Green.”96 Several months later, Nash gave a speech to the CIS on St Patrick’s Day 1911. He proclaimed that self-government for Ireland was imminent, but expressed the hope that the nation should remain within the British Empire, and that “God Save the King” would continue to be sung with enthusiasm in the old country.97 Clerical figures often led the way when it came to understanding the affairs of Ireland, but their nationalism was invariably framed in a loyal, pro-imperial context. In Irish ethnic communities that were increasingly nativeborn, Catholic clergy recruited from Ireland provided a direct, tangible link to the old country, and this had significant implications for the construction and expression of Irish identities. The evolution of Catholic identity in Portland was notably different from that in St John’s or Halifax. The American context as well as the presence of significant numbers of non-Irish Catholics in the city and separate non-English-speaking parishes after 1900 complicated Catholic identity. Parallels did exist among the three ports, as Portland also hosted an increasingly North American–oriented clergy during this period. However, even those born in the United States publicly supported Irish nationalism, and the Catholic Church in Portland was much more active than its counterparts in St John’s and Halifax in encouraging popular engagement in Ireland’s political struggles, particularly after the First World War. Although a pan-ethnic, American-Catholic identity may have been developing, the Church in Portland continued to reinforce Irish ethnic distinctiveness well into the twentieth century. An organized Church presence in Portland did not develop until the late 1820s and 1830s. As in Halifax, French missionaries served the port’s tiny population of Irish Catholics until 1827, when Father

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Charles Daniel Ffrench, a Galway-born Dominican, was appointed to minister to the approximately 300 Catholics in the town.98 By 1830, Portland’s first Catholic chapel, St Dominic’s, had been erected, and its Catholic population continued to grow as more Irish settled there. Catholicism in the region had developed sufficiently by 1855 to warrant the separation of the Portland diocese, consisting of Maine and New Hampshire, from Boston. David William Bacon, a native of Brooklyn, was appointed as the first bishop. Thus, unlike in St John’s and Halifax, Catholic leadership in Portland was North American, rather than Irish, from the outset, though all of its bishops have been of Irish extraction.99 Owing to the lack of local clergy, Bacon recruited his priests from a variety of North American and European seminaries. In Portland itself, those of Irish birth or descent predominated, though continental Europeans, such as German Eugene Müller, also served the city.100 The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated in 1869, and by the beginning of the period studied here, Catholicism was well established in the city.101 Although there were many Irish or Irish-American priests, Portland’s Church hierarchy did not reflect the same direct connections to Ireland as those of St John’s or Halifax. Owing to high clerical turnover in the Portland diocese, as well as the lack of Maine census data for 1890, the city’s priests were more difficult to definitively trace than those of St John’s or Halifax. Amongst those who could be pinpointed as serving the Cathedral, St Dominic’s, and Sacred Heart parishes, we again see a trend towards a homegrown Church. A method identical to that used for Halifax identified thirty-six Portland priests, of whom twenty-seven could be identified in census records. Nine were born in Ireland, seventeen in North America (eleven in Maine), and one, Father Anthony Petillo, was from Italy. The breakdown of this data by date reveals a similar pattern to St John’s and Halifax (see table 4.5). These figures are not quite as reliable as those for the two British North American ports. Because Irish immigration to New England continued throughout this period, an Irish-born priest serving Portland in the early twentieth century may well have arrived as a young child and been domestically raised and trained. Of the North American–born priests, parents’ places of birth could be determined for thirteen. Of these, ten had at least one Irish parent. Although indigenization was taking place,102 some Irish connections were undoubtedly preserved through-out this period.

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Table 4.5 Origins of Portland Roman Catholic clergy, selected years between 1881 and 1919

Year

Number born in Ireland

Number born in North America (Number born in Maine)

1881 1891 1900 1910 1919

4 2 2 2 2

1 (0) 2 (1) 5 (4) 5 (4) 6 (5)

Number born elsewhere

Unknown

% of identified priests born in North America (% born in Maine)

0 0 0 0 1

0 3 1 3 1

20.0 (0.0) 50.0 (25.0) 71.0 (57.0) 71.0 (57.0) 67.0 (56.0)

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Names of clergy serving Halifax were drawn from: Sadlier’s Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List, 1881; 1891; The Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List Quarterly, 1900; 1910; The Official Catholic Directory, 1919. Biographical information was gained using a method similar to tables in chapter 2. Places of birth were gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the Tenth Census of the United States, 1880; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900; Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910; Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.

As in St John’s and Halifax, individual churchmen were vital in maintaining the connection between Portland’s Irish Catholics and their ancestral homeland while at the same time reinforcing a sense of American-Catholic distinctiveness. When Bishop Bacon died in 1874, he was succeeded by James Augustine Healy, who became one of nineteenth-century American Catholicism’s most fascinating figures, particularly for the historian of ethnicity, race, and identity. Healy’s father, Michael, emigrated from Galway to Georgia in 1818, where he established a cotton plantation on the Ocmulgee River, near Macon. He became one of the most successful plantation owners in the region, eventually owning over 1,500 acres. The elder Healy, though, was best known for his long-term, apparently stable romantic relationship with one of his slaves, Eliza. Although she could not legally be his wife, unlike most black-white unions in the Antebellum South, Healy appears to have lived openly and faithfully with Eliza until they died, within a few months of each another in 1850. Together they had ten children, with James Augustine, the eldest, born in 1830.103

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Aware that his children were slaves under Georgia law, Michael Healy sent each of them north to be educated. James left the plantation in 1837 and probably never saw his birthplace again. He was enrolled in a Quaker-run school in New York City until the age of fourteen, and subsequently studied at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. This period had the greatest impact on young Healy’s identity: any remnants of blackness or southern-ness were abandoned during his time at Holy Cross, and Healy came to fully regard himself as an American Catholic.104 The fact that he was African American and born a slave under the law had virtually no relevance in his later career. As he studied for the priesthood in Montreal and, later, in Paris, Healy, like his brothers, used “religion to confirm a white identity” and, by the time of his ordination, had successfully “passed into the white community.”105 From this point, the most central aspect of his identity was his Catholicism. After years of serving as a parish priest and as chancellor of the diocese in Boston, Healy was appointed bishop of Portland in 1875. Thanks to his studies in Montreal and Paris, he was fluent in French, which made him a strong candidate for the ethnically plural diocese. He served Maine until his death in 1900, and his episcopate saw the establishment of numerous parochial schools as well as the separation of New Hampshire from the Portland See in 1884.106 James O’Toole’s analysis of the bishop’s identity focuses on the abandonment of blackness in favour of a white-oriented American Catholicism. Certainly, his personal correspondence suggests that Healy in no way considered himself African American. During the American Civil War, for example, he expressed little sympathy with abolition or the plight of southern slaves.107 O’Toole pays little attention, however, to the ethnic aspects of Healy’s identity, simply noting in his conclusion the large Celtic cross upon the bishop’s grave, which epitomized his identity as “[solely] an Irish Catholic.”108 Certainly, Healy’s peculiar upbringing – he rarely met his Irish-born father after the age of seven – as well as the formation of his Catholic identity in the ethnic plurality of Montreal and, subsequently, Paris, may have diluted the ancestral attachment to Ireland. His career in Portland, however, displays occasional engagement with the old country. In 1880, like Bishop Power in St John’s, it was Bishop Healy who called on the Catholics of Portland to pledge money for the relief of the Irish poor.109 Later that spring, he

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expressed public support for the work of the Land League in Portland, and he made at least one tour of Ireland during his tenure as bishop.110 Despite these occasional public flashes of an ethnic identification with his father’s homeland, Healy, at least according to O’Toole, primarily saw himself as a white, American Catholic.111 His sense of Irishness was symbolic, only emerging on occasions when the situation in the old country was particularly acute. He, therefore, provides an excellent example of the tenuous, highly variable nature of intergenerational identities within the Irish diaspora. Healy was succeeded by another well-known figure in American Catholicism: William H. O’Connell. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, of Irish parents and educated at Boston College, O’Connell is best known for serving as archbishop of Boston and, later, for being named cardinal following his five-year tenure in Portland. His episcopate was unremarkable. In fact, he did not spend much time in the diocese at all, preferring Palm Beach in Florida to Maine’s long winters.112 O’Connell was unquestionably aware of his Irish ethnicity, and his memoirs, written in 1934, display a considerable degree of anglophobia and a strong nationalist tone. He referred to Ireland as “the nearest victim of England’s hate” and noted that the “memories [of English oppression would] never die in the heart or soul of any man or woman of Irish blood.”113 Later, as cardinal, he was an important national leader of Irish-American nationalism between 1919 and 1921. Despite this overt nationalism, O’Connell’s ethnic affiliation appears to have had little impact on his tenure as bishop of Portland. If anything, he was dismayed at the lack of ethnic unity amongst Catholics within the state, especially between the Irish Americans of the city and the Franco-Americans who dominated elsewhere in the diocese.114 The bishop encouraged his flock to join non-ethnic Catholic societies such as the Portland Catholic Union, Catholic reading circles, and workingmen’s clubs to foster solidarity.115 Despite O’Connell’s efforts, however, ethnic divisions remained when he left Portland for Boston in 1905. Ultimately, his episcopate had little impact on how those of Irish birth and descent identified with the old country. O’Connell was succeeded by Louis Sebastian Walsh, a key figure in fostering Irish nationalism in Portland while at the same time promoting an inclusive, non-ethnic Roman Catholic solidarity. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, and of Irish descent, Walsh was in many ways an ideal candidate for the divided diocese. In addition to his Irish

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ethnicity, important in Portland itself, he had studied at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal and, like Healy, was fluent in French.116 Like Howley and O’Brien, Walsh embodied multiple facets of Catholic identity. He possessed a strong American patriotism,117 particularly expressed during the First World War, as well as a desire to forge a unified, non-ethnic Catholicism in the face of Ku Klux Klan antagonism in 1923 and 1924. At the same time, though, he maintained a strong passion for Ireland, and more than any other individual, his personal leadership and connections to the old country led the Irish ethnic resurgence in Portland in 1920 and 1921, which is examined in chapter 6. The Catholic Church in Portland, therefore, was an important agent in maintaining the connection between an increasingly Americanborn Irish-Catholic population and their ancestral homeland. Nevertheless, the relationship between ethnicity and religion in the New England port was complex as Catholics of Irish descent were joined by relatively large numbers of non-English speakers. The diocese’s growing diversity was a concern for the clergy before the First World War. Walsh’s annual report in the Maine Catholic Historical Magazine discussed the position of non-English speakers: “The Italians, Poles, Slavs and Lithuanians are scattered in all parts and often change residence to secure work. The Rev. Pastors are well aware of the danger to their faith by isolation, by contact and perhaps marriage with unbaptized and non-Catholic people, and are urged to give or obtain for them all the blessings of instruction, Holy Mass and the sacraments. Where it is possible, a priest who speaks their language should be invited two or three times a year to visit them.”118 Prior to these comments by Walsh, the Church was developing structures to serve non-English-speaking Catholics in the city of Portland. As early as 1911, the city’s Italians were granted their own parish, St Peter’s, served by Father Anthony Petillo through much of the period studied here.119 Most eastern Europeans attended the pre-existing English-language parishes of the city. St Dominic’s, for example, though heavily “Irish” in character, held special confessions for Poles and Lithuanians in 1913.120 Over the next two years, the facilities for non-English speakers continued to improve. Poles were given their own national church, which became St Louis on Danforth Street in 1915, and Bishop Walsh brought Father Sciskalski to work at St Dominic’s alongside Father Clancy that same year.121 In 1916, Father Norbert Palakins, a Lithuanian priest, arrived from Brooklyn to serve the city’s Lithuanians and Slovaks.122

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This ethnic diversification and the establishment of distinct national parishes had a complex impact on community and identity. In many cases, parishes such as St Peter’s and St Louis would have served to enhance ethnic divisions already reinforced in working-class milieus such as the Portland waterfront.123 As noted by Jay Dolan in his history of American Catholicism, Italian, French, and other nonEnglish speakers were often not welcome in “Irish” parishes, and this, coupled with the obvious language divide, meant they tended to establish their own churches.124 Because they were the focal point of Catholic community, the separation of Portland’s parishes into distinct, ethnolinguistic entities could well have helped sustain separate Irish-American identities, even for those born in the United States. At the same time, heavily Irish parishes like St Dominic’s continued to incorporate non-English speakers until very late in the period, so it is certain that on many occasions, Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, and even Italian Catholics would have worshipped together and worked alongside one another in non-ethnic parish sodalities. One of the central arguments of Timothy Meagher’s study of Irish ethnicity in Worcester, Massachusetts, is that after 1900, a pan-ethnic, American-Catholic identity was emerging.125 In that city, particularly amongst the American-born, all of whom spoke English, Catholics of different ethnic backgrounds were mixing in formerly “Irish” parishes. Such trends, coupled with a general anti-Catholicism that was being articulated through organizations like the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, fostered a militant, pan-ethnic Catholicism.126 There is some evidence to suggest that similar processes were underway in Portland. It is certain that Catholic sodalities as well as, for men, non-ethnic associations such as the Knights of Columbus brought those of different ethnic backgrounds together through a common, shared sense of Catholic identity. A general, non-ethnic solidarity was further reinforced on an annual basis when Portland’s Catholic men, regardless of origin, paraded together in honour of the Holy Name. This procession could attract more than 2,000 individuals and, in the absence of St Patrick’s Day parades, served as the only major public display by the city’s Catholics.127 It was an expression of Catholic solidarity that transcended ethnicity. The Church and its leaders were also keen to foster a sense of American patriotism and loyalty amongst the city’s Catholics. This process was similar to the Newfoundland, Canadian, and imperial patriotism espoused by the Church in St John’s and Halifax, and, as in those

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examples, American identity was most obviously displayed during the First World War. Following America’s entry into the conflict, Bishop Walsh was quick to remind the city’s Catholics that “devotion to Church and country [were] synonymous.”128 Special Masses were held to mark Patriot’s Day, and Walsh also reminded congregations that it was their “solemn duty” to buy Liberty Bonds, even going so far as to personally loan money to poor families to facilitate purchase.129 Clearly, Walsh and his clergy were keen to instill a sense of American loyalty within the Catholic community, perhaps to enhance respectability in the eyes of the Yankee establishment. In the early 1920s, Walsh and the Catholic clergy again called for unity in the face of heightened anti-Catholicism in the state, epitomized by the drastic growth of the Ku Klux Klan. The basis for this unity was an overt Americanism, which some ethnic groups, such as the FrancoAmericans of Lewiston and Biddeford, staunchly resisted.130 When faced with accusations of hyphenated Americanism and disloyalty, Walsh and his clergy actively promoted Maine Catholics’ American identity in 1923 and 1924. Nevertheless, many of these same clergymen were preaching the more ethnically insular message of Irish nationalism in 1920 and 1921. We are left, therefore, with a complex and somewhat ambiguous portrait of Catholic identity in Portland. Chapters 5 and 6 describe in more detail how, in the twentieth century, the clergy of this city, thanks especially to Bishop Walsh, led popular engagement with Irish nationalism to a far greater extent than the clergy in St John’s and Halifax. Parishes, meanwhile, were divided along ethnolinguistic lines, and this could often have served to solidify pre-existing ethnic divisions within Portland Catholicism. Nevertheless, a unified, Catholic identity was beginning to emerge in the city, and the Church was, first and foremost, American. An Irish connection was maintained, however, and from the 1880s to the 1920s, Catholic networks in Portland, like those in St John’s and Halifax, served to reinforce the bonds of those of Irish birth and descent to their ancestral homeland.

education and irish identity in st john’s, halifax, and portland One of the most persistent themes emphasized by Church leaders in all three cities was the importance of separate education for Catholic pupils. The manner in which young, native-born Catholics were

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taught was essential in forming their identities. Through the presence of Irish teaching orders or Irish material in curricula, ethnic identities could be sustained or reinvented for those who were several generations removed from Ireland. This was most obvious in St John’s, where the presence of the Irish Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Presentation Sisters strongly reinforced connections to Ireland. In Halifax and Portland, the education system was more likely to sustain separate Catholic identities, as well as strong senses of Canadian or American patriotism. In his history of education in Newfoundland, Frederick Rowe has described the colony’s system of publicly funded denominational schools as “unique.”131 In 1843, thanks largely to the efforts of Bishop Fleming and the high proportion of Catholics on the island, the Church was given full control over its schools, to be administered through government education grants. This system, which included completely separate denominational school boards, remained in place until the late twentieth century.132 The origins of Catholic education in the city, however, as well as its Irish orientation, predate the 1843 Education Act. Fleming was a strong advocate of separate education for young Catholics, and not long after his arrival in Newfoundland, he began to push for independent, Church-run schools. Before the 1830s, the only facility for Catholic education was the OAS established by the BIS in 1827. Like the BIS itself, it was technically non-denominational, though few Protestant pupils attended, and it quickly emerged as “the chief Roman Catholic school in St John’s.”133 Despite Fleming’s best efforts, it was not until 1847 that the OAS came under Church control. The earliest direct connection between Ireland and the education of Catholics in St John’s was the arrival of the Presentation Sisters in 1833. Fleming was aware of the benefits that Irish teaching orders had brought to the towns and villages of Ireland, and predicted that their presence in St John’s would not only enhance Catholic respectability and morality but also integrate youth into the “religious and social structures of the Church.”134 With the objective of securing education for lower-class girls, Fleming travelled to the Galway convent of the Presentation Sisters and recruited four nuns for St John’s. They accompanied him across the Atlantic and immediately established a school for the city’s poorer young ladies, with approximately 450 pupils.135 More Presentation nuns arrived from Ireland in subsequent years, and in 1853, a permanent convent was constructed, while a sec-

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ond was established in the west end in 1856. From this point, the order flourished in St John’s.136 Fleming’s next endeavour was to recruit nuns to serve the city’s wealthier girls. For this purpose, he approached the Dublin congregation of the Sisters of Mercy. In May 1847, two sisters arrived to establish a pay, or pension, school.137 The Mercy order’s early years in Newfoundland were fraught with uncertainty, and by the late 1840s only one, Sister Frances Creedon, remained. From 1850, though, as steady streams of “novices and postulants arrived from Ireland to fill its ranks,” the order prospered.138 A new stone convent was built in 1857, while the nuns established schools in the east end as well as an orphanage at Belvedere in 1859.139 Perhaps the Sisters of Mercy’s most significant contribution to the educational field in St John’s was the establishment of St Bride’s College at Littledale, in the west end of the city, in 1884. Originally conceived as a boarding school for outport girls, by 1895 St Bride’s had evolved into a centre for Catholic teacher training. It expanded in the 1910s and 1920s, and produced most of Newfoundland’s lay-Catholic female teachers until the mid-twentieth century, when, in 1952, the college became affiliated with Memorial University.140 Through Fleming’s efforts, the education of young girls in St John’s was firmly in the hands of Irish nuns by the mid-nineteenth century. For the most part, though, Catholic boys remained under the tutelage of lay teachers at the OAS. In 1847, the Church finally assumed control of the school, and Fleming again looked to Ireland to secure a teaching order. Several male Franciscan brothers arrived in 1847, but their presence was short-lived, and by 1854 only one remained.141 The establishment of St Bonaventure’s as a seminary in 1856 provided an avenue for higher male education in the city, but most young men of means still travelled abroad for their schooling.142 Male Catholic education remained rather precarious until 1876, when Bishop Power succeeded where Fleming and Mullock had failed and brought the Christian Brothers of Ireland to St John’s. The Congregation Fratrum Christianorum (better known in English as the Irish Christian Brothers) was founded in 1802 by Edmund Ignatius Rice and quickly developed an excellent reputation as educators.143 Negotiations between Power and the organization in Ireland had begun in 1872, and in 1875, Brother McDonnell arrived in St John’s to negotiate terms. Determined to remain free from outside interference and inspection, the Christian Brothers refused government

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education grants.144 Power and the Brothers reached an agreement, and in 1876, Brother F.L. Holland arrived as the superior of the new St John’s congregation. They immediately took control of the OAS, and attendance figures increased dramatically. In fact, the reputation of the Brothers was such that many within the St John’s middle classes abandoned St Bonaventure’s and sent their children to the more plebeian OAS. For a time, rich and poor were educated together, but Power was keen to maintain a class distinction in the boys’ Catholic schools. Those who could afford to pay were to attend St Bonaventure’s, while those who could not were to attend the Brothers’ OAS school.145 The dilemma of how and where to teach the more respectable youths of St John’s was finally solved in 1889, when the congregation was formally asked to take control of St Bonaventure’s as well. From this point, the reputation of the college soared, and by 1897, 125 day students and 12 boarders attended.146 The role of the Brothers in Catholic education in St John’s continued to expand throughout this period. By 1890, they ran a school on Patrick Street in the west end of the town, and in 1897, the boys’ orphanage at Mount Cashel was also placed under their supervision.147 By 1900, then, the education of Catholic pupils in St John’s was almost entirely carried out by Irish teaching orders. What impact did their presence have on the ethnic and religious identities of young Catholics? Most obviously, separate education from their Protestant neighbours would have heightened a sense of Catholic distinctiveness for both boys and girls. Catholic education was, first and foremost, designed to produce new generations of devout, moral, faithful Catholics, so it was the religious aspects of students’ identities that the schools most profoundly reinforced. As Archbishop Edward Roche noted in a speech at the opening of St Joseph’s School in St John’s east end, “the Catholic school is the safeguard of the Catholic faith, and, therefore, the strongest defence of the Church.” This was why “the Church has ever insisted upon her right to have her children trained in her own schools.”148 Bishop Howley expressed similar sentiments in response to the Manitoba Schools Question in 1898.149 While identity as a Newfoundland Catholic was most directly emphasized by St John’s schools, the fact that most educators were Irish must have influenced ethnic awareness to some degree. Throughout the period studied here, a significant majority of sisters and brothers were relatively recent arrivals from Ireland. As early as the 1850s, local candidates joined the Presentation and Mercy nuns,

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but until the twentieth century, most of those serving Newfoundland were born, or at least trained, in Ireland.150 In the Irish Christian Brothers, too, most of the brothers came from Ireland, and locals who wished to join their ranks were sent to the old country to be trained until 1916, when the order established a novitiate at New Rochelle, New York.151 A small number of St John’s natives, such as John Sullivan and Patrick Strapp, returned to the city as Christian Brothers in the 1890s, but generally the order’s residence at Mount St Francis was dominated by the Irish-born.152 In addition to providing the young Catholics of the city with a direct, personal connection to Ireland, aspects of the curricula may also have helped sustain Irish ethnicity. This was particularly the case for the boys educated by the Christian Brothers. The schools of the Presentation Sisters focused on reading and writing, in addition to practical skills which, at the time, were deemed important for lowerclass girls: sewing, spinning, and cooking. The Sisters of Mercy added French, Italian, and geography, as well as music for an additional fee, to their middle-class pension schools, but there is little evidence to suggest that distinctly Irish content was taught at girls’ schools.153 For the boys of the Irish Christian Brothers, however, knowledge of Ireland’s culture, history, and politics was directly reinforced. The schools provided a well-rounded education, covering reading, writing, Latin, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, geometry, navigation, music, and, later in the period, French, electricity, chemistry, and physics.154 Despite the establishment of a council of higher education in 1895, and the Dominion’s Department of Education in 1920, resulting in a somewhat more standardized curriculum for both Catholic and Protestant schools, the Brothers maintained their independence. They continued to use their own texts, some of which possessed an Irish or nationalist outlook. As Carolyn Lambert has noted, their curriculum, particularly in subjects such as history and literature, emphasized “the distinctiveness of Catholic Ireland” and exposed the boys of St John’s to “very assertive and nationalist material.”155 Texts such as the Irish History Reader were explicitly nationalist in tone and reinforced an uncompromisingly Roman Catholic interpretation of Irish nationality. The famine, for example, was described as “an appalling illustration of the disastrous effects upon our country of the unnatural ‘union’ with England.” The narrative was interspersed with nationalist songs and poems such as the “Memory of the Dead” and “A Nation Once Again.”156 The desirability of Irish self-government

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was directly taught to the city’s young Catholic males. The Irishcentred curriculum had a profound impact on Irish identity in St John’s. Writing to Brother Holland as early as 1889, Brother Slattery noted that the youth of the town had an interest in their ancestral homeland, stating that “I think reading books [has] done it all, but whatever the cause, our boys are as Irish as any by the Shannon or the Lee.”157 Catholic education in St John’s created and reinforced pupils’ identities in a number of ways. Separate education strengthened perceptions of Newfoundland-Catholic distinctiveness. Boys’ and girls’ schools resulted in distinct gendered experiences, while, at least after 1889, the separation of pay and free schools undoubtedly exposed class divisions. An ethnic element also existed, as Irish teaching orders – especially the Christian Brothers – nurtured their students’ romantic and symbolic esteem for Ireland. Of course, ethnicity was also invented and sustained by family, ethnic and benevolent associations, media, and the broader community, but, as seen in the coming chapters, the Brothers’ schools were central in leading the ethnic resurgence that accompanied the Anglo-Irish War from 1919 to 1921. Their influence may also have resulted in a gendered ethnic identity, as there is no evidence that the Mercy or Presentation nuns included Irish topics in their curricula, at least in the early decades of the twentieth century. An ethnicized education, therefore, tended to be available only to young men. However, the participation of women in the nationalist movement after the First World War suggests that they, too, developed an ethnic attachment to their ancestral homeland, so Irish identity could be created and sustained in a number of ways. Nevertheless, although their influence was not universal, there can be no doubt that the St John’s congregations of the Irish Christian Brothers provided a critical network that connected the Catholics of St John’s to Ireland and helped invent and reinvent their ethnicity. In writing about his formative years in St John’s, lawyer William J. Browne, who represented the Dominion at the 1922 Irish Race Congress in Paris, succinctly noted the influence of both the Irish clergy and Christian Brothers’ education on his sense of Irish identity: “I was of Irish extraction and had been brought up in the Catholic Church, many of whose priests and bishops in Newfoundland were Irish or had trained in Ireland. I had also been educated by the Irish Christian Brothers in whose schools we used Irish readers. In a word, even before visiting Ireland, I thought of it as my second home.”158

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The Catholic education system of Halifax epitomized the continental, Canadian orientation of Catholic life in the city. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it evolved quite differently from its St John’s contemporary. In Newfoundland, there were entirely separate, publicly funded denominational school systems. Nova Scotia only possessed one system, but a unique “gentleman’s agreement,” originally forged between Premier Charles Tupper and Archbishop Connolly, ensured that Catholic pupils attended schools staffed by Catholic teachers. In effect, these were “Halifax public schools attended by Catholic children.”159 Both Catholic and Protestant schools followed a standardized, universal curriculum, and both were subject to inspection by the Board of School Commissioners on which representatives from both denominations sat. Religious instruction was permitted only after school hours, and all teachers held government-issued teaching certificates. Through this system, Church control over education was maintained, and as Archbishop O’Brien explained in a letter to an apostolic delegate, although not “separate schools,” they were “nevertheless to a certain extent Catholic in tone and free of danger to the faith.”160 Generally, the system worked quite well and was an example of Halifax’s tradition of “denominational compromise,” which maintained harmonious relationships between the city’s Protestants and its Catholic minority. Its greatest test, and the strongest reaction of the clergy in defence of separate education, occurred in 1892 with the emergence of the Russell Street School affair. Under the terms of the gentleman’s agreement, the archdiocese of Halifax owned the school buildings and rented them to the Board of School Commissioners. The predominantly Protestant board decided to abandon the agreement and construct a new Catholic school on Russell Street and, furthermore, to strip the Church of the right to nominate teachers. O’Brien was furious and called on Catholic parents to boycott the new school, which most did. The archbishop urged the school board to return control of the building to the Church, arguing that the gentleman’s agreement in fact saved the board a significant sum of money. Ultimately, he was successful, though the incident did serve to temporarily strain relations between the city’s Catholics and Protestants.161 Throughout this period, although it was not codified in law, the Catholic pupils of Halifax attended their own schools. How did this influence their identities? A separate awareness of being English-

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speaking Canadian Catholics was most directly reinforced, while gender and class identities were also affected. However, unlike at the Irish Christian Brothers’ schools in St John’s, promotion of an ethnic attachment to Ireland was rarely a feature of Catholic education in Halifax. A critical difference between the two ports was the absence of Irish teaching orders in the Nova Scotian centre until very late in this period. As Catholic education was expanding in the mid-nineteenth century, Archbishop Walsh did not look to Ireland for teachers as Fleming had done. Instead, the Sisters of Charity were recruited from New York in 1849.162 Although many of these nuns would have been Irish or of Irish descent, they lacked the direct institutional connection to the old country possessed by the sisters of the Mercy and Presentation orders in St John’s. Walsh also brought a congregation of the French Society of the Sacred Heart to the city, while Connolly recruited the Brothers of the Christian Schools (also known as the De La Salle Brothers) to serve the new St Patrick’s Boys’ School.163 The presence of these orders combined to give Catholic education in Halifax a far more Canadian or North American focus than in St John’s. In fact, it was not until 1913 that an Irish teaching order came to the city. St Mary’s College had been closed from 1881 to 1903 and was still struggling. Inspired partly by the manner in which the Irish Christian Brothers had turned around St Bonaventure’s in St John’s twenty-five years previously, Archbishop McCarthy resolved to bring the order to Halifax to resurrect the college’s reputation. Negotiations were underway by spring of 1913. In order to raise the necessary funds, McCarthy organized a large fundraising campaign. In less than a month, the residents of Halifax pledged over $47,000, and the Irish Christian Brothers signed an agreement in March 1913, leasing the college for a period of sixty years. They were responsible for revenues and expenditures, and were protected from any outside interference.164 The extent to which the Brothers at St Mary’s introduced Irish material into the curriculum is unclear, but their influence on community and identity must have been limited, as only a few hundred boys passed through the institution during the period investigated here.165 In the city’s public schools, owing to the standardized curricula, Irish content was almost certainly limited, even in schools populated by Catholics. In fact, aspects of the material taught in Halifax schools were designed to strengthen both Canadian and imperial patriotism. History and geography texts focused on Canada and the Empire, and varied little through this period, though by 1911 high school students

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used a greater variety of Canadian texts.166 Furthermore, schools were called upon to directly enhance students’ patriotism in the late nineteenth century. In 1898, the school board’s minutes noted that Empire Day would be declared a school holiday, as “the greatest sentiment as well as the most stirring which we can put into the minds and hearts of our children is Civis Britannicus Sum.”167 As a result of this directive, the participation of the city’s Catholic school students in the following year’s Empire Day procession was noted in the press.168 Also in 1898, Nova Scotia’s Journal of Education noted that “Canadian patriotism should be comprehensive, respectful, intelligent and, at the same time, intense.”169 Even as late as 1920, the journal reminded teachers that duty to “district, country and race” should be emphasized on both Dominion Day and Empire Day.170 Halifax’s Catholic schools were not exempt from this mentality and no doubt actively nurtured Canadian and imperial identities among their students. A sense of Irish ethnicity was neither sustained nor invented by the schools. Instead, the focus was on producing devout Catholic Canadians with a passion for the broader Empire. Catholics of Irish descent in Halifax developed their romantic esteem for Ireland from other sources, with the leadership of higher- and lower-level clergy a consistent factor during this period. The system for educating the young Catholics of Portland differed from both St John’s and Halifax. As in many other American centres, there was no public funding for Catholic schools. The establishment of independent, parochial schools administered and funded by the Church was a key priority for American bishops, who, in the midnineteenth century, deemed the nation’s public schools “heretical and infidel.”171 In Portland, as in many other locales, Church-run schools operated independently of government inspection and funding. In the early 1880s, there were only three parochial schools in the city: St Dominic’s, founded in 1865; the Kavanagh School, attached to the Cathedral parish, founded 1876 and administered by the Sisters of Mercy; and the Mercy convent itself.172 The nuns had come to Portland in 1873 when the French-Canadian Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame were recalled to Canada.173 Their presence reinforced the Irish character of Maine’s English-speaking Catholics as the nuns served the city of Portland itself, and other areas where those of Irish birth and descent predominated, while French orders continued to work elsewhere in the state.174 The Sisters of Mercy worked at most of Portland’s parochial schools, with thirty-three nuns teaching in the

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city by 1880, serving approximately 1,000 students.175 The facilities for Catholic education developed considerably between the 1880s and the 1920s. Schools opened in the new Sacred Heart parish in Deering, and in 1909, the Catholic Institute for Boys and the Cathedral Girls’ High School were established.176 More than any other bishop who served Portland, Bishop Walsh was “by training, temperament and inclination an educator.”177 He was an advocate for parochial education, describing the state schools in the pages of his Maine Catholic Historical Magazine as “Godless surroundings, where false history, Godless science and false philosophy implant their poisonous seeds deeply and surely in the youthful mind.”178 It was the duty of all Catholic parents, therefore, to ensure that their children attended Church-run schools. One of the great political debates of Walsh’s episcopate was over public funding for parochial education. The public school board in Portland was granted money by the state legislature based upon the number of pupils who studied in the city. Like several other towns in Maine, the local board did not submit the number of students attending public school, but rather the total number of school-aged children who resided in Portland. Catholic youth attending parochial schools were included, earning the board a significant sum of money, which was then reinvested solely into the public schools. Perceiving the injustice of the system, between 1912 and 1916, Walsh vehemently argued that a portion of the city’s grant be given to the parochial schools.179 In both the local press and in the Maine Catholic Historical Magazine, he argued that Catholic schools saved the state over $400,000 per year and were, therefore, worthy of public funding.180 Ultimately, though, the Bishop’s fight was unsuccessful, as state and local authorities were never willing to grant public funds to parochial education.181 We may only speculate as to what impact Catholic education in Portland had on the ethnic identities of the American-born Irish as little data on curricula have survived. Although some parochial schools in the United States did teach Irish content,182 there is no evidence to suggest that this was the case in Portland. The Sisters of Mercy may have provided an indirect link to Ireland, but by the twentieth century, most nuns would have been American-born. It is far more likely that, as in Halifax, Portland’s parochial schools were devoted to producing devout American Catholics. They almost certainly emphasized American patriotism, especially after Walsh called on his teachers to follow the state superintendent of education’s program as closely as

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possible – with the obvious exception of religious education – in order to bolster his argument for public funding.183 Although a distinct Catholic identity was sustained, young American-born Catholics seldom learned of their ethnic origins in school.

conclusion As active engagement with Irish nationalism waned in the three cities after the death of Parnell, the invention of Irish ethnicity was left to other institutions, the most important of which was the Catholic Church. The relationship between ethnicity and religion was complex in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland. Generally, the Church in each port fostered a distinct Roman Catholic identity more directly than an Irish ethnic one. In all three cases, though, clerical networks helped sustain popular engagement with affairs in Ireland throughout this period. In St John’s, where the origins of the Church were almost exclusively Irish, a small number of Irish-born priests as well as assertive Irish-Newfoundlanders such as Archbishop Howley allowed the city to retain its ethnic character. What set Newfoundland’s chief port aside from Halifax and Portland, though, was the presence of Irish teaching orders, particularly the Irish Christian Brothers. Their presence not only ensured a direct and continuing connection between the native Catholics of Newfoundland and Ireland but also ensured that many boys in St John’s were exposed to Irish culture, politics, and history during their formative years. Judging by the words of Brother Slattery and the passionate testimony of the pupils of St Bonaventure’s College introduced at the beginning of this work, the Brothers played a profound role in sustaining and reinventing Irish identity amongst Newfoundland-born Catholics. In an era when associational and nationalist networks were increasingly North American oriented, these teaching orders provided a direct institutional connection to Ireland. Within the Halifax Church, as in St John’s, individual Irish-born clerics and interested Irish Canadians sustained transatlantic networks. To a greater extent, though, the local hierarchy adopted a North American focus. Epitomized by Catholic education in the city, the modus vivendi of the local Church was Canadian, not Irish. Portland presents a complex, and somewhat contradictory, example when it comes to Irish-Catholic identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an ethnically diverse environment, a mostly Irish-American clergy, led by Bishop Walsh, promoted

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American loyalty and a pan-ethnic Catholicism while concurrently taking a central role in advancing the cause of Irish independence in the city. Despite Walsh’s American outlook, his Church and clergy maintained some of the most direct connections to the old country observed in the three ports. The ways in which Catholicism influenced ethnicity varied over time and space. The most significant conclusion to draw from this discussion, though, is that ethnic, religious, and national identities overlapped comfortably for many Catholics of Irish descent. Typified by figures such as archbishops Howley and O’Brien, strong identifications as Catholics, loyalty to one’s place of birth, and loyalty to the British Empire did not preclude a strong identification with Ireland. In St John’s and Halifax, and to a lesser extent in Portland, the relationship between national, imperial, and ethnic identities became increasingly complex as popular engagement with Irish nationalism re-emerged after 1912.

5 Reinvented Nationalism The Third Home Rule Bill, the Ulster Crisis, and the First World War, 1911–1918

After 1911, the nature of Ireland’s fight for self-government began to change, with far-reaching consequences for both Ireland and the diaspora. Throughout this period, both Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism became increasingly militant, with the threat of civil conflict broken only by the First World War. An uprising in Dublin at Easter 1916 and the execution of its leaders by British military authorities pushed Catholic popular opinion away from constitutional, Home Rule nationalism towards physical-force republicanism. These trends eventually led to the Anglo-Irish War of 1919–21, the partition of Ireland, and, in 1922, the establishment of the Irish Free State. This chapter examines how those of Irish birth and descent in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland responded to the evolving Irish nationalist movement between the critical years of 1911 and 1918. After two decades of relative quiescence, popular interest in and engagement with the Irish Question re-emerged in the three cities. Although the nationalist resurgence would not peak until the years immediately following the war, this period saw significant changes in how these Irish communities connected to the ancestral homeland, and how they interacted with the broader diaspora. In all three cases, interest in Irish affairs increased as Home Rule again became a major feature of British politics. Prior to the Easter Rising, however, popular engagement with Ireland did not approach the levels observed in the 1880s and early 1890s. In St John’s and Halifax, the patterns of earlier periods were repeated between 1911 and 1916: the Irish Question was discussed extensively in the local press and public engagement with the affairs of Ireland continued to be led

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by the Catholic clergy and by ethnic associations like the BIS, the CIS, and the AOH. As in earlier periods, popular opinion was broadly in favour of Home Rule, with the militancy of the Ulster unionists frequently condemned, though more concerted anti-nationalist sentiment emerged in Halifax. Discussions of Irish affairs became less public following the outbreak of war as those of Irish descent were swept up in the jingoistic response to the British Empire’s effort, and even responses to the dramatic events of Easter 1916 were subdued. As Sinn Fein’s republican nationalism became ascendant in Ireland through 1917 and 1918, the Irish of St John’s and Halifax retained their constitutional outlook. In Portland, engagement with Irish affairs did not reach the heights of the 1880s since Irish-American nationalist networks seldom extended into the northeastern port. As in St John’s and Halifax, responses to events in Ireland were more likely to be led by the Catholic clergy, and after the Easter Rising, some signs of a coherent ethnic response to the Irish Question were reflected in domestic politics. Free from the British-imperial context that enveloped Newfoundland and Canadian responses to militant Irish nationalism, overt support for Irish republicanism developed in Portland to a far greater extent than in either British North American centre.

the third home rule bill and the ulster crisis Between 1911 and 1916, both Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism strengthened and militarized, processes epitomized by the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Irish Volunteers in 1912 and 1913, respectively. Prior to the Easter Rising, however, a large majority of Irish Catholics, both at home and abroad, continued to support John Redmond and the IPP’s struggle for self-government within the British Empire. Indeed, the Home Rule movement reached “the pinnacle of its success in Ireland between 1912 and 1914.”1 In the diaspora, as in Ireland, Redmondite support remained strong. During the opening decade of the twentieth century, although John Redmond’s IPP retained broad popular support, its influence at Westminster was limited. Many Edwardian Liberals were sympathetic to Home Rule, but most were preoccupied with questions pertaining to British social welfare rather than the situation across the Irish Sea. Certainly, it was a far cry from the Gladstonian party of the 1880s and early 1890s, for whom the Irish Question was paramount.2 Beginning in

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1909, however, events unfolded within British politics that would make the implementation of Irish Home Rule a virtual certainty. David Lloyd George, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, submitted a budget containing a number of key social welfare provisions. Having passed the House of Commons, it was promptly vetoed by the House of Lords, forcing an election. The Liberals won a tiny majority, and when negotiations during the summer of 1910 failed to produce a Liberal-Conservative compromise, a second election gave Redmond and the IPP the balance of power.3 In return for Redmond’s support of Liberal measures, Asquith agreed to make Irish Home Rule a priority. In 1911, the Parliament Act removed the House of Lords’s right of veto, eliminating the final constitutional obstacle to self-government for Ireland. The third Home Rule Bill, introduced on 11 April 1912, could only be delayed, not blocked, by the Lords and was set to be implemented by 1914 unless the Unionist opposition could force an election before then.4 With Home Rule looming large, the Irish Question began to shift. The position of Ulster within a self-governing Ireland emerged as the predominant issue. Ulster unionism was nothing new. From the nineteenth century, many Protestants in the northern province had opposed Home Rule, believing that in a self-governing Ireland, their minority would be placed at the mercy of the Catholic majority. Home Rule would, in effect, represent “Rome Rule.”5 Led by Sir Edward Carson and James Craig, Ulster unionism evolved into a mass political movement and became increasingly militant. The importation of guns and ammunition from continental Europe was underway as early as 1910, and after 1912, efforts to arm the unionists increased dramatically. The most significant event was the formation of the UVF at the end of 1912. Within a year, the UVF had grown to over 100,000 members and represented a formidable paramilitary force. Faced with the very real possibility of civil war, the British government attempted to negotiate a settlement between Redmond and Carson that would provide for the exclusion – either temporary or permanent – of some part of Ulster from the impending Home Rule scheme.6 As unionism militarized, similar changes were affecting the nationalist movement. The formation of the UVF was not only a “physical expression of Ulster unionist intent, but also … a stimulus to the hawks within the nationalist tradition.”7 To counter the unionist movements, a nationalist paramilitary organization, the Irish Volunteers, was established in November 1913. By the end of 1914, 160,000

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men had joined its ranks.8 The Volunteers also imported arms, and on 25 July 1914, police and the military intercepted a shipment of 1,500 Mauser rifles at Howth, north of Dublin. On the way back to their barracks following the incident, members of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers fired upon a hostile but unarmed crowd at Bachelors Walk. Three people were killed and many others wounded. There was widespread outrage, and even as Redmond was attempting to negotiate a favourable compromise, popular opinion in Ireland was beginning to turn away from constitutional, Home Rule nationalism.9 The First World War began in August 1914 and had a major impact on the Irish situation. Home Rule was enacted on 18 September of that year, but was immediately suspended for the duration of the conflict. John Redmond saw the war as an opportunity to prove Ireland’s loyalty to the Empire and, therefore, its suitability for dominion status. Many Irish Volunteers joined the British military, and up until Easter 1916, the overwhelming majority of Irish people, both Catholic and Protestant, supported the war effort. It was only after the Rising and the execution of its leaders that widespread nationalist opinion in Ireland began to swing away from constitutional nationalism in favour of an independent Irish Republic.10 Editorials on Home Rule reappeared in St John’s newspapers early in 1912. The prevailing themes were contentment at the brightening prospects for Irish self-government and disdain for the increasingly sectarian atmosphere of Ulster. W.F. Lloyd, editor of the Evening Telegram, summarized local sentiments in a 3 February 1912 editorial: “it is a thousand pities that racial and religious animosities are being stirred up and aggravated over the proposed grant of Home Rule to Ireland.”11 Subsequent editorials during the summer expressed similar opinions. On 2 May, the Daily News’s editor suggested that the popular strength of Ulster unionism was considerably exaggerated and then further commented, on 28 May, that despite the “hysterical shouting of the Carsons,” Home Rule for Ireland was inevitable. In August, a report highlighted local St John’s support for Home Rule and opposition to unionism: “no colony in the enjoyment of Home Rule, such as in Newfoundland, can afford to do other than sympathize with Ireland in her desire for self-government and no imperialist, be he Liberal or Tory, can look with approval upon any movement which savours of disloyalty to King and Constitution.”12 The anti-unionist attitudes displayed in the St John’s press again demonstrate how the Irish Question could generate interest beyond

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those of Irish descent. It was seen as an issue that not only affected Ireland but was also relevant to the integrity and unity of the broader Empire. As was the case in the 1880s, many Protestants of English descent supported Home Rule. They believed that its successful implementation could stabilize British and imperial politics through the granting of self-determination, as enjoyed by the other overseas dominions. Sir Edward Carson and the militant pronouncements of the unionists, meanwhile, were characterized as disloyal, seditious, and dangerous – a clear threat to the harmony of the Empire. Furthermore, Ulster unionism was rejected as it was seen as a product of sectarianism, which was generally abhorred in early twentieth-century Newfoundland, at least by commentators in the newspaper press. The Daily News’s editorial following “Ulster Day” in late September 1912 confirms this mentality: “the proceedings in Belfast, happily, do not concern us in Newfoundland to any great extent. Here the era of dissention has long since passed away, and whatever our differences may be, Newfoundlanders have learned mutual tolerance and respect.”13 Although it was Catholics of Irish descent who had a particularly emotional connection to the Home Rule crisis, responses in St John’s involved the entire community. In many parts of Canada, the Orange Order was actively involved in promoting the unionist cause – but this does not appear to have been the case in Newfoundland.14 The most significant public occasion for the Orangemen of Newfoundland during this period was the annual session of the Grand Orange Lodge of British America in late July 1913, which brought representatives from lodges across Canada to St John’s. It was a grandiose event. Meetings discussed the overall health of the order in British North America and were followed by banquets and parades that many of Newfoundland’s leading Protestants attended. The marquee event was a “monster parade” on 30 July in which over 1,200 delegates marched through St John’s downtown streets. “Great throngs” of Newfoundlanders lined the route. Despite the prominence of the Irish Question in imperial politics in mid-1913, none of the public speeches surrounding these events made any reference to Ireland or Ulster unionism. Newfoundland’s loyalty and position within the British Empire were lauded, but the event did not lead to any public discussion or debate regarding the situation in Ireland.15 In private, a report on Irish Home Rule was presented at the meeting and a resolution expressing the members’ desire to protect Ulster from the “onslaught of Papacy” was passed, but this does not

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appear to have had any broader ramifications for Newfoundlanders – Catholic or Protestant.16 The Catholic clergy remained key agents in raising support for Irish self-government and ensuring that those of Irish descent continued to engage with the politics of the old country. Between 1912 and 1916, the most important figure promoting Irish nationalism in St John’s was an Irish-born priest, Father Daniel P. O’Callaghan. Born in County Down in 1875, O’Callaghan, like Michael Clancy before him, emerged as a leading public commentator on Irish affairs.17 He was a sought-after public speaker in the town. Topics ranged from general histories of Ireland to more focused speeches on Daniel O’Connell and Catholic emancipation. Particularly interesting is that his lectures were often delivered to non-ethnic Catholic associations and sodalities, such as the Society of the Holy Name. On such occasions, popular awareness of and engagement with Irish nationalism was encouraged entirely through the institutional frameworks of the Catholic Church. After 1912, as the Home Rule crisis unfolded, O’Callaghan’s lectures tended to focus more on Ireland’s political relationship with Great Britain. In keeping with the pro-imperial stance of the Newfoundland Church, his comments on Ireland reflected a strong loyalty to the monarchy and a desire to keep the old land within the imperial fold. He emphasized Irish-Catholic loyalty to Britain, both in Ireland and in Newfoundland, while vehemently arguing against the Ulster unionist position that Irish Home Rule would equal “Rome Rule.” For example, in a lecture to the Society of the Holy Name in 1912, he noted that “no true Irishman, no matter how strong an adherent to the Catholic Church, would take his politics from Rome.”18 On the eve of one of O’Callaghan’s lectures, a letter to the Daily News, signed “Erin Go Bragh,” called upon those of Irish descent in St John’s to attend, stating that “it is only natural to expect that we here in Newfoundland, especially those of us who are descendants of Irishmen, should feel a touch of sympathy with the ‘isle of martyrs,’ and have an interest in its welfare.” The correspondent concluded by arguing that a large attendance would be a small but significant expression of Irish-Newfoundlanders’ support for Home Rule.19 The lecture itself, given at the Total Abstinence Hall and chaired by BIS secretary W.J. Higgins, attracted members of the TABS as well as “many outsiders.” O’Callaghan discussed the overwhelming support for Home Rule in Ireland and criticized Carson and his followers for “misleading” Irish-Protestant opinion “only for the purposes of obtaining

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notoriety.” He praised Irish loyalty to the Empire, citing the involvement of so many Irish soldiers in the South African War, and concluded by stating that Irish self-government could only strengthen the people’s devotion to the Empire. Under a Dublin parliament, the Irish people “would be proud to claim that the Emerald Isle was a unit in the greatest Empire the world has ever known.”20 A subsequent lecture in January 1913 similarly highlighted Ireland’s loyalty to the Crown and, therefore, its suitability for self-government.21 The BIS likewise remained involved in leading local responses to the situation in the old country. In the society’s annual report from 1913, members expressed their “joy at the heightened prospects of Home Rule” and that they, “as members of the oldest national society in Britain’s most ancient Colony, [would] soon be able to take our part in the rejoicings in honour of the old land becoming ‘a nation once again.’”22 Indeed, plans for a celebration were well underway by the winter of 1913. At a meeting in early February, the members – the vast majority of whom had never set eyes on their ancestral homeland – agreed to organize an excursion to Ireland once the Home Rule measure was passed into law.23 Although both Anglo-Protestants and Irish Catholics supported Home Rule, the responses of the BIS demonstrate a degree of attachment to Ireland that was not present in newspaper editorials on the Irish Question. That the members were willing to travel to Ireland to celebrate Home Rule suggests that, for some, the affairs of the old country were still able to evoke a passionate response. By the end of 1913 and into the spring of 1914, as the Home Rule Bill approached its third and final reading in the House of Commons, interest in the measure amongst the residents of St John’s grew. Letters and editorials on the subject became more frequent in the St John’s press, with some providing evidence of anti–Home Rule sentiment beginning to appear in the town. An editorial in the Daily Mail, which was the temporary title of the daily press organ of William F. Coaker’s Fishermen’s Protective Union, attacked Irish nationalism as disloyal and defended the exclusion of Ulster, claiming that Irishmen were not, and could never be, truly united. While most pro–Home Rule commentators highlighted the positive contribution of the Irish to the British effort during the South African War, the Mail’s editor suggested that “there was no Irish unity at the time of the British-Boer War, when the nationalists were rabidly and avowedly pro-Boer.”24 This piece drew a strong response from a correspondent to the Daily News, who defended Irish loyalty and highlighted the role of Irish

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troops in the Relief of Ladysmith during that conflict, deeming the Mail’s comments “a miserable attempt by our prejudiced local warrior to suggest that the Irish were disloyal … Let him search the list of the British dead, and see how many he will find, as always, of ‘Kellys, Burkes, and Sheas.’” Unionists, on the other hand, were disloyal for opposing “what the whole British Empire is today demanding for Ireland.”25 Again, in the columns of St John’s newspapers, debates on the Irish Question evolved entirely within an overriding framework of imperial loyalty, and discussion focused on the significance of Irish Home Rule to the broader Empire. Further letters were submitted to the St John’s press, though not all were printed for fear of inflaming sectarian tensions within the local community. The press, especially the Daily News, overtly attempted to dissuade any discussions that contained sectarian overtones and refused to acknowledge the escalating crisis in Ireland as a religious one. The editor explained: We decline to regard all Roman Catholics as Home Rulers, or all Protestants, or even Orangemen … as anti–Home Rulers. It is for this reason that many letters on the subject have been refused publication in our columns … Discussion of the [Irish] problem on its merits we welcome, but for its discussion from the Protestant, Catholic, Orange or any other sectarian standpoint, the columns of the Daily News have no room … In Newfoundland, Orange and Green have worked together in harmony for many years; and sectarian bitterness has been almost eliminated. To represent the Home Rule cause as a Catholic one, and the opposition as Orange, is to invite divisions, which are as undesirable as they are unnecessary.26 This suggests that both nationalist and unionist opinions existed in St John’s, but the press was unwilling to address any debate that might encourage sectarianism within the city. The News editor’s concerns, though, foreshadow the sectarianized rhetoric that defined local responses to the Irish Question after 1918. In late May 1914, the Home Rule Bill passed its third reading in the Commons and was on the verge of being implemented. Although the Ulster question remained unresolved, the Catholics of St John’s celebrated as if Home Rule was an accomplished fact. The Daily News published a glowing editorial, rejoicing that the “herculean task” was

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finally accomplished. It conceded that further trouble was likely, given the position of the north, but it would not be long before all Irishmen would co-operate and make Ireland “the most devoted daughter in the imperial household.” The imperial connection was key, as the report concluded with two exclamations: “God save Ireland!” and “God prosper the Empire!”27 The joyous response to the news extended beyond the press. The BIS held a special meeting at the end of May, where a congratulatory resolution was drafted and sent to John Redmond.28 When news of the impending success reached St Bonaventure’s College, “the enthusiasm of the boys was unbounded.” Members of the BIS attended a special assembly at the school, where nationalist speeches were given, including one by the local superior, Brother J.B. Ryan. “A Nation Once Again” was sung, “the chorus of which the boys joined in with a truly patriotic ardour.”29 Although the Irish Question was also an imperial one, and drew responses from both Catholics and Protestants in St John’s, the public, passionate celebration of its imminent successful resolution was largely carried out by those of Irish descent. For many, including the students of the Christian Brothers, the celebration of Irish Home Rule reflected a strong, emotional, ethnic attachment to the old country. That Ireland was set to be “a nation once again,” while retaining its imperial status, was a reason for joy, even amongst those who were several generations removed from their ancestral homeland. The First World War significantly changed how those of Irish descent in St John’s engaged with the Irish Question. With Home Rule suspended, local commentary on affairs in Ireland virtually ceased in late 1914 and into 1915 as Newfoundlanders, both Catholic and Protestant, were swept up in the patriotic response to the European conflict. As was generally the case elsewhere in British North America, Catholics of Irish descent enthusiastically supported the war effort.30 In St John’s, this was clearly evidenced by Catholics’ strong involvement with the Newfoundland Regiment. In her unpublished analysis of the Newfoundland Patriotic Association – the body that oversaw the colony’s war effort – Patricia O’Brien suggests that religion was not a factor in recruitment in the capital city.31 Young Catholics joined up in numbers proportional to their Protestant neighbours. Of the first 500 recruits in St John’s, 160 came from the Catholic Cadet Corps.32 Founded in 1896, the Corps was a paramilitary organization established “to minister to the physical, mental and moral life of the boys who were recently released from the restraints of school and to qualify them for good and

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worthy citizens.”33 Like many denominational paramilitary groups established throughout the British Empire around this time, the Corps emphasized an overtly masculine, muscular Christianity defined by loyalty, discipline, self-reliance, obedience, and, from the early twentieth century, total abstinence from alcohol. Loyalty to Newfoundland and the British Empire were also important facets of the Corps experience.34 Their quarterly journal, The Cadet, one of few identifiably Catholic publications in early twentieth-century St John’s, continually published photographs and short biographical sketches of former members who lost their lives on the battlefields of Europe.35 A denominational breakdown of the Newfoundland Regiment from June 1916 stated that out of 2,687 soldiers, 830, or just over 30 per cent, were Roman Catholic – a number roughly proportional to their population in the colony.36 They were under-represented, however, among the officers of the regiment, where only 18 out of 72, or 25 per cent, were Catholic. This was obviously a source of some dismay, as a letter from Archbishop Roche to Governor W.E. Davidson noted the “widespread dissatisfaction amongst Catholics generally” at the composition of the officer corps.37 Despite such disillusionment, virtually all St John’s Catholics supported the war effort. The BIS enthusiastically endorsed the conflict and held a special meeting to celebrate the first naval victory of the war on 7 August 1914.38 Later, in its 1915 annual report, the society’s minutes praised the twenty-four young men from its ranks who had volunteered to give “their all for the cause of Empire.”39 Likewise, members of the Knights of Columbus, as in other parts of British North America, responded patriotically to the conflict. By the beginning of the First World War, there were 613 Knights spread across Newfoundland – the order had surpassed the BIS as the primary venue for middle-class Catholic male socialization. Six of their members lost their lives on European battlefields. After the war, a desire to commemorate their fallen colleagues as well as a growing interest in Catholic education led to the establishment of a new school. A fundraising drive, led largely by members’ wives who formed the Columbus Ladies’ Association, took place in 1919 and 1920, and on 12 October 1921, the Knights of Columbus Memorial School opened in St John’s.40 The Catholic clergy’s reaction to the declaration of war was entirely patriotic. Though in the final months of his life, Archbishop Howley took a keen interest in recruitment and training through August and

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September 1914. He called for daily prayers for peace and declared that a special Mass should be held on Friday evenings until the end of the war to pray for a triumphant resolution to the conflict.41 On 24 September, after several weeks of touring eastern Newfoundland’s outport communities, the archbishop visited the Newfoundland Regiment’s training facilities at Pleasantville where he “manifested a deep interest in the lads under canvas.”42 On 27 September, less than a week before the first 500 recruits embarked for Europe aboard the SS Florizel, Howley delivered what would be his final sermon. He called upon the recruits to cleanse themselves spiritually prior to departing for the front and urged them to “go forward with a firm resolution to take part in a just fight and to be true soldiers of God, the King, and to uphold the honour of Newfoundland.”43 Howley died on 15 October, and, unsurprisingly, Father Michael F. Power, in the funeral oration, praised the archbishop’s imperial patriotism, focusing specifically on his final speech to the volunteers.44 Howley’s successor, Edward Patrick Roche, actively praised the loyalty and patriotism of Newfoundland’s Irish Catholics. Born in Placentia in 1874, Roche was educated at St Bonventure’s in St John’s and All Hallows in Dublin, where he was ordained in 1897. He returned to Newfoundland’s capital and served in the nearby communities of Topsail and Manuels until 1907, when he was appointed administrator of the Cathedral. His experience at the centre of the archdiocese made him a logical successor to Howley in 1914.45 He held similar convictions to his predecessor, including a strong Newfoundland patriotism, which is remembered through his staunch opposition to Confederation with Canada in the late 1940s. His NewfoundlandCatholic identity coexisted with a pride for the British Empire and the freedom it afforded Roman Catholics. His reverence for imperial institutions was exemplified by his 1915 letter to a New York–based agent for the Irish Republican newspaper Irish World, who had offered a subscription. Roche indignantly declined, stating: “In this colony, we have the greatest freedom in matters civil and religious, and as a consequence our people are unanimously loyal to the British Empire and the British Throne. More than one-third of the people of the Colony are of Irish extraction and have preserved amongst them the best and noblest traditions of the Irish race, but there is no disloyalty amongst them to the Flag under whose protecting folds we live in perfect freedom. Consequently, such publications as the Irish World are likely to find scant courtesy amongst the people of this colony.”46

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Public discussion of the Irish Question decreased dramatically with the war, but it did not cease altogether. The patriotic Newfoundland newspaper editors held up the example of John Redmond and the Irish-Catholic contribution to the war effort to highlight imperial unity.47 Radical republicanism, meanwhile, was acknowledged but deemed seditious and pro-German. One Daily News editorial from early 1915 decried the “revolutionary Irishmen” but celebrated the fact that “those who preach sedition are few, infamous and cowards … These men compare themselves to the men of ’98; as will compare a ferret to a lion … The struggle is now over; and Irishmen and Englishmen have entered into fellowship, and are sealing the compact with their blood to the common defence of their common Empire.”48 Such commentary was rare, however, and with Newfoundlanders embroiled in the European war, the position of Ireland was, for a time, largely forgotten. Although Halifax saw the greatest involvement with Irish affairs during the 1892 to 1911 period, responses to the third Home Rule Bill and the Ulster crisis were muted. Events in Ireland were frequently reported in the local press, but local commentary on the situation was rare. Instead, it was the Irish ethnic associations – the CIS and the AOH – and, to a lesser extent, the Catholic clergy that led local engagement with the Irish Question throughout this period. As in St John’s, the discussion was always placed within a devoutly loyal, pro-imperial context, though some letters to the Halifax newspapers demonstrate stronger sympathy with Ulster unionism. Editorials discussing events in Ireland rarely appeared in the spring of 1912. Instead, the growing tensions and the details of the Home Rule Bill were extensively reported through telegraphed reports from Britain.49 What few locally written editorials that did exist tended to demonstrate support for Home Rule. A Halifax Herald piece, for example, rejoiced that “the heart of the Empire [was] shivering on the brink of greater freedom and larger liberty.” The editor went on to chastise the unionists, calling the struggle against Home Rule “utterly ridiculous and grotesque.”50 This drew a response three days later in the form of a letter from a Mr Hughes presenting a strong defence of unionism. He argued that the current measure was contrary to the interests of the Empire and equated Home Rule to “Rome Rule,” which would destabilize the United Kingdom.51 Both supporters and opponents of Home Rule crafted their arguments by referring to the unity and integrity of the British Empire. The Irish Question was an

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Table 5.1 Occupational profile of proposed members of the Halifax Charitable Irish Society, 1914 Type of occupation

Number of proposed members

% of proposed members

Professional and white collar workers Grocers, merchants, and shopkeepers Skilled workers Semi- or unskilled workers Other Total

26 15 7 2 3 53

49.0 28.0 13.0 4.0 6.0 100.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Source: “Propositions for Membership, 1914,” Nova Scotia Archives, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 63, No. 17. Note: The breakdown in occupations is similar to table 2.1. The semi- and unskilled workers in this instance consist of a letter carrier and a coal weigher, while “Other” contains two men for whom no occupation was recorded and A.J. Foley, who was simply listed as a “gentleman.”

imperial one, and in Halifax, as in St John’s, interest in it went beyond those of Irish birth or descent. However, examples of public anti–Home Rule sentiment were rare. As in St John’s, most popular opinion, at least that expressed through newspapers, was in favour of self-government for Ireland. Organizations such as the Orange Order did not mobilize against Home Rule until after 1914. Rather than the press, it was the city’s Irish ethnic associations, most notably the CIS and the AOH, that publicly pledged support for Irish self-government. As in the 1880s and 1890s, the CIS was central in leading public responses, at least for Halifax’s middle-class young Catholic men. No full membership lists have survived for the period, but a list of proposed members from 1914 was included in the minute book for that year. Cross-referencing the proposed members with city directories and census records reveals that educated applicants with white-collar jobs dominated, while unskilled labourers were almost entirely absent (see table 5.1). For the young, Catholic, middle-class men of Halifax, membership in the CIS not only provided an opportunity to express their ethnic identities but also represented a significant badge of respectability. The AOH, meanwhile, continued to draw its membership from the working classes. After 1912, members of both groups again discussed the politics of their ancestral homeland, and this ethnic engagement with Ireland was

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expressed entirely within a context of imperial loyalty and Canadian patriotism. At the St Patrick’s Day banquet of 1912, the newly elected president of the CIS, Robert E. Finn, expressed the hope that Home Rule would soon be achieved. The assembled members concluded by singing “God Save Ireland.”52 In August, Halifax representatives of the AOH travelled to Milltown, New Brunswick, to attend the order’s provincial convention, where they passed a pro–Home Rule resolution. The following month, the Halifax County AOH board convened to elect a new executive, and they too proclaimed their support for the Home Rule Bill. A unanimous resolution was passed in favour of self-government for Ireland and was forwarded to John Redmond in Dublin.53 Associational responses to Irish affairs continued through 1913 and 1914. Following the resumption of Halifax’s St Patrick’s Day parade by the AOH in 1907, the scale of the event had grown in each subsequent year. In 1913, the three Halifax Hibernian divisions marched with the CIS and were joined by the city’s Catholic clergy, as well as the mayor and a detachment of police. The sermon during the customary High Mass did not address the political situation in the old country, but discussion of Home Rule was a major feature at that year’s CIS dinner. Over 200 guests attended, and the keynote speaker was Father John Foley of St Mary’s. He noted that the quarrel was with the British government and that “Ireland never had any struggle with the people of England.” Foley highlighted the fact that the Irish did not desire outright separation from the Empire, but rather to assume their rightful place within it.54 His speech shows how the clergy, too, continued to express their support for Irish self-government with loyal, pro-imperial language. Later that year, at their regular November meeting, the CIS unanimously passed a pro–Home Rule resolution, and forwarded it to Redmond.55 The most interesting action on the part of the CIS took place in the winter of 1914, when another resolution suggested that anti–Home Rule sentiment was growing in the region. Members resolved “to unite with the Irish people of Nova Scotia in any action that may be deemed advisable to offset any movement that may be started in this province in opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.”56 Evidently, there was a concern that opposition to Irish self-government was coalescing into an organized movement. This may have been led by the Orange Order, which, as discussed below, dominated anti-nationalist sentiment after 1919. More likely, it was directed at the Toronto-based Canadian Unionist League, which had earlier expressed hopes of

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expanding into Nova Scotia.57 There were Irish Protestants in Halifax in this period, but their numbers were relatively small – at least compared to other Canadian cities like Saint John, New Brunswick, and Toronto. Popular opposition to Home Rule was more likely to be motivated by imperially minded conservatism rather than by an ethnic, ancestral, or sentimental attachment to Ulster. For many, to be a good Tory was to oppose Home Rule. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Unionist League was established in Halifax, and there does not appear to have been any organized opposition to Irish selfgovernment in the city during this period. The 1914 St Patrick’s Day celebrations were even more fixated on Home Rule than those of the previous year. The CIS banquet was, as usual, held at the Halifax Hotel. The dining hall was decorated with green flags, harps, and union jacks. An illuminated arch at the centre of each table read “Home stretch, Home Rule!” The principal address consisted of a biography of Daniel O’Connell delivered by W.S. McNary, a visiting dignitary representing the Charitable Irish Society of Boston. The members also read a special telegram from the Irish nationalist politician T.P. O’Connor, who had visited Halifax in 1910 and continued to correspond with his contacts in the city. Just over two months later, as the prospects for Home Rule were brightest, the CIS planned a celebration to mark the enactment of Home Rule in 1914. The society’s minutes do not, unfortunately, provide details of what shape such an event was to take, and the outbreak of the First World War postponed it indefinitely.58 War affected Haligonians’ responses to Irish affairs in a similar manner to in St John’s. As in Newfoundland and elsewhere in Canada, the Irish Catholics of the city volunteered in large numbers and responded enthusiastically to the conflict.59 The local clergy highlighted Redmond’s support for the imperial effort and Irish loyalty more broadly in order to encourage young Catholics to volunteer for service in Europe. For example, in a speech soon after the beginning of the war, Father Foley praised Redmond (to tremendous applause) and highlighted Ireland’s integral status within the Empire by asking, “why should not Irishmen be true to the [British] flag? It [is their] flag!” He lauded the strong links between Canada and the Empire while also pointing out the loyalty of the Irish people, concluding that the unity of English, Scots, and Irish on the battlefields of Europe would be difficult to overcome. Loud, prolonged applause and a chorus of “Rule Britannia” followed his remarks.60

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The city’s Irish-Catholic associations supported the war effort in much the same way as the St John’s BIS. Leading the way yet again was the CIS. At their annual dinner in 1915, Dalhousie professor H.L. Stewart, who would go on to write a history of the society in 1949, gave a lecture on Ireland’s enthusiastic participation in the war. The Irish homeland was praised for “taking her full share in the battle with the German Hun.”61 In the summer of 1915, the society took more direct action in supporting the Canadian effort by organizing one of the largest collections in its history to contribute to the Machine Gun Fund. A total of 167 members donated $1,119.62 A subsequent letter from the acting minister of the militia, James A. Lougheed, notified the society that funds for Canadian machine guns were no longer required, so the full sum was redirected to the Red Cross and the Disablement Fund.63 The AOH, too, adopted a patriotic, pro-imperial stance during the war. It featured the Union Jack prominently at its conventions and promised to pay the insurance premiums for all Halifax Hibernians fighting in Europe.64 A strong Halifax contingent attended the 1914 convention in Fredericton, where an unambiguously loyal resolution declared members’ “unswerving loyalty to His Majesty King George V and our readiness to defend the flag.”65 Later, the AOH cancelled its 1918 assembly since there were “so many overseas.”66 The loyal mentality of the Halifax AOH is particularly noteworthy as it represents a break with the much larger American organization. In the United States, at least until America’s entry into the war in 1917, the Hibernians tended to oppose the war and endorsed radical, physical-force republicanism.67 Halifax Hibernians’ loyalty is not surprising and in line with how branches elsewhere in Canada distanced themselves from their American counterparts after the outbreak of war. In Ontario, leaders attempted to have the American order’s press organ, the National Hibernian, deemed seditious and barred from import into Canada. Some branches even suggested establishing a new organization, entirely independent from American Hibernians. In 1916, councils in Vancouver and Victoria did in fact secede from the parent AOH – though there is no evidence that the Halifax branches followed suit.68 As in other parts of Canada, the ultra-loyal Knights of Columbus in Halifax were also actively involved in raising funds for the Dominion’s war effort. The most notable example was in the summer of 1918, when over $100,000 was pledged to the national Catholic Army

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Huts campaign.69 Although the AOH branches themselves do not appear to have donated to this fund, the members passed a resolution praising the Knights’ patriotism and congratulating them on the success of the fundraising efforts.70 As in St John’s, Catholics of Irish descent in Halifax were intensely loyal to King and country throughout the Great War. From the 1890s to 1911, there had been little public reaction in Portland to Irish affairs, and generally, this remained the case for the 1912 to 1916 period.71 Events in Ireland were extensively covered in local newspapers through telegraphed reports, so the Irish-Catholic community was aware of what was happening in the old country. Nevertheless, the meetings, rallies, and speeches so prominent in the 1880s were not repeated. The lack of public support or engagement with Home Rule does not necessarily reflect a lack of passion on the part of Portland’s Irish. The shortage of letters to the editor compared to St John’s and Halifax can be explained partly by the city’s relatively small Irish-Catholic community and partly by the city being located in the United States. Much of the broad interest observed in the other two centres was due to the Irish Question being such a vital imperial one. This was not the case in Portland, since most Yankees perceived it as a foreign issue. Furthermore, the lack of meetings and rallies, compared with the 1880s, was at least partly due to the failure of a nationalist organization such as the UIL taking hold in the city. This cut off Portland’s ties to the broader nationalist movement in Ireland and elsewhere in the United States. The activities of the UIL were covered in the local press, but there was no Portland or Maine involvement, for example, at the annual conference in Philadelphia in 1912.72 Large Home Rule meetings were held in Boston, and were covered in the Eastern Argus, but again, there does not appear to have been any direct Portland participation.73 Irish-Catholic associations such as the AOH remained silent on events in Ireland during this period. From 1912 to the Easter Rising in 1916, no public resolutions were made, though members undoubtedly discussed Irish affairs within the confines of their respective societal rooms. There is a possibility that a rift between the conservativenationalist Catholic clergy and the more radical AOH may have curtailed the latter’s public engagement with events in Ireland. After 1900, American Hibernians increasingly tended to support radical, physical-force nationalism. Portland’s clergy, led by Bishop Louis Sebastian Walsh, remained loyal to John Redmond’s constitutional

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methods, at least until the Easter Rising. At the children’s annual St Patrick’s Day concert in 1915, Walsh addressed the crowd and praised Irish soldiers’ “great contribution” in the European conflict.74 Two months later, in one of the few large-scale public engagements with Irish affairs during this period, national AOH president James McLaughlin visited Portland as part of a cross-country tour. Addressing all five local divisions, he spoke out against the British war effort and condemned Irish-Catholic youths who volunteered to fight for the Empire. Most notably, he concluded by expressing his regret that for the first time in the seventy-three cities he had spoken in, no Catholic clergymen had attended his talk.75 The clergy’s refusal to acknowledge the AOH president was possibly an objection to the radical-nationalist, anti-imperial messages he preached. Whether a disagreement between clergy and AOH impeded the latter in leading responses to the escalating tensions in the ancestral homeland remains an open question, especially in the absence of Hibernians’ associational records. This episode, however, may partly explain why the Portland divisions made no public comment on affairs in Ireland from 1912 to 1916.

the easter rising and the rise of sinn fein, 1916–1918 By the beginning of the First World War, support for Home Rule had reached its zenith, and John Redmond commanded the overwhelming support of nationalists in Ireland.76 Between 1912 and 1914, however, the crises that affected Irish politics had slowly facilitated a revival of popular separatism. Although supported by only a tiny minority, the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) determined that a rebellion should be staged before the end of the war.77 The vast majority of the Irish Volunteers had become part of Redmond’s National Volunteers, with many seeing service on European battlefields. About 15,000 remained under the control of the IRB, and were committed to Irish independence. It was this paramilitary force, alongside James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army, that would be mobilized at Easter 1916.78 The Rising itself was initially set for Easter Sunday. In the days leading up to the planned rebellion, rumours of impending mobilization began to spread throughout the ranks of the Irish Volunteers. Some leaders, most notably chief of staff Eóin MacNeill, opposed the plan.

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When news came that Roger Casement, who was accompanying a shipment of German guns and ammunition, had been intercepted by the British military off the coast of Kerry, MacNeill issued a countermanding order to halt the mobilization. The other IRB leaders resolved that the Rising should proceed regardless, but be postponed to the next day.79 On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, about 1,600 Volunteers were mobilized and occupied locations across Dublin. At 12:45 in the afternoon, Patrick Pearse proclaimed an Irish Republic from the entrance of the General Post Office on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). The confusion created by MacNeill’s countermanding order resulted in only a small percentage of Volunteers turning out to fight, so the chances of achieving any military success were negligible from the start.80 Street fighting in Dublin lasted for six days. On Saturday, Pearse surrendered unconditionally to General John Maxwell, commander of the British forces. Much of central Dublin lay in ruins, and over 450 people, about half of them civilians, had been killed.81 During and immediately following the Rising, popular opinion in Ireland was almost universally against the rebels. As the Volunteers were being marched to internment camps, many Dubliners turned out to pelt them with refuse and to shout abuse.82 The rebels, rather than the British soldiers, were blamed for the havoc wreaked upon the city and the high number of civilian casualties. The subsequent actions of the British authorities, however, would sour and eventually change nationalist opinion in Ireland. As the bulk of the participants were deported to prisons in England, General Maxwell tried the Rising’s leaders in Dublin by court martial. On 3 May, Pearse, Tom Clarke, and Thomas MacDonagh were executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol. By 12 May, fourteen of the rebels had been shot in Dublin, in addition to Thomas Kent in Cork. Roger Casement, who had been captured in Kerry with the shipment of German arms, was hanged at Pentonville Prison in England on 3 August after a wellpublicized trial. The number and speed of the executions outraged nationalists throughout Ireland.83 Prime Minister Herbert Asquith ordered the executions halted, and travelled to Dublin to negotiate a compromise on Irish self-government with Redmond and the Ulster Unionists. Massive damage had been done to pro-imperial opinion.84 As one commentator succinctly noted, a “few unknown men shot in a barrack yard has embittered a whole nation.”85 As early as mid-May, the

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Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) reported that a “sudden unfriendliness” now abounded throughout the country. By June, they noted that separatist opinion was in the ascendancy.86 A shift in opinion was by no means immediate, but in the months that followed the Rising, curfews, mass arrests, and the heavy-handed British military occupation gradually radicalized nationalist opinion in favour of an Irish Republic.87 Negotiations to bring about a Home Rule settlement failed in late 1916 and 1917, and with Sinn Fein’s victory in a North Roscommon by-election, which had previously been a safe Home Rule seat, John Redmond’s fight for Home Rule within the British Empire was effectively ended.88 Redmond died suddenly on 6 March 1918, and the final blow for constitutional nationalism came later that month as the British government attempted to enact conscription in Ireland. Support for Sinn Fein and republicanism predominated amongst Catholics at the end of the war, and the party won 73 seats out of 105 in the 1918 general election.89 Dominion Home Rule was now widely perceived as an insupportable compromise, which would bring about not independence but partition of the country and devolution within an unacceptable framework of British rule.90 Changes in Irish-Catholic popular opinion were not confined only to Ireland. The Easter Rising and its aftermath affected responses to Irish affairs throughout the diaspora: a growing divergence began to appear between those of Irish birth and descent in the British world and those in the United States. Reactions to the Rising were strongly influenced by local contexts, with the Empire’s involvement in the First World War being the predominant, defining factor in the British dominions. In Australia, for example, most Catholics of Irish birth and descent initially reacted against the Rising, labelling it foolish and disloyal.91 However, led by a small number of radical clerics, such as Melbourne’s archbishop Daniel Mannix, some Irish Australians came to support the republican cause. By St Patrick’s Day 1918, the “martyrs” of the Easter Rising were celebrated, and marchers carried pro–Sinn Fein flags and banners.92 In Canada, Catholics of Irish birth and descent tended not to publicly support Irish republicanism in the wake of the Rising. Responses varied by region, though almost all Canadians initially abhorred the rebellion. In Toronto, for example, Catholic newspapers described the events in Dublin as a “colossal act of folly,” while William Jenkins describes the response of the Irish Catholics in that city as a mixture of “surprise and restraint.”93 In Montreal, which would later become

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Irish-Canadian nationalism’s dominant centre, rallies took place where speakers emphasized support for the war effort and distanced themselves from Sinn Fein and republicanism.94 In the Catholic press, nationalist support remained largely constitutional, although the number of letters and editorials on Irish affairs increased after the Rising, possibly suggesting an enhanced interest in the political destiny of the ancestral homeland by the “children and grandchildren of the diaspora.”95 Throughout 1917, Catholics of Irish descent from British Columbia to the Maritimes called for Irish Home Rule. Support for Sinn Fein and an independent Irish Republic was seldom articulated, while enthusiasm for the Canadian war effort was maintained.96 Unlike the British dominions, the United States was a neutral power in the spring of 1916. Irish-American responses to the Rising and its aftermath were not directly affected by the wartime context, and hostility to Britain after the executions was widespread.97 The Irish-American press initially condemned the Rising, portraying it as a foolhardy, isolated incident. As news of the executions emerged, however, the tone of editorials and comments became increasingly anti-British.98 Indeed, outrage at Maxwell’s “stupid and vengeful acts” on behalf of the British administration went well beyond those of Irish birth or descent – American opinion was generally shocked. Many editors who had been supporters of moderate, constitutional nationalism now published radical, pro–Sinn Fein editorials. Meanwhile, Irish-Catholic communities throughout the United States organized fundraising events to relieve the distress in Dublin.99 Although constitutional nationalism was by no means eliminated altogether, public opinion amongst Irish Americans was largely in favour of Sinn Fein after 1916. However, America’s entry into the war in April 1917 drastically altered the context in which engagement with Irish affairs could take place. Radical, anti-British expressions of Irish nationalism were replaced by American patriotism. Most Irish Americans “postponed consideration of Ireland’s future until the end of the War.”100 Both the Catholic press and Irish-American leaders such as New York judge Daniel Cohalan urged loyalty to American war aims, and suggested that President Woodrow Wilson’s objectives should include some measure of self-determination for Ireland. It was this theme that dominated Irish-American engagement with the old country until the end of 1918.101 As was the case in Canada, responses to the Easter Rising and its aftermath in St John’s continued to reflect Catholics’ strong loyalty to

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the British Empire alongside a sentimental attachment to their ancestral homeland.102 The fighting began in Dublin on 24 April and was extensively reported in the Newfoundland press by 26 April. Most initial reports were in the form of censored cablegrams from London’s press bureau. Predictably, these adopted a virulently anti-rebel tone. Headlines in the wake of the outbreak included “Is [Roger] Casement a Lunatic?” and “Traitors Shot!”103 Despite the slanted nature of the reporting, the fighting itself, the executions, the trial of Roger Casement, and the government’s attempt to negotiate a Home Rule compromise were all well covered in the St John’s papers. Editorials and letters to the local press demonstrate how the jingoistic, First World War context overrode all responses to the Rising. The Daily News portrayed the rebellion as a German plot designed to destabilize the Empire: “The madmen who are striving to undo the work of O’Connell, Butt, Parnell and Redmond, are not only traitors to the Empire, but traitors first and before all, to Ireland. It is incomprehensible that any can be found so infamous as to join in thought or deed with the assassins of Belgium, the murderers of Priests and Nuns, the destroyers of Louvain. Irishmen, the world over, will to-day, bow their heads in sorrow.”104 Meanwhile, the Daily Star’s editor echoed similar sentiments, characterizing the Sinn Feiners – the term erroneously used to describe the rebels – as “agents of Germany, caught by German persuasions, backed by German money, [and] assured of German support.”105 Regarding the executions, most St John’s papers were quiet. As many press organs in Canada, the United States, and Australia expressed their dismay at the continued shootings, the Evening Telegram, which had strongly supported Irish Home Rule in previous years, argued that examples should be made of the Rising’s leaders to dissuade further disloyalty.106 Letters to the editor expressed continued, broad support for Irish Home Rule, but only within an imperial framework. Sympathy for an independent Irish Republic was hardly ever publicly articulated, and no shift in popular opinion took place in Newfoundland in the immediate aftermath of the Rising. A letter to Redmond, which had actually been penned by health inspector William O’Brien just before the Rising, was reprinted in the Daily News in early May 1916. It praised the News’s editor, James Alexander Robinson, as a “Home Ruler of the first water” and pledged that “all Irishmen here are with you in the struggle for Home Rule.”107 However, subsequent letters to the local press suggest that anti–Home Rule sentiment may have been

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on the rise in the city, and there was a perception, at least among some Catholics, that this was a result of sectarian, anti-Irish bigotry in the community. A letter to the Evening Herald from May 1917, for example, lamented the fact that “many good people in our midst, who have enjoyed all the benefits of Home Rule for nearly a century and who would fight to the death before they would give it up, oppose Home Rule for Ireland. They have never considered the merits of the question, and they oppose it on principle. Their opposition is based on ignorance, and I might add, that is in many cases intensified by blind prejudice.”108 Another example, submitted to the Catholic-edited Plaindealer in 1918, also subtly suggested that bigotry and sectarianism were to blame for growing anti–Home Rule sentiment in the colony. The author noted that those opposed to the cause of Ireland were becoming increasingly vocal in St John’s, and that they gave “as an excuse for their hostility to Home Rule, their opinion that Irishmen are not united enough to take charge of their country’s affairs, and therefore, to grant self-government to Ireland would be a great mistake. What a sorry excuse, Mr Editor, to hide their true reasons.”109 The reference to their “true reasons” undoubtedly implies that antiIrish or anti-Catholic sentiments were at the heart of local opposition to Home Rule. The Rising itself, and the associated disloyalty, may have been a factor in enhancing local anti-Irishness, as a bitter letter to the Daily Star demonstrates: “Every sane person knows that Home Rule for Ireland is impracticable politically, financially, and commercially. I will only lightly touch on the events of last Easter as these are but all too fresh in everyone’s memory. The treacherous blow of the Irish aimed at England’s back when she was fighting for her life will never be forgotten. Never will England forget, though she may forgive, that dastardly and cowardly attempt at her life.”110 Public commentary on the Rising was not universally negative. One of the more nationalistic pieces produced in wartime St John’s appeared in an unlikely publication: the ultra-loyal magazine of the Catholic Cadet Corps, the Cadet. A June 1917 article on “the situation in Ireland” written under the pen-name “Seumas,” a regular contributor to the journal, discussed the growth of Sinn Fein and republican Irish nationalism.111 The article was interspersed with photographs of former Cadets who had lost their lives in Europe or had been taken prisoner, but its author adopted a rather romantic view of the Rising: “None of our readers can have forgotten the gallant stand these men

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made, nor the brutal, Prussian methods by which they were suppressed. Fifteen men, three of them poets of the first rank, all idealists and men of high character, were shot down after a secret court-martial, the results of which the Government has not yet dared publish.” The lengthy article continued: “In the opinion of the writer, an Irish Republic would not be expedient, but the point which he wishes to emphasize is that if the Irish people, by a clear majority, desire a republic, they have an absolute right to set one up.”112 It would be an exaggeration to deem this an overt display of disloyalty, yet it is unquestionably out of step with the broader public and journalistic response to Easter 1916 and its aftermath. Politicians in Newfoundland were keen to play down the significance of the Rising, treating it as a disloyal but isolated incident, while emphasizing the loyalty of Irish Catholics in Ireland, Newfoundland, and throughout the Empire. A long statement on Irish loyalty was read in the Legislative Council by John Anderson, a Scot, best known for his efforts to bring daylight savings time to the colony. His speech stated in part that “Ireland’s allegiance to the British Crown is stronger to-day than at any time during the history of the Irish nation … In this House, we have Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen and Newfoundlanders. In no part of the British Empire will you find a race more loyal to the British crown than the Irish and their descendants in Newfoundland.”113 A similar resolution was passed by the St John’s municipal council several months later, praising Irish loyalty and formally endorsing Irish self-government. On this occasion, the council’s act drew a sarcastic response from the Daily News, whose editor suggested that the body had no right to comment on imperial or international affairs.114 Nevertheless, these actions by government bodies in Newfoundland are significant. Unlike some colonies, such as Australia,115 the loyalty and patriotism of Irish Catholics was never publicly questioned in Newfoundland, and this may be an important factor in why pro–-Sinn Fein attitudes failed to take hold. A sense of alienation and political isolation did not exist, and Catholic Newfoundlanders maintained their strong sense of imperial loyalty until the end of the war in 1918. In his address, Anderson noted the loyalty of the BIS. The city’s foremost Irish-ethnic association had been quite vocal on the Irish Question in previous decades, but it remained silent regarding the Easter Rising and its aftermath. Instead, the society’s minutes continued to reflect the Newfoundland-Catholic contribution to the war effort.

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Resolutions for fallen members who died “nobly upholding the cause of Empire” frequently appeared between 1916 and 1918.116 Finally, the Catholic clergy were also agents in ensuring that responses to the Easter Rising evolved within a devoutly pro-imperial context. In an undated speech from 1917, in which he would eventually go on to call for Home Rule to be granted to Ireland, Archbishop Roche noted that Newfoundlanders enjoyed “the freest institutions that are to be found in any part of the world. We have civil freedom, we have religious freedom, and we have educational freedom. We are absolutely free to manage, or, as the case may be, mismanage our own affairs … These institutions have been given to us and preserved for us by our partnership in the British Empire.”117 These passages display a deep devotion and respect for Britain, its Empire, and the monarchy, but such sentiments in no way diminished Newfoundland patriotism or Irish ethnicity. Generations of contentment within a British-imperial context, the jingoistic response to the First World War, the ultra-loyal Catholic clergy, and the absence of an anti-Catholic political framework combined to prevent support for Sinn Fein and an Irish Republic from coalescing in St John’s between 1916 and 1918. Interest in the ancestral homeland was maintained, as many Irish Catholics, along with many Anglo-Protestants, continued to support John Redmond’s objectives of Dominion Home Rule, even as such a mentality held less and less traction in Ireland and elsewhere in the diaspora. Perhaps the most succinct comment on Newfoundland-Catholic responses to the Irish Question during this period was made in early 1919 by the governor, Sir Charles Alexander Harris, in a letter to the colonial secretary, Walter Hume Long. Harris noted that the Roman Catholics in the colony were “generally loyal” but “coloured by that tendency to lament the wrongs of Ireland, which seems to have become inherent in the Irish character, especially on this side of the water.”118 The end of the war, however, changed the context in which St John’s Irish Catholics responded to affairs in the old country, and amidst a great upsurge in interest in Ireland, responses in the city became increasingly radical and sectarianized from 1919 to 1922. Responses to the Easter Rising and its aftermath in Halifax were quite similar to those in St John’s, although fewer editorials and letters on Irish subjects appeared. Initial reports were virtually identical to those in the Newfoundland press. The fighting in Dublin was mostly covered through cablegrams from London that characterized the rebellion as a German plot, while highlighting the Irish contribution

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to the Great War.119 Locally produced responses repeated these trends. A letter to the editor of the Herald noted that “the uprising in Dublin was the result of a carefully laid German plot … to shake Ireland to its very foundations in order to distract the attention of the British from the Western Front … It failed because the vast majority in Ireland are still loyal to the British Empire.”120 As in St John’s, no widespread shift in popular opinion in favour of Irish republicanism occurred. Instead, the Irish Catholics of the city remained loyal to John Redmond and Dominion Home Rule. The local branches of the AOH, whose American counterparts increasingly tended to endorse Sinn Fein, passed an anti-rebel resolution, even after news of the executions had been reported in the Halifax papers. The members expressed “absolute disapproval of the riotous and rebellious character of the uprising; be it therefore resolved that the Halifax Hibernians express their profound regret at the recent unfortunate uprising, and further express their confidence in that great Irish tribune, John Redmond, whose leadership and qualities as a statesman more than ever before appeal to the Irish race.”121 It is possible that, as in some other colonial settings, the Hibernians’ public expression of loyalty was intended to silence any whispers of Irish-Catholic disloyalty that may have been present in the town. Meanwhile, the CIS, which had been the predominant organization in leading responses to affairs in Ireland in the years before the First World War, was, like the BIS in St John’s, completely silent on Irish affairs from 1916 to 1918, as were the Catholic clergy. Pro–Home Rule, anti–Sinn Fein opinion continued to abound towards the end of the war. Redmond’s death in March 1918 was met with sorrow. Eulogists in the local press praised his support of the British war effort and his marriage of “British principles of liberty and justice [with] Irish national ideals.”122 The loyal, pro-imperial sentiments held by many of the city’s Irish Catholics were concisely summarized in a short Halifax Herald piece on Melbourne’s radical Archbishop Mannix: “the loyal Catholics of Nova Scotia have nothing but contempt for the firebrand tactics and treacherous teachings of disloyal Catholic bishops in other parts of the Empire.”123 As in St John’s, those of Irish descent in Halifax were proudly loyal to King and country, and republican ideals never took hold. Halifax’s most concentrated public discussion of Irish politics occurred in the spring of 1917, when an Anglo-Protestant member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, Liberal George E. Faulkner of

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Halifax, proposed a pro–Home Rule resolution. His intentions were first reported in the Herald on St Patrick’s Day. The language of the resolution was similar to many of the societal declarations in favour of Irish self-government that were proposed in British North America during this period. It focused on granting Home Rule for Ireland for the security and unity of the Empire, and also for the sake of extending the freedom and harmony enjoyed in Canada to the Irish people.124 Three days later, the paper’s editor discussed the proposed resolution, expressing sympathy with the principles of Irish self-government, but accusing Faulkner and the Liberals of attempting to gain Catholic votes. Faulkner, he suggested, was using Ireland “for the purposes of party” and called on him not to “play politics with so important a question at such a vital time in the Empire’s life.”125 It was not long before opposition to the proposal appeared in the local press. Most commentators argued that, although they were in favour of self-government for Ireland, the provincial assembly had no business debating imperial affairs – comparable rhetoric to those who opposed the St John’s municipal council’s resolution after Easter 1916.126 Others, though, denounced the principle of Home Rule itself. One letter, signed “A Supporter,” not only accused Faulkner of being ignorant of the position of Ulster unionists but also claimed that he “viewed with favour the actions of the Sinn Feiners at this, possibly, the most critical time in the great conflict.” The letter concluded by reemphasizing the rights of Ulstermen to remain an integral part of the United Kingdom.127 This piece drew a reply from the Tralee-born W.P. Buckley, a city alderman and one of Halifax’s most vocal Irish nationalists in the twentieth century, who denounced any connection between those advocating Dominion Home Rule and Sinn Fein republicanism, and also highlighted the pre-war seditious musings of Carson and the unionists. Buckley’s strong language demonstrates the anger and frustration of one of Halifax’s Irish Catholics when nationalists were universally portrayed as separatist radicals. The final, most interesting response to the proposed Home Rule resolution was a formal letter from the provincial Orange Order denouncing Irish self-government. At their annual session in Sydney, the Grand Orange Lodge of Nova Scotia unanimously passed an anti–Home Rule resolution, which was sent to the Halifax newspapers as well as to the House of Assembly. The Orangemen maintained that while they supported the ideals of Home Rule in Canada, such a measure was impractical for Ireland, “owing to the incompatibility of the people.” The resolution

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continued: “the facts are, there are two distinct races dwelling [in Ireland], differing in their ideals of social, religious and political aspirations, making impossible the fusion of the two races.”128 This is a particularly interesting example, as it deals directly with conceptions of race. By the early twentieth century, the concept of a distinct “Irish race” was well ingrained throughout the global diaspora. Although this was at least partly related to Irish “whiteness,” as Cian McMahon explains, “for the Irish, differences between the white races were just as important as those separating whites from people of colour.”129 Constructed in a transnational, diasporic context, largely through the international circulation of the Irish press, Irishness was considered to be imbued with certain ingrained characteristics: bravery, honour, passion, persistence, and tended to be expressed in the language of “Celts” versus “Saxons.”130 Although, as Donald Akenson points out, the differences between Catholic and Protestant Irish – both in Ireland and in the diaspora – tended to be relatively minor, it is not surprising that the Orangemen of Nova Scotia highlighted the absolute irreconcilability of Catholic and Protestant Ireland.131 The debate surrounding the incident faded away through late March and early April, and at the end of that month, Faulkner formally withdrew the resolution. It does not seem as though it was ever debated in the legislature. He claimed the withdrawal had nothing to do with the accusations of ethnoreligious politicking, but instead was due to the increased attention the Irish Question was finally receiving from the British government. Faulkner maintained that he had been “justified in bringing the attention of this house to the subject” and that it was a critical question that was relevant “all over the world wherever there are people of Irish birth or descent.”132 The polite withdrawal of the motion still failed to placate some Catholics of Irish descent. Buckley sent a letter to the Herald disparaging Faulkner, accusing him of attempting to “hogg” the issue for political purposes and thereby had “prevented others who would have been at least sincere from the first in presenting a similar resolution.” The Halifax representative was not genuine “or he would have pressed his resolution and not held it out as bait to catch the so-called Irish vote.” The letter concluded with the quip: “come on, Mr Faulkner, you may jolly some of the Irish people all of the time, all of the Irish people some of the time, but not all the Irish people all the time!”133 This debate over Irish Home Rule in Halifax ultimately amounted to very little, but we see in the city nearly identical responses to Easter 1916 and its after-

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math as in St John’s. The First World War and British-imperial context pervaded all local discussions and debates of Irish affairs, though there were tentative signs of cohesive, vocal anti-nationalist sentiment. This would fully emerge as Irish nationalist discourse became increasingly contested after 1918. In Portland, Irish-Catholic responses to the Easter Rising and its aftermath were remarkably muted. There is a common historical perception that the rebellion and the executions began an Irish-American nationalist frenzy, but some studies of localized responses, such as Timothy Meagher’s work on Worcester, have revealed more subdued, short-lived reactions.134 Nevertheless, in Portland, the near-total absence of any identifiable reaction to the events in Dublin is surprising, especially given the passion devoted to Irish affairs in the late nineteenth century. The Rising was well covered in Portland newspapers, but editorial comment was almost non-existent, with the only locally produced piece being a brief condemnation of the executions in the Eastern Argus.135 The county board of the AOH did call a special meeting on 14 May, but no public resolution was ever released. The Hibernians and other Irish-Catholic associations made no comment on the situation throughout 1916.136 The most noteworthy local response appeared in the organ of the Catholic Church. It suggests a shift in opinion was underway in Portland shortly after the Easter Rising – though it was almost certainly slower to take hold than in some other Irish-American settings. The Maine Catholic Historical Magazine, in the absence of a Catholic newspaper, served as the chief press organ for Bishop Louis Sebastian Walsh and his clergy. In the May 1916 issue, a distinctly anti-British report on the Rising and executions appeared. It denounced the draconian executions and the British war effort, stating: “the cold blooded executions which quickly followed the ill-starred Sinn Fein Insurrection in long suffering Ireland clearly shows that the spirit which actuates the rulers of the British Empire is to all intents and purposes the same as has prevailed during the many years that have witnessed the pitiless tyranny, the heartless oppression exercised by perfidious England over the destinies of a sister Isle … Pearse, [and his comrades], who while ill advised, may easily rank among the most intelligent and upright minds of their race, men in every way deserving of due consideration and mercy in the day of their failure.”137 The author’s anger towards Britain and the Empire is obvious in this passage, and the tone, particularly the reference to “perfidious England,”

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is notably different from reactions observed in St John’s and Halifax. The Maine Catholic Historical Magazine was largely inspired by Bishop Walsh himself, and it is unlikely that any articles would have been printed that did not meet with his approval.138 Considering that, only a few months prior to the Rising, Walsh and his clergy refused to attend a talk by the national president of the AOH in which the British war effort was denounced, and the bishop himself had praised the Irish contribution to the conflict, the change in opinion seems drastic. The language of the article, though, may be an emotional response to the sudden and dramatic execution of the Rising’s leaders rather than a representation of a true shift in opinion. Based on this evidence alone, it is impossible to conclude that a rise in republican sentiment occurred throughout the Irish-Catholic community of Portland in the wake of the Rising, and the lack of any cohesive associational response would seem to confirm this. In the aftermath of the Easter Rising, the Irish Question became increasingly prominent in American national politics. In Portland, however, distinctly ethnic rhetoric seldom appeared in local political debates during the 1916 electoral campaign. Throughout the period examined here, Irish-Catholic political life in Portland was characterized by a strong loyalty to the Democratic Party. This reflected trends observed throughout the northeastern United States, as Irish-Americans had long-standing, symbiotic relationships with the party. Kevin Kenny has noted that in Antebellum America, the increasing numbers of impoverished Catholic immigrants arriving in the United States in the 1840s and 1850s were welcomed by only two organizations: the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party.139 The Republicans were the anti-slavery party, but they also opposed immigration, and the huge influx of poor Catholics did not meld with their vision of a selfsustained workforce motivated by the Protestant work ethic.140 The Democrats, meanwhile, courted Irish voters and provided avenues for social mobility and patronage that were not available elsewhere.141 This pre–Civil War relationship was sustained as Irish Catholics “voted overwhelmingly” Democratic until the 1960s.142 “Ethnic politics” in the northeastern United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was most obvious in cities with large Irish-Catholic populations. In such cases, the Irish were able to dominate municipalities through Democratic machines. While Irishdominated political machines existed in Albany, Jersey City, and elsewhere, New York City’s Tammany Hall remains the best-known

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example, where up to 15,000 jobs could be distributed to supporters. They functioned, in short, by exchanging jobs and financial relief for votes.143 In Albany, for example, the Democrats distributed coal and turkeys at Christmas, while being a registered Democrat was a significant advantage in any dealings with the municipal government.144 Cities with smaller Irish-Catholic populations did not develop the same sort of ethnic politics as New York City and Albany. In Worcester, Massachusetts, Irish Democratic support offered “only meagre rewards, as there was simply not enough patronage to go around.”145 In the late nineteenth century, those of Irish descent allied with elite Yankee Protestants – mostly merchants and bankers – within the Democratic Party in order to influence domestic politics. Towards the end of the century, the Irish population of Worcester increased dramatically, and the party became more exclusively Irish.146 Many of the patterns observed in other New England cities were repeated in Portland. While most Irish-American Catholics supported the Democrats, the city was dominated by Yankee Protestants, most of whom were staunch Republicans. The Democrats dominated in only two of its nine twentieth-century urban wards – wards two and four, located around the heavily Irish locales of Munjoy Hill and Gorham’s Corner.147 The Democrats could count on Irish votes, but unlike in Worcester, the party continued to incorporate a sizable Yankee element. City-wide electoral success was only possible when local, regional, or national trends moved disaffected Republicans to support them. As such, the Irish Catholics of Portland were never in a position where they could control municipal affairs or monopolize political patronage.148 Those of Irish birth or descent did achieve some political success, though this was generally restricted to wards two and four. At state and federal level, Irish Catholics seldom thrived. Most of Portland’s Irish were Democrats; the very few notable exceptions included Leitrim-born contractor James Cunningham and state solicitor William H. Looney, both Republicans and both heavily involved with Irish associational and nationalist networks.149 On a few occasions, however, the long-standing alliance between the party and the community was tested, usually in response to national trends. One such example was during the 1884 presidential contest when Democrat Grover Cleveland was pitted against Maine Republican candidate James G. Blaine. Many of America’s most prominent Irish nationalists were calling for Catholics to desert the Democrats, seeing their “unswerving loyalty” as overly passive – both a “symbol and

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cause” of their relative inferiority in the United States.150 In response to this national campaign, Democrats in Portland worked hard to characterize Blaine and the Republicans as anti-Irish and antiCatholic. The Argus calmly asserted that Portland’s Irishmen were not turncoats and would as a whole remain loyal to the Democratic Party.151 Much of the ethnicized rhetoric was rendered moot in the final days of the campaign as an ill-timed anti-Catholic slur by a prominent Republican mobilized Irish-Americans against Blaine, particularly in New York, and this ended up being a key aspect of Cleveland’s victory.152 On this occasion, Portland’s Irish remained loyal to the Democrats. The 1916 national election presented similar dilemmas to the Portland Irish. In 1916, the Irish Question emerged as a significant issue in American national politics. Many Catholics of Irish birth and descent resented Woodrow Wilson’s refusal to make an official declaration regarding the Easter Rising of 1916 and the subsequent execution of its leaders, while others were suspicious of his pronouncements regarding hyphenated Americanism. Two of the country’s leading Irish-American newspapers, the Irish World and the Gaelic American, became increasingly hostile to Wilson and the Democrats, while Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes aggressively campaigned for Irish votes. Although Wilson was ultimately victorious, he maintained that the Irish had voted against him.153 Such ethnic and sectarian aspects of the 1916 campaign were rarely present in Portland. Speeches at Republican rallies in the city contained no mention of the Irish or of Catholicism, and an examination of the Republican Evening Express for the fall of that year reveals no direct appeals to Irish voters. The Democratic Eastern Argus condemned “any attempt to encourage religious intolerance or prejudice,” though this was likely in response to the national campaign rather than any specific local action. The results were not unusual, with the city’s vote being strongly Republican, aside from the normal exceptions of the “Democratic strongholds” of wards two and four. The national campaign aimed at the Irish may have had some impact, as the Express noted a substantial slump in the Democratic vote in ward four, but it seems few Catholics of Irish descent abandoned their traditional party allegiances.154 The fact that Portland was so reliably Republican may explain why an ethnic campaign never took off in the city. It was safe Republican territory, regardless of the Irish vote, so

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there was no need for campaigners to introduce the unsavoury and potentially divisive aspects of ethnicity and religion into local politics. America’s entry into the First World War in April 1917 tempered expressions of nationalism in Portland since most Catholics of Irish birth or descent appear to have wholeheartedly supported the American effort. Distinct, identifiable examples of ethnic support were absent, however, suggesting that the Irish Catholics of Portland did not feel the need to loudly proclaim their loyalty, or else they no longer perceived themselves a cohesive ethnic community – an unlikely explanation given the persistence of ethnic associations like the AOH and the IARA. There were numerous examples of Catholic loyalty to the American war effort in the early months of the country’s involvement. Bishop Walsh led the pro-war response, encouraging Catholics to fight for their country and deeming the purchase of a Liberty Bond the “solemn duty of every Catholic.” He personally offered loans to families who could not afford one and reminded his flock that “duty to Church and country were synonymous.”155 Parish clergy promoted recruitment too. At St Dominic’s, Father Houlihan actively encouraged his parishioners to volunteer.156 The Irish-dominated labour union, the PLSBS, purchased a large Liberty Bond and extended full insurance benefits to any members who volunteered, while, as in Canada and Newfoundland, the Knights of Columbus prominently displayed their patriotism.157 Catholic women were actively engaged in the enthusiastic response to America’s entry into the war. Over 320 of them attended a meeting, organized by Irish-American judge C.L. Donahue, to organize a Portland unit of the Red Cross.158 Certainly, on the part of the mainstream newspaper press, there was no suggestion of any shirking of duty on the part of the city’s Irish. In fact, the Argus lauded the ethnic diversity of the city’s recruits, noting that Yankees were joined by Italians and “hearty men from Mayo.”159 As far as the Irish Catholics were concerned, however, public support for the American war effort had no ethnic dimension. Catholic loyalty was never framed as being “Irish.” This contrasts notably with Portland’s other Catholic ethnic groups, such as the Italians, who held their own patriotic rallies and marches.160 Unlike their counterparts in Halifax, the city’s Hibernians made no comment on the war. The 1917 Hibernian Sunday celebration consisted of a parade and several speeches, none of which mentioned the American war effort or Irish political questions.161 At a massive patriotic parade in April 1918, which involved almost every associational group in the city, including

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Italian and Armenian ethnic organizations, the AOH was conspicuous by its absence.162 They did not pass any pro-war resolutions during the conflict. Given the backlash against perceived “hyphenated” Americanism, Catholics of Irish birth or descent did not wish to appear as having divided loyalties.163 Nevertheless, the lack of distinct ethnic responses to the war must be considered next to a dramatic surge in expressions of republican Irish nationalism, led by the American-born generation of Irish Catholics, which reached its peak intensity after 1918. It seems unlikely that a sense of ethnic community and identity was truly being eroded in Portland.

conclusion As in earlier periods, local political contexts were essential in determining responses to Irish nationalism between 1911 and 1918. The Irish Catholics of St John’s and Halifax had grown to revere the freedom and justice of imperial institutions, so even as constitutional nationalism in Ireland died out after 1916, most were incapable of conceiving their ancestral homeland without its British connection. Public discussions of both nationalism and unionism could generate passionate ethnic responses, but these took place almost exclusively within a loyal, pro-imperial paradigm, epitomized by each community’s patriotic response to the British effort in the First World War. In Portland, active, public engagement with the affairs of Ireland was rare prior to 1919, though this period of inactivity must be considered next to the remarkable surge in nationalist support that emerged in 1920 and 1921. In all three examples, expressions of Irish nationalism were seldom diasporic in scale. Generally, transnational nationalist networks did not affect expressions of ethnicity in the three port cities prior to and during the First World War. Instead, it was local ethnic and benevolent associations such as the BIS in St John’s or the CIS in Halifax, in addition to the Catholic clergy, that mediated responses to the Irish Question. This pattern changed following the cessation of hostilities in 1918 as new, overtly nationalist associations were established in each city, and popular enthusiasm for and engagement with the political destiny of the ancestral homeland reached unprecedented levels through the turbulent years of the Anglo-Irish War.

6 An Ethnic Resurgence Engagement with Irish Nationalism, 1919–1923

Although the generational distance between the Irish ethnic communities of St John’s, Halifax, and Portland and their ancestral homeland was increasing, the years after the First World War saw the pinnacle of popular engagement with Irish politics and nationalism. Between 1919 and 1923, the years of the Anglo-Irish War (or Irish War of Independence) and the Irish Civil War, an Irish ethnic reawakening occurred in each city, during which thousands of people supported the diasporic movement for Irish independence from Britain. More than at any point before or since, North American nationalist networks extended into these north Atlantic ports and, together with the domestic Irish associational networks, led a dramatic resurgence in the popular expression of Irish identity. After 1923, as the political situation in Ireland stabilized, most of these nationalist networks declined or disappeared entirely, and so too did this brief but intense period of assertive, public Irishness. Following their victory in the December 1918 general election, republican Sinn Fein members refused to take their seats at Westminster, establishing instead the first Dáil Éireann, which acted as the parliament of the re-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Dáil first met on 21 January 1919. On the same day, a small group of Irish Volunteers – by this point often referred to as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – killed two RIC officers in an ambush as Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. This incident is generally seen as the first act of the Anglo-Irish War, though small skirmishes between republican and British forces had been taking place since 1917.1 Soloheadbeg undoubtedly represented an escalation of the conflict, particularly in that it elicited a more concerted, organized response from the RIC and the military. The banning

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of fairs and markets in parts of Ireland, as well as the implementation of curfews, caused resentment among the local populace. Paralleling the responses to the Easter Rising, IRA attacks that were initially condemned became widely tolerated and eventually admired, while anger and hostility was increasingly directed towards British authorities.2 Sporadic violence continued through 1919, and by early 1920, the IRA had emerged as a “mature guerrilla force.”3 Fighting intensified through the spring and summer, prompting the government to deploy the Black and Tans and the RIC Auxiliaries – paramilitary units, mostly recruited from First World War veterans in England. The period between July 1920 and July 1921 was the most brutal of the conflict. The Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries earned a reputation as illdisciplined, and their practices were marked by savage “reprisals” for IRA attacks, often perpetrated against the civilian population.4 The death of the nationalist Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, of a hunger strike in a British jail in October 1920 outraged nationalist opinion, as did “Bloody Sunday,” when British forces fired upon a civilian crowd during a Gaelic football match at Dublin’s Croke Park on 21 November. In December, much of central Cork was burned by the Black and Tans, while sectarian violence raged in Ulster.5 The government attempted to quell the escalating violence by passing the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. This effectively granted Home Rule to Ireland, but, significantly, partitioned the country by establishing two bicameral legislatures: one to the twenty-six southern counties of Ireland, and another to six counties of Ulster where unionist support was greatest. This placated the Ulster unionists by granting them “the largest possible area they thought they could control.”6 Faced with increasingly hostile public opinion in Britain, and with the unionists satisfied, Prime Minister David Lloyd George was able to negotiate with the Irish nationalists. A truce was declared on 11 July 1921, and formal negotiations began in London in October, with the Irish delegation led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins.7 The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 6 December 1921, establishing an Irish Free State as opposed to an Irish Republic. Partition was confirmed; the southern twenty-six counties formed a self-governing dominion. Ireland remained within the British Empire, with elected members having to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch. This outraged many republicans, who maintained that the Treaty represented an unacceptable compromise. Sinn Fein split into pro- and anti-Treaty factions, with the republicans led by former leader Éamon de Valera. The

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Dáil debated the Treaty from 14 December 1921 to 7 January 1922, and eventually ratified it in a close vote: sixty-four to fifty-seven.8 The Irish people upheld the Treaty in the Free State’s first election in June 1922. A desire for peace overrode the desire for an independent republic, and the anti-Treaty delegates were soundly defeated.9 De Valera and many within the IRA refused to accept this outcome. On 14 April 1922, a group of Volunteers occupied the Four Courts in Dublin in an effort to reignite Anglo-Irish hostilities. After the June election, the Free State Army bombarded the building, beginning eleven months of bitter Civil War between the anti-Treaty IRA and the newly formed Free State Army. The fighting eventually ended in May 1923 with the defeat of the republican forces.10 The Free State – and partition – were upheld. A twenty-six-county Irish Republic would eventually follow, but not until after the Second World War. The Anglo-Irish War was a transnational event. Although the violence was mostly confined to Ireland, the republican effort was sustained through the co-operation of nationalists around the globe. Organizations such as the FOIF in the United States, the Irish SelfDetermination League in Britain, and the Self-Determination for Ireland League in Canada and in Newfoundland raised funds and disseminated propaganda for the nationalist cause. How people of Irish birth or descent responded to the tumultuous events in the old country varied widely from place to place. In his study of the FOIF, Michael Doorley highlighted three factors as being essential to the evolution of diasporic nationalism during this period: the socioeconomic status of the Irish-Catholic population, the local political context, and events in the country of origin.11 Certainly, these factors were key in the three examples studied here. In the United States, Irish nationalism was increasingly led by the American-born middle classes. Thomas N. Brown’s classic thesis suggests that Irish nationalism in America was deployed for American, rather than Irish, purposes, emerging as a consequence of “the realities of loneliness and alienation, and of poverty and prejudice” experienced in the United States.12 Even the second generation, and beyond, remained isolated from American corridors of power and prestige, and this communal sense of alienation contributed to a stronger Irish ethnicity and fostered diasporic nationalism.13 Brown’s study of Irish-American nationalism focused on the late nineteenth century, but Lawrence McCaffrey and others have extended it to account for the sudden growth of Irish-American nationalism after

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the First World War. Disillusionment at their continued isolation from the top rungs of Anglo-American social and political power enhanced ethnic consciousness, and a desire for their ancestral homeland to take its place amongst the nations of the world was part of a struggle for respectability within American society.14 Recently, historians such as Alan O’Day have revised these conventional models of Irish-American nationalism. O’Day maintains that the idea of the United States as a “hotbed” of nationalism has been exaggerated. Studies like Brown’s are “static representations,” in that they fail to account for how expressions of nationalism rose and fell throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Furthermore, they cannot be applied to other parts of the diaspora where social and political alienation may not have been prevalent, yet nationalism thrived.15 The comparative framework employed here allows us to directly test how local political and associational contexts combined with broader, diasporic networks to foster a surge in Irish identity. This chapter argues that the local, regional, and transnational networks that were established by Irish-nationalist organizations were essential in promoting these passionate responses to Irish affairs. Through such organizations as the FOIF and the SDIL, what might have remained private ethnic indignation regarding the British government’s action in Ireland became popular, public movements that frequently provoked controversy in their local settings. Furthermore, these groups were responsible for disseminating nationalist propaganda in their respective localities, and must be viewed as having a significant impact on Irish-Catholic opinion – temporarily heightening ethnic consciousness among many for whom a sense of Irishness was no longer a mainstay of day-to-day identity. Finally, nationalist organizations also provided the point of contact between local responses to the Irish Question and the broader, transnational fight for Ireland’s freedom. In St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, the story of Irish nationalism between 1919 and 1923 was largely the story of three associations: the FOIF; its successor, the AARIR; and the SDIL. These groups led the resurgence in Irish ethnic identity that took place in all three cities and provided the link between each city’s Irish-Catholic communities and the diaspora. The comparative study allows us to see how different groups in each local setting managed to rally comparable levels of engagement with Ireland, and helps us understand the nationalism of the era as being a combined local, national, and transnational phenomenon.

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the self-determination for ireland league of newfoundland, the orange order, and responses to irish nationalism in st john’s, 1919–1923 In the early 1920s, the Irish-born population of St John’s was miniscule, numbering fewer than 130 persons. The broader Irish-Catholic ethnic group, however, consisted of some 18,000, just under 50 per cent of the city’s inhabitants.16 For some of these men and women, a loyalty and ethnic affiliation to their ancestral homeland existed comfortably alongside their identities as Newfoundlanders and, often, as citizens of the British Empire.17 The Catholics of St John’s had consistently engaged in Irish affairs between 1880 and 1919 through participation in fundraising endeavours, debates on the issues in the local press, and passage of resolutions on Irish affairs through the city’s foremost Irish ethnic association, the BIS. This type of public support continued through 1919 and 1920, but towards the end of that year, St John’s engagement with Ireland reached its apogee with the visit of Irish-Canadian nationalist Katherine Hughes and the establishment of the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland (SDILN). Following the conclusion of the First World War, the jingoistic, proimperial fervour that had dominated responses to Irish politics was diminishing, though by no means did it disappear. The Catholics of the city continued to express their hope that self-government would be granted to Ireland. Having been silent for the duration of the war, the BIS again began discussing events in the old country. A speech by Brother Ryan in February 1919 praised the nationalist spirit that abounded in Ireland.18 A formal resolution by the society was passed several weeks later. Mirroring a trend common in Irish-American nationalism during and immediately after the war, the BIS passed a subsequent resolution calling on President Woodrow Wilson to uphold the principles of Irish “self-determination” at the Versailles Peace Conference. A vote on the resolution was delayed, and seemingly, it was never sent to Paris.19 The BIS’s Irish nationalism continued to exist within an imperial framework – one of the resolution’s central arguments was that Irish self-government would lend strength and unity to the Empire. Support for an Irish Republic had not taken hold, even in the aftermath of the Easter Rising.

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Engagement with Ireland continued in other ways through 1919 and 1920, as lectures and letters to the press became increasingly common. In February, an editorial in the Plaindealer unequivocally called for Ireland to be granted self-government at Versailles: Ireland is a nation – a nation, too, whose children have helped to fight the battles of liberty in every land – a nation which today occupies the most conspicuous position on the face of the earth, and, as our nearest country of the old world, we here in Britain’s Oldest Dominion see her with arms outstretched in an earnest appeal for justice, which is nothing more or less than the right to enjoy the same freedom as we or as many millions of her children in America are so privileged … The sum of the situation is that Ireland is a nation: she has the right of self-determination – the right to a government resting on the consent of her own people. What treatment will Ireland get at Versailles?20 On 8 April 1919, Thomas Kelly, who would become a prominent member of the SDILN, gave a lecture on the Sinn Fein party to the SOS – a rare example of ethnic engagement by the members of this working-class Catholic association.21 As the situation in Ireland escalated, P.J. Kinsella, a regular Telegram correspondent, submitted a piece attacking the British government’s handling of Irish affairs. He concluded by reproducing the full lyrics of the republican anthem, “The Soldier’s Song,” deeming it “no more objectionable than the French Marseillaise.”22 A more coherent and sustained ethnic response to affairs in Ireland was the formation of a branch of the Irish-American republican organization, the FOIF, in St John’s in late 1919. Unfortunately, few details about the local activities of the provocatively named “Padraig Pearse” branch have survived. It was one of only a handful of FOIF branches established in British North America, though unlike many of its American counterparts, it appears to have kept a fairly low profile.23 No data on membership exists, though newspaper reports covering the FOIF’s monthly meetings suggest that between fifteen to twenty new members were admitted at each – a considerable number for postwar St John’s considering the specific, radical objectives of the parent organization.24 The FOIF’s constitution declared that members must “pledge their support in securing recognition of the republican form of government established by the people of

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Ireland.”25 At one meeting, greetings from the “central committee in America” were read to the members, confirming that this was indeed an extension of Irish-American nationalist networks into St John’s. The branch’s most noteworthy local activity took place in April 1920: they organized a celebration to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising and the Declaration of the Irish Republic in 1916, but, again, precise details of this event have not survived.26 The establishment of the FOIF in St John’s was a matter of concern for the colonial administration. Governor Harris wrote to colonial secretary Viscount Milner in May 1920 that the branch’s activities had “caused some comment in loyal circles.” He urged restraint, noting that: “while it is doubtless very objectionable that a branch of an American Society … should be established in a British Colony, my view is that it is not well to take too much notice of the matter at present. I am clear that interference would only give undue prominence to the actions of such people.”27 The presence of the radical FOIF in St John’s is particularly significant as it represents a break with the constitutional, pro–Home Rule opinion that predominated in St John’s before the war. This is striking, though not altogether surprising. In the context of postwar disillusionment and shifting identities that pervaded Newfoundland society and politics after 1918, it is likely that, for at least some Catholic Newfoundlanders, pre-war conceptions of loyalty were beginning to break down.28 Moreover, the FOIF represents a clear extension of transnational diasporic nationalist networks into Newfoundland for the first time since the 1880s. Through 1919 and early 1920, however, engagement with Ireland involved only a tiny percentage of the community. The arrival of Katherine Hughes in October 1920, and the subsequent establishment of the SDILN, precipitated the most popular, sustained engagement with Irish nationalism observed at any point in St John’s during the period under investigation here. The SDIL was formed in Montreal in May 1920. In that city, a division existed between the republican FOIF and the more moderate Irish-Canadian National League. The latter publicly refused to support an independent Irish Republic, opting instead for the lesscontroversial “self-determination” concept in order to avoid provoking Anglo-Canadian opposition and alienating the support of Montreal’s imperially minded Irish Catholics. In the midst of his United States tour, Éamon de Valera sent Katherine Hughes to Montreal to set up an independent, Canadian, pro-Sinn Fein organization.29

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Born on Prince Edward Island and of Irish descent, Hughes had visited Ireland in 1914 and was gradually converted from a “Canadian imperialist” to a strong advocate for Irish independence. Upon her return to North America, she worked with the FOIF in Washington through 1919, where she championed the need to expand the organization beyond New York City and Washington, as well as the need to establish enduring structures to bring scattered local branches into the national movement.30 Owing to her Canadian origins and her success at organizing FOIF branches throughout the southern United States, she was a natural choice to lead the re-establishment of nationalist networks in British North America.31 By mid-May 1920, Hughes had succeeded in uniting the two Montreal groups and, with the help of former-Orangeman Lindsay Crawford, formed the SDIL.32 Despite being sanctioned by the republican leader, the new organization was to serve primarily as a propaganda machine, and its leaders were keen to avoid alienating potential support. Therefore, rather than calling for Dominion Home Rule or an Irish Republic, the SDIL adopted the neutral, non-committal concept of “self-determination” for Ireland. Once formation of the league was complete, Hughes embarked on a cross-Canada “Facts about Ireland” tour to expand the organization.33 Hughes’s approach was to establish nationalist contacts in each city she was to visit prior to her arrival. It was they who planned and advertised large public meetings, and did the groundwork for the establishment of local SDIL branches. Generally, she sought out well-known prominent Catholics of Irish descent to lead and promote the organization.34 Her extensive correspondence with de Valera provides details of her personal contacts from city to city. In St John’s, she had “an ardent young man – a lawyer of prominent family – at work. He has been quoting my Ireland for three years, they say, and is quite Sinn Fein. Other friends there interested, awaiting their response.”35 The young lawyer was almost certainly James O’Neill Conroy. Born in St John’s in 1900, he was the son of lawyer Charles O’Neill Conroy, Dublin-born and a key figure in the establishment of the Catholic Cadet Corps some years previously, and a grandson of James Gervé Conroy, a wealthy lawyer from County Roscommon who immigrated to Newfoundland in 1876.36 Hughes later described young James as devoted “even to the point of sacrifice.”37 Hughes first came to St John’s in early October 1920, towards the end of her tour. A report to de Valera written in Antigonish, Nova

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Scotia, prior to her departure, suggests that she did not relish the trip: “I am en route to Newfoundland. I already feel its icy zephyrs coming in from the north.”38 She arrived by train from the west coast of the island and was met by some of the city’s most prominent Catholics.39 Her first public lecture was given to over 1,000 people at the Methodist College Hall, Long’s Hill, on 5 October. Hughes immediately emphasized that the question was not a sectarian one, and that both Irish Catholics and British Protestants ought to support Ireland’s fight for self-determination. The arguments were cautious, with Hughes focusing on the idea that the freedom of small nations such as Ireland had been a central aspect of the Empire’s objectives in the Great War.40 She was clearly impressed with the enthusiasm of the St John’s Irish: “Both the organizational meeting and the public meeting were splendid. The latter was the most representative I have had outside of Washington … Political leaders – the big men of the government – the leader of the opposition, judges, editors, merchants, financiers, clergy, and of course the rank and file [were present]. Many converts to the cause were made.” She claimed that the auditorium was filled for three hours without “the faintest display of weariness.”41 The day after this initial lecture, the SDILN was organized. Customs inspector R.T. McGrath was selected as chair, and the attendees determined that a provisional committee would govern until elections in the New Year. The Canadian branch would supply literature that could be disseminated locally and would also send nationalist speakers to lecture in the town. J.M. Devine and John T. Meaney, a tailor and the colony’s liquor inspector, respectively, were chosen to represent the Newfoundland branch at the upcoming national convention in Ottawa, while McGrath was named chairman of the Dominion Council.42 Hughes departed several days later, and despite her initial trepidation regarding Newfoundland’s harsh climate, as well as the “joyride” crossing the island by rail, she appears to have left with a positive impression. She concluded her report to de Valera by noting that Newfoundlanders “have the warmest Irish hearts I have met outside of Ireland … Poor Newfoundland, so much like Ireland in kind hearts, in predominance of Irish blood and accent, and has also been a land of exploitation of the many by the few.”43 On 19 October, the SDILN met to elect its provisional council. Its composition, listed in Appendix D, demonstrates that the movement was led by the middle classes and that some of the city’s most influential Catholics were involved. Chairman R.T. McGrath was a former

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politician and the colony’s chief customs inspector, while W.J. Higgins was a prominent lawyer, president of the BIS, and member of the House of Assembly. St John’s native Philip F. Moore owned and operated his own plumbing company, was a respected member of the BIS dramatic company, and also represented Ferryland in the House of Assembly from 1909 to 1928.44 Several other Catholic lawyers were also involved.45 Their presence must have lent the league considerable credibility amongst those of Irish descent. Although former prime minister and opposition leader Michael Patrick Cashin does not appear to have supported the SDILN publicly, Hughes listed him as another key supporter, describing him as “warmly Irish and Catholic, [and] developing from Redmondite status to republican.”46 The SDILN remained closely connected to its Canadian counterpart. Meaney and Devine both gave passionate addresses on behalf of the Newfoundland Dominion at the Ottawa convention. Devine rejoiced that “this Dominion [has] linked hands with Canada in the noble cause for which Irishmen were fighting,” while Meaney’s speech represents some of the most direct evidence that, at least for some St John’s Catholics, the pro-imperial outlook was beginning to erode when faced with the draconian actions of British forces in Ireland. He stated that his only son had been killed fighting for the Empire during the Great War, but that now he “would not have permitted [his] son to fight for the British flag, because of what had been perpetrated under its aegis. Ireland never could and never should trust the word of a British statesman.”47 Such strong words from a Catholic Newfoundlander, particularly one who held public office, would have been unthinkable prior to 1918. Lobbying and the dissemination of propaganda remained the primary objectives of the SDILN. From early November 1920, letters were submitted to the local press dealing with various aspects of the Irish Question, all presenting nationalist arguments. British mismanagement of Ireland, especially Black and Tan reprisals, were highlighted and vilified – though letters were always careful to avoid overt support for republicanism. The concept of self-determination was left intentionally vague to evoke as little controversy as possible and to draw support from beyond St John’s Irish-Catholic community.48 The SDILN held regular meetings where the nationalist movement was discussed. Women were prominent at these meetings, frequently giving addresses, singing songs, and reciting poetry alongside their male counterparts.49 Notable for their lack of involvement was the

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Catholic clergy. In the opening decade of the century, it was often St John’s Irish-born churchmen who led responses to events in the old country. In this case, however, there does not seem to have been any clerical representation in the St John’s organization, nor did priests give addresses at their meetings, almost certainly owing to the SDILN’s controversial status.50 One of the most significant public events organized by the league was the visit of national president Lindsay Crawford in late November 1920. Crawford spoke to a full house at the Majestic Theatre, with his arguments focusing on how the fight for Irish self-determination was neither “racial nor religious in its origin.” His central objective appears to have been to appeal for “a broader spirit of toleration in the discussion of the Anglo-Irish problem.” Like the letters printed in the papers, the SDILN was attempting to gain support from the entire community: one did not have to be Catholic or of Irish descent to support the righteous cause of Irish self-determination. The meetings finished with a display of loyalty as the assembly sang both “God Save Ireland” and “God Save the King.”51 Despite the best efforts of Crawford and the SDILN executive to gain general support, the movement met with more organized opposition than any other nationalist endeavour in the city during this period. This hostility was led by the Orange Order, though the first public pronouncements against the SDILN were made by a Presbyterian minister, Reverend Dr Jones, during a lecture on the position of Ulster. Jones called for disbanding of the league, accusing it of being “admittedly anti-British” and of inciting “sectarian and racial animosity” within the colony.52 Chairman R.T. McGrath responded immediately to these accusations, “emphatically” denying the charge of anti-Britishness and arguing that the principles of Irish self-determination were in line with British ideals of justice and were implicit in the Empire’s war aims. He also denied that the SDILN was fostering sectarian discord within the community, stating that it would “never willingly give rise to any division among the people of Newfoundland,” and pointed out that it welcomed men and women from all sects and that its meetings were public.53 Public denouncements of the SDILN continued through the next month. T.B. Darby, a regular correspondent to the Telegram, argued that the league was indeed augmenting sectarian hostility in the community, and because of this, the affairs of Ireland should be ignored.54 Reverend Jones, in a lecture to the Llewellyn Club in early December,

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criticized the SDILN regarding the vague concept of “self-determination.” He argued that it should overtly support Dominion Home Rule and rule out any adherence to republicanism so as to create a support base among St John’s Protestants. As it stood, all those “who were imperial in their mindset would strongly and openly oppose it.”55 Evidently, there was a widespread belief that the SDILN was a republican organization, and for the first time since the 1880s, the Irish Question in Newfoundland seems to have taken on a sectarian dimension. Although there were likely some exceptions, few Anglo-Protestant Newfoundlanders appear to have supported the SDILN. Around the same time that Reverend Jones gave this speech, the Orange Order was mobilizing against the SDILN. On 1 December, a special meeting of the provincial Grand Orange Lodge was convened to discuss the local situation. Orangemen from St John’s and the outports attended the meeting, and the roll showed “the largest number registered at a regular meeting of [the] body.”56 The Order’s resolution was made public in print two days later, and primarily objected to what they perceived as disloyal and seditious acts by members of the colony’s legislature and civil service. It stated in part that: Whereas meetings of the [SDILN] have been held in the city of St John’s, at which anti-British propaganda has been disseminated … and whereas certain persons who occupy positions of employment under the Crown are prominently identified with the [SDILN] and have been guilty both at home and abroad of utterances which we regard as disloyal to the British Empire, be it therefore resolved that the Provincial Grand Orange Lodge of Newfoundland now in session and representing over twenty thousand loyal citizens, believes that the object of the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland, and similar organizations, is to have Ireland secede from the British Empire and become a Republic, and regards the Self-Determination League as a distinctly disloyal movement … wholly unworthy of men and women who are enjoying the liberties and privileges of the British Constitution. The resolution concluded by calling on the government to dismiss disloyal civil servants and politicians.57 Governor Harris forwarded the resolutions to Viscount Milner in London.58 Arguments for and against the SDILN appeared in the local press throughout the following months. Secretary Thomas Kelly and the

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league’s press committee continued to publish letters on the Irish situation, and at no point was support for an Irish Republic openly articulated. Other commentators continued to identify the SDILN as disloyal and seditious, and accused it of promoting sectarianism.59 Treasurer James O’Neill Conroy, undoubtedly Hughes’s primary contact in St John’s, wrote to her regarding the polarized dimensions of the local situation. He noted that the Newfoundland council was getting “cold feet, owing to the fact that there are no Protestants in the League … We have decided to go ahead without them,” and added that the Orange Order resolution “has put the backbone into our people and disgusted many of theirs.”60 Pro-imperial archbishop Edward Roche, who during the war had ridiculed the suggestion that republican sentiment existed in Newfoundland, wrote to McGrath regarding Orange Order opposition to the SDILN. Although he had “nothing to do with the establishment of the League,” he urged its members to be cautious and tactful in responding to the accusations in order to avoid “the throes of a sectarian war.”61 The concern in his letter is evident, and passions regarding the Irish Question were clearly running high. If there were traces of radical nationalism within the membership of the SDILN, it was not shared by all Catholics of Irish descent in St John’s. On St Patrick’s Day 1921, the BIS presented a series of resolutions to Governor Harris opposing the “barbarous and disgraceful” policy of British reprisals in Ireland. Their tone was damning, yet they were articulated in distinctly loyal terms: “the Benevolent Irish Society [must] deplore a policy which manifestly defiles the British Flag under which it is carried out and is injurious to every interest of the Empire of which Newfoundland forms a part; while in virtue of its Irish blood it cannot remain indifferent to the sufferings of its members’ kinsmen in Ireland.” In his report to the new colonial secretary, Winston Churchill, Harris was keen to emphasize the loyalty of the BIS and Newfoundland Catholics more broadly: The general sense of the deputation and the whole gathering was certainly cordial and loyal. Even immediately after the conclusion of my observations, before his departure, the President [W.J. Higgins] was a little apologetic about the general tenor of the resolutions; and later in the day when I met him at one of the various functions he again expressed the hope that they would not be misunderstood. I am satisfied that the general feeling of

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the Irish Roman Catholics here is one of content and loyalty. A few days ago when a small deputation called upon me to arrange details for the procession they disassociated themselves entirely from any opinions of the so-called “Self-Determination for Ireland League” of which a branch has been formed here in touch with the United States. The governor went on to suggest that the Irish nationalist sentiment – and any associated measure of disloyalty – abounding in Newfoundland was a result of misinformation, no doubt disseminated by the SDILN. He recommended to Churchill that the Colonial Office produce a document “bearing upon the real facts of the Irish situation,” which could be circulated in Newfoundland and the other dominions to redeem the government’s reputation amongst disillusioned Catholics of Irish descent.62 The truce, negotiations, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty were debated at length in the press and by the BIS, but not by the SDILN. Most commentators expressed their hope that Ireland would remain within the British Empire. J.T. Meaney wrote to the Daily News expressing his support for de Valera as the Dáil debated the Treaty, but noted that he expected it to be passed. Archbishop Roche, who clearly had been following the Irish situation closely, was cautious. He rejected calls for public Masses of thanksgiving to welcome Irish peace since so many opposed the Treaty and a return to armed conflict was distinctly possible.63 The BIS staged a public debate on the measure, in which a large majority supported the pro-Treaty arguments. The Treaty’s ratification and the establishment of the Irish Free State were widely celebrated.64 The SDILN itself made no public pronouncement on the Treaty and was generally quiet after the truce was declared. However, its structure remained in place, and following the ratification, it continued to act as the mechanism through which Irish Newfoundlanders participated in the transnational nationalist movement. Chairman McGrath selected William J. Browne, a young St John’s law student at Oxford, to represent the organization at the Irish Race Congress in Paris, 1922. Browne, one of the youngest representatives at the Congress, was noted for his vigorous defence of open, public proceedings when it came to the Irish economy.65 Participation in pan-diasporic events continued with Newfoundland’s attempted involvement in the Irish Race Olympics – Aonach Tailteann – in 1922. The games were intended to bring together ath-

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letes from throughout the global diaspora to celebrate Irish culture, heritage, and nationality. Again, it was R.T. McGrath and the SDILN who led the movement for Newfoundland involvement. Together with BIS president Higgins, and with assistance from Father Daniel O’Callaghan, the wealthy Catholics of St John’s provided funds for marathon runner Jack Bell to represent the Dominion at the games. He arrived in Dublin in August 1922, only to find the meet cancelled due to the escalating circumstances of the Civil War, and returned to St John’s without competing.66 References to the SDILN gradually disappeared from the St John’s papers through 1922, and a final meeting was held in May 1923 to formally wind up the league’s affairs.67 Although no data exists to suggest the overall size of the SDILN, the passion of the debates surrounding it, and the fact that Orangemen travelled from across Newfoundland to oppose it, suggests that it was far from an isolated movement. Many of St John’s most prominent Catholics were involved, and thousands more participated in the SDILN’s meetings and lectures. Thanks to the organizational networks and nationalist literature of the league, the Catholics of St John’s, more than at any point since the 1880s, were part of a broader diasporic movement for Irish freedom. Not all – probably not even a majority – of those of Irish descent in the city were caught up in this ethnic resurgence, but it was a tangible phenomenon that manifested itself in other ways, most notably through an increase in applications for BIS membership.68 The ways in which Irishness was understood and expressed in St John’s evolved considerably in a remarkably short time. An interesting aspect of this ethnic resurgence in Newfoundland is that it continued for many months after the Anglo-Irish Treaty. As the SDILN declined, a new, assertive Irish-Catholic ethnic association was established in its place: the Newfoundland Gaelic League. It does not appear to have had any official connection to its cultural-nationalist namesake in Ireland and formed largely thanks to the efforts of Michael Walsh, a young Galway-born engineer. Unlike the overwhelming majority of twentieth-century St John’s Irish Catholics, Walsh was born in Ireland, arriving in St John’s in the early weeks of 1921. Exactly why he chose to come to the city is uncertain, but he arrived with his wife and a letter of introduction from a priest who happened to be a close friend of Archbishop Roche. Roche immediately tried to help the young man find employment in Grand Falls and Bell Island, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, he wrote to the St John’s municipal council, praising Walsh’s degree in civil engineering

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from the National University of Ireland and expressing the hope that temporary employment could be secured for him.69 It appears as though Walsh worked in the city from this point on. The details surrounding the formation of the Gaelic League are unclear. The earliest meetings were likely in the fall of 1922, but it was not until the winter of 1923 that the group’s activities began to be reported in the local press. A “large attendance” was requested at a meeting at the Star of the Sea Hall on 26 February to discuss how the league should mark St Patrick’s Day. Later, through the month of March, large ads appeared for a concert and comedy night to be held “under the auspices of Conradh na Gaedhilge [the organization’s Gaelic title]” in conjunction with the Columbus Ladies’ Association.70 The evening was to include a variety of Irish musical numbers, recitations, and a performance of the J. Bernard McCarthy play, The Romantic Lover, and conclude with the singing of the “Flag of Newfoundland.”71 Following its St Patrick’s Day celebration, the Gaelic League met to elect an executive, and then passed a resolution proclaiming that “the study of Gaelic language and customs will be beneficial to the people of the Irish race in Newfoundland.”72 The executive included both men and women, and seems to have been mostly drawn from the well-educated portion of the city’s Catholic population. No membership lists have survived, so the only identifiable members are the thirteen who sat on the executive. Of these, only seven could be definitely traced using the 1924 St John’s City Directory, and their occupations may be seen in table 6.1. Gaelic League meetings were held weekly, and members were provided with a variety of social opportunities and pastimes. A debate on the prohibition law in Newfoundland was held towards the end of April. Several days later, an Athletics Association was formed, though it is unclear whether or not this was devoted to Gaelic sports.73 The league did field an association football team, which played matches against the BIS and other local sides.74 A Gaelic League card party and dance, organized by its female members, attracted over 200 guests. Mrs Walsh, a university graduate and wife of the league founder and first president, ran Irish language classes. In late June, members participated in an outing to Donovans, on the outskirts of the city.75 Lectures on Irish history and literature covering a range of topics were also features of Gaelic League meetings. Mrs Walsh, for example, spoke about Eva Kelly, who wrote extensively for the nationalist newspaper The Nation about the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s.76

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Table 6.1 Names and occupations of the 1923 executive of the Newfoundland Gaelic League Name

Position

Occupation

Michael Walsh James A. Gibbs Denis J. O’Quinn J.J. Fagan M.J. Power Miss L. Shortall Leo Hickey M.J. James Thomas Kelly J. Targett J.J. St. John James O’Neil Conroy

President Vice-president Treasurer Asst. Treasurer Secretary Asst. Secretary Guard Director of Publicity Director of Organization Librarian Corresponding Secretary Auditor

Civil engineer Law student Bookkeeper Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Surveyor, Dept. of Agriculture Unknown Unknown Grocer Solicitor

Sources: Evening Telegram, 13 April 1923; St John’s City Directory, 1924.

A few weeks later, Michael J. James, a St John’s surveyor for the Department of Agriculture, gave a talk on Robert Emmet. He concluded with the hope that “the Irish race in Newfoundland would be associated at some not far distant date with the writing of Emmet’s epitaph.”77 James O’Neill Conroy continued his engagement with Irish nationalism by delivering an address on Parnell and the Home Rule movement in early May, while shortly thereafter, Mrs Walsh presented a talk on nationalism in Anglo-Irish literature.78 The most interesting lecture in the spring of 1923 was by Gaelic League vice-president James A. Gibbs, who was a law student at his father’s firm. The subject was the Sinn Fein movement and the rise of revolutionary Irish nationalism. In contrast to the prevailing attitude of Irish Newfoundlanders in the 1900s, Gibbs’s talk praised Sinn Fein and the effectiveness of physical-force nationalism. He finished by expressing “the wish that the future may contain the realization of the hopes of [Arthur] Griffith and his associates.” However, this statement does not necessarily represent a ringing endorsement of republicanism, since after the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Griffith was part of the Sinn Fein faction that supported the Free State and, therefore, Ireland’s status within the Empire. Following the talk, the members voted to have Gibbs’s lecture published and circulated as a pamphlet.79

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In the late summer of 1923, the Gaelic League appeared to be flourishing. In August, however, president Michael Walsh left St John’s, and references to the society in the local press became less frequent. Walsh was apparently unable to secure permanent employment in the city, so he and his wife embarked for New York. A large meeting of the league was called to bid them farewell. Treasurer Denis O’Quinn praised Walsh’s contribution to the Irish of St John’s, crediting the Galway native with almost single-handedly “re-firing the flames of Irish nationalism in Newfoundland.”80 The next day, Walsh and his wife left town on board the Silvia. Gaelic League activity continued through the fall and winter. A special meeting was held for the organization’s female members in September, and a turkey raffle was organized at Christmas to raise funds.81 Regular meetings and social events continued until at least February 1924, and a dinner was held to honour the Gaelic League’s victorious football team in October of that year, but it seems as though critical momentum was lost with Walsh’s departure.82 One of the final public reports of Gaelic League activity was the election of its 1925 executive, which, at just six men, was significantly smaller than the 1923 body.83 The fact that Michael Walsh was perceived to have had such a critical role in re-kindling Irish-Newfoundland identities demonstrates how specific individuals and associations could dictate public ethnic expression. The language used at Gaelic League meetings and in lectures frequently referred to the “Irish race in Newfoundland,” so for its members it was a shared knowledge and appreciation of their ancestry and ethnicity that brought them together. It would be unfair to suggest that Walsh and the Gaelic League created and nurtured these identities from nothing. Instead, for many Catholics, an identification with Ireland had been strengthening throughout the early twentieth century as transatlantic communications improved, the Christian Brothers introduced Irish content into their curricula, and the SDIL brought pan-diasporic networks and an active, direct engagement with Irish nationalism to the colony in 1920 and 1921. For most, an understanding of their Irishness, if it existed at all, remained private and domestic, but Michael Walsh’s leadership and dynamism created an associational framework through which Irish identities could be publicly expressed. The short, but active, existence of the Newfoundland Gaelic League shows that the distinction between a private, symbolic, romantic attachment and an assertive, public, ethnic identification could be a narrow one.

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contested nationalism in halifax, 1919–1923 The structure and function of the SDIL in Halifax was almost identical to that in St John’s. The city was the first stop on Katherine Hughes’s cross-Canada tour.84 In a letter to de Valera, she expressed optimism that the league would be a success, despite the overwhelmingly pro-British Empire sentiment that predominated in the city: “I expect we will have a good response from even this ultra-imperialist old garrison town … There is a good deal of Gaelic blood here with a consciousness that only needs rousing.”85 As in St John’s, she had a list of contacts in the city prior to her arrival. These included Mrs M. (probably Mary) Durand, a realty operator who was “most active and devoted to the cause”; two Catholic priests, Thomas O’Sullivan of St Thomas Aquinas Parish, and Gerald Murphy of St Patrick’s; W.P. Buckley, the Tralee-born city alderman who had written about the political situation in Ireland in 1917; and W.P. Burns, who owned a plumbing company.86 Her initial lecture on 2 July 1920 was poorly attended, but following several successful days in Cape Breton, she returned to Halifax and gave a talk on 11 July attended by more than 1,000 people.87 According to the Evening Mail, “every seat was occupied, while a couple hundred had to stand.”88 Hughes adopted the same tactics that she would use in Newfoundland several months later, couching her arguments in imperial terms. She praised the role of Irish Catholics in the war, with particular emphasis on the Irish Canadians who had died fighting for the self-determination of small nations. Enthusiasm was high, as “the fear of being stigmatized as disloyal and of jeopardizing political, social and economic gains clearly failed to stop sizeable numbers of Irish Catholics from participating in the SDIL.”89 By late July, one local paper reported that 600 people were willing to join.90 In a report to de Valera on her visits to Halifax and Saint John, New Brunswick, Hughes noted the rapidly growing enthusiasm for the movement, stating that those opposed to Irish self-government in the two ports had “forgotten their Irish neighbours had Gaelic hearts hidden under imperial-loyalist masks.”91 The SDIL was clearly designed to link local Halifax passion for Irish self-government to a regional, national, and transnational movement. A provincial council, involving both men and women, was named to coordinate efforts throughout mainland Nova Scotia, while a local council was established to lead activity within the city. William A.

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Hallisey, a Halifax insurance agent, was appointed to supervise interprovincial matters. As in St John’s, many of the city’s most respectable Irish Catholics were involved. The first president of the Halifax branch was Judge Nicholas H. Meagher, who had served on the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia from 1890 to 1916, while a prominent lawyer and Conservative politician, Irish-born John Call O’Mullin, was vice-president. Mrs W. Smith and Ruth Kavanagh were second vice-president and treasurer, respectively. Some of the city’s wealthy Catholics were also named to the organization’s provincial council, including Judge J.W. Longley, city aldermen E.J. Scanlan, E.J. Kelly, and W.P. Buckley. W.P. Burns was elected provincial chairman.92 Whereas in the era of the Land League, the middle-class Catholics of Halifax shied away from supporting Irish nationalism, they were now prominently involved in leading the SDIL. A critical difference between the SDIL in Halifax and the SDILN in St John’s was the presence of Catholic clergymen in the organization. Irish-born Father Thomas O’Sullivan maintained a prominent role within the league, while three priests – Monsignor Gerald Murphy, and Fathers Michael J. Cole and William J. Foley – represented the Halifax branch at the first provincial convention in the autumn of 1920.93 It is impossible to reconstruct the general membership, but there is evidence to suggest that, in at least some cases, it transcended ethnic boundaries. Herbert Aucoin, a clerk for the Workers’ Compensation Board, was named second vice-president and, at one meeting, gave a stirring address on Acadian support in Nova Scotia for Irish self-determination.94 It is safe to assume, however, that the vast majority of SDIL members and supporters were Catholics of Irish descent. The SDIL in Halifax functioned in much the same way as the St John’s branch. Its objectives were clarified in a letter to the Herald from chairman Burns on 10 August 1920. The piece reflected a proimperial outlook, focusing on the principles of British justice and liberty being extended to Ireland. Burns clearly stated that the Halifax SDIL was neutral regarding what form an independent Ireland should take – Dominion-style Home Rule or a fully independent Republic – insisting only on a measure of self-determination that would be acceptable to its people.95 Letters were sent to local papers highlighting British atrocities in Ireland, and lectures featuring Irish-American speakers were organized through the autumn of 1920.96 The SDIL raised funds by selling Terence MacSwiney calendars for fifty cents each, with many reportedly sold.97 A provincial convention was held

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at the end of August, before W.A. Hallisey, Burns, and Durand represented the city at the national convention in Ottawa in October. The organization appears to have grown rapidly: by the autumn of 1920, it claimed 1,500 members in Halifax alone.98 As part of his national tour, SDIL president Lindsay Crawford stopped in Halifax in mid-November. A large public meeting was held, where Crawford, in addition to Father O’Sullivan and W.P. Buckley, gave a lengthy address. Like his speech in St John’s, Crawford made every effort to portray the SDIL as loyal and respectable. He noted that Irish-Canadian nationalists had no quarrel with the English people, but rather with the government and its mismanagement of Ireland. The meeting concluded with the singing of “God Save Ireland” and “O Canada.”99 Lectures and meetings continued through the winter and spring of 1921, and included a specific appeal from Burns for Anglo-Protestant support. He called upon “the Protestant people not to stand indifferent to the cause of Ireland, the sore spot of our Empire … This patriotic work will bring blessings to our own land, and will weld together this Empire more fairly than ever.”100 The loyal proclamations of SDIL leaders in Halifax seem to have had little effect on how the organization was perceived. As in St John’s, widespread opposition to the league was organized in the city, with the first resolution against the movement being passed by the Orange Order. At a large meeting in Halifax, Orangemen debated the Irish Question and passed a motion denouncing the city’s Catholic associations as disloyal: “[with] organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, the AOH and the Self-Determination for Ireland [League] and other organizations of a Roman Catholic character, united as they are to dismember and destroy the greatest Empire in the world, surely we in our Loyalty to the King and Empire should do all we can to unite Protestant Christians to defend our British and free institutions.”101 Inclusion of the invariably loyal Knights, who at no point during this period passed any public comment on Irish affairs, foreshadowed the sectarian paranoia that was to follow. In the wake of the Orange Order’s resolution, Irish nationalists in the city quickly rallied to defend their cause. A letter to the Chronicle, almost certainly written by Father O’Sullivan, argued that he had served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force – as a chaplain – during the war in order to help secure the freedom of small nations like Belgium. Agitation for Ireland was no different. He lamented that in Halifax “the Self-Determination League is avoided because a few flag-

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flappers raised the cry of disloyalty.”102 Organized opposition to the SDIL continued to mount, and by late November, it extended beyond the Orange Order. A large crowd attended a “mass meeting” to proclaim their support for imperial unity and to denounce the “organization within our midst whose insidious aim is the destruction and disunion of the British Empire.” Speeches proclaimed the justice of British rule in Ireland, and decried all those who opposed it.103 This meeting was organized by the British Empire Alliance, which led anti-SDIL activity over the following months. Members resolved to “no longer allow the slanderous abuse of our wonderful Mother Empire,” while at a second rally on 10 December, Lindsay Crawford was denounced as disloyal.104 These events drew a strong response from the new SDIL president, W.A. Hallisey. In a letter to the Herald, he challenged “any person to quote one phrase offered by our speakers that can be styled slanderous.” He maintained that the SDIL’s only objective was to promote the right of the Irish people to govern their own affairs, and concluded by stating that league’s members would not have their rights to free speech “curtailed by the machinations of any clique operating under the guise of loyalty.”105 Debates in the press continued, with some comments bordering on outright bigotry. Dr Charles E. McGlaughlin attacked Father O’Sullivan’s writing style, noting that his shortcomings were not surprising, “coming as he does from that part of Ireland where mongrel language is spoken and his kind [are] doing their utmost to exterminate the finest and most extensively used language in the world.”106 Within this polarized atmosphere, it is no surprise that, as in St John’s, those of more moderate opinion wished to emphasize cooperation and conciliation to avoid a spike in local sectarian tensions. Central in this regard was the CIS. On 4 November 1920, a meeting was called to discuss the escalating situation in the city. The members condemned all efforts to identify the Irish Question as an “irreconcilable feud between different religions,” which was likely “to produce incalculable disaster.” Many members of the SDIL were also CIS members and gave short speeches, including Burns, Justice Longley, W.P. Buckley, and J.C. O’Mullin. Colonel Hayes of the British Empire Alliance also spoke at the meeting. The CIS emphasized that it brought together Catholics and Protestants in the spirit of mutual respect and co-operation.107 Although, like the St John’s BIS, the CIS publicly repudiated British reprisals in Ireland, it maintained its pro-imperial outlook through-

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out this period. Its resolutions on Irish affairs display a passionate concern with Ireland’s political destiny, but also a desire to avoid controversy and any potential suggestion of disloyalty. The society’s minutes refer to the above resolution, and note that the discussions surrounding it were “highly loyal and patriotic in character” and expressed the hope that the British government should “grant Ireland a measure of self-government which would be satisfactory to the Irish people, but would also preserve Ireland as a partner in the Common Wealth [sic] of British nations which we in Canada are a part.”108 Unlike the SDIL, the CIS continued to be an explicit supporter of Home Rule nationalism. The members of the AOH were also active, organizing a mass meeting of Halifax Hibernians in early October to declare support for Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike and Irish self-determination.109 The CIS and the AOH remained concerned with events in Ireland throughout the period, with both associations cancelling St Patrick’s Day celebrations in 1921 in protest of British forces’ activities. On that day, many of Irish descent in the city wore special “mourning buttons” consisting of a white shamrock on a black background.110 The intensity of the debate surrounding the SDIL died down considerably through the winter of 1921, but it did not disappear altogether. In April, the Halifax District Loyal Orange Lodge passed a resolution against an Irish Republic. One month later, the British Empire Alliance held a meeting involving a number of other proimperial organizations, including the British Empire League, Loyal True Blue Association, the St George’s Royal British Veterans, and the Orange Order. The assembly was called “to oppose the upcoming provincial SDIL convention in Halifax where treasonable utterances would be made.”111 Their opposition was unsuccessful, however, and the convention went ahead at the beginning of June. Regional cooperation was again in evidence, with delegates from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island taking part.112 Given the pro-imperial stance of many of Halifax’s Catholics, it is not surprising that the Anglo-Irish Treaty was seen as an acceptable solution to the Irish Question. The CIS held a special meeting in February 1922 to celebrate the Treaty. Meanwhile, the SDIL proclaimed its support, pending the measure’s ratification by the Dáil. Burns simply stated that “whatever suits the people of Ireland suits us.”113 Following the passing of the Treaty in Dublin, comments on Irish affairs declined dramatically in Halifax. The SDIL faded away, and the CIS no longer passed resolutions on Irish affairs. The Civil War evoked little

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local commentary in the city, though the press covered the violence. Broad, public engagement with Irish affairs was over, but through the associational networks of the AOH and the CIS, as well as through the ritual celebration of St Patrick’s Day, Irish-Catholic identity persisted.

the friends of irish freedom, the american association for the recognition of the irish republic, and republican nationalism in portland, 1919–1923 The small but enthusiastic Irish-Catholic community of Portland, like its counterparts in St John’s and Halifax, engaged with the affairs of Ireland to a far greater extent between 1919 and 1923 than at any time previously. Irish nationalism in the New England city was distinct from the brand observed in British North America. The institutions that fostered public engagement with Ireland, the FOIF and the AARIR, were unambiguously republican. Clerical support, particularly on the part of Bishop Louis Sebastian Walsh, was far more significant than in St John’s or Halifax. Finally, although anti-Catholicism and anti-Irishness were undoubtedly present, no formal opposition to Irish nationalism was organized in Portland during this period. Thanks largely to their proximity to Irish-American organizational networks, the nationalists of Portland began to formalize their support for an independent Ireland much earlier than those in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Almost immediately after the end of the First World War, prominent Irish-American nationalists began to publicly advocate for Irish self-government. Meetings were held throughout the United States, and the movement was given a significant boost when Cardinal O’Connell of Boston – the former bishop of Portland – publicly supported it.114 Not long after, the Irish Catholics of Portland met to establish a branch of the FOIF. The meeting took place on 26 January 1919 at the Hibernian Hall on Congress Street. Attorney Henry C. Sullivan was elected chairman, with Martin Qualters, an Irish-born night watchman and prominent Hibernian, acting as secretary. Approximately fifty people signed the membership roll, and a larger meeting was planned for 2 February to formally establish the new branch. Another hundred joined at this event, and a nationalist resolution was drafted, which was far more anglophobic than anything produced in Canada or Newfoundland at this time, noting that the Irish diaspora was the result of “conditions created by [England’s]

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tyranny.” The members demanded that Irish independence be placed on the agenda at the Versailles Peace Conference, which was the FOIF’s foremost objective at this point. Subsequent meetings discussed the city’s representation at the 1919 Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia, but it does not seem as though a Portland delegate took part.115 Most of the early FOIF efforts in Portland surrounded a planned mass meeting on St Patrick’s Day 1919 to demonstrate public support for an Irish Republic. Up to this point, the feast day had been observed quietly in the city, with no public parade having been held during the period under investigation here. Thanks to rising ethnic passions, the nascent FOIF, in co-operation with the AOH, organized the procession. At the front were the Irish republican tricolour flag alongside The Stars and Stripes, and almost 1,000 people marched, despite inclement weather, “displaying their interest in the almost universal movement for the freedom of the green isle.”116 Following the success of the 1919 demonstration, support for the Irish cause appears to have temporarily ebbed away. Repeating the patterns observed in earlier nationalist organizations in Portland, such as the INL in the 1880s, the original FOIF organization died out. The AOH continued to lead local enthusiasm for Ireland, with both state and county boards passing resolutions against the League of Nations in late summer.117 In the absence of a well-organized FOIF branch through the summer of 1919, it was the Hibernians that emerged as Portland’s most important mediators of the nationalist movement. Edward F. Flaherty, a Democratic state senator and member of the Cumberland County AOH, wrote to Harry Boland, who was in charge of de Valera’s itinerary during his American tour, inquiring as to whether the president of the Irish Republic would travel to the city and give a lecture to the Portland Hibernians: “In as much as there is a considerable population of Irish and Irish blood here, who would be delighted to have Ireland’s President speak here, and thereby increase interest in Ireland’s cause and give material aid also, we desire you to arrange, if possible, a date when President de Valera could come to Portland.”118 Boland’s reply was brief, stating that de Valera would consider visiting Portland and would make a final decision within ten days.119 Unfortunately for the Portland Hibernians, he never visited the city. In early 1920, thanks largely to the public support of Bishop Walsh, enduring structures were put into place to bring the city’s Irish Catholics into the broader nationalist movement. At another mass

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meeting in favour of Irish independence, the city’s most prominent Irish citizens took the lead. Bishop Walsh presided, while Edward F. Flaherty; John J. Cunningham, who was president of F.W. Cunningham and Sons; police captain Hugh F. McDonagh; prominent lawyers W.H. Looney and J.H. McCann; physician Dr L.A. Derry; and others were on the organizing committee. Irish-nationalist organizations in Portland consistently reflected American patterns, but its connections to Canada were again significant, as in addition to FOIF leader Judge Daniel Cohalan, SDIL president Lindsay Crawford was invited to address the assembly. Prominent Yankees such as the governor of Maine and the mayor of Portland were also involved. The meeting was advertised as being multi-denominational – the case was a righteous one that should have a wide appeal beyond those of Irish descent.120 On this occasion, neither Cohalan nor Crawford were able to attend, with two Massachusetts-based nationalists speaking in their stead. Bishop Walsh gave an address supporting de Valera’s plan to sell bonds of the Irish Republic. The upper-middle-class leadership and the participation of local clergy – the meeting was also advertised at Masses in local parishes such as St Dominic’s – undoubtedly provided the movement with popularity, momentum, and respectability.121 In his diary, Bishop Walsh refers to the event as a “good meeting” and praises the number of non-Catholics and non-Irish who attended.122 The momentum established by this meeting led to the re-establishment of the FOIF in Portland. Approximately 200 had joined the new group by mid-February, and Senator Flaherty was named provisional president until executive elections could be organized.123 On 26 February, Flaherty addressed a group of almost 100 women, calling upon them to become involved with the FOIF. The local branch was officially inaugurated on 29 February at the Hibernian Hall. About 300 members were present, and they expected to have 1,000 by the end of the week, with the hope of eventually exceeding 3,000.124 The executive is listed in full in Appendix E. Those in charge of the new branch were mostly middle class, well educated, or in management positions. Furthermore, of the seven members of the executive who could be traced, six were born in the United States. Four of these six had at least one Irish parent. The exception was the organization’s president, John Brown, a longshoreman who was born in Ireland, listed Irish as his native tongue, and had immigrated to the United States in 1895. Brown was a prominent member of the Irish-Catholic community in Portland during this period, serving as president of the PLSBS from

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Figure 6.1 Portland City Hall, c. 1910. This was the site of numerous nationalist meetings, lectures, and gatherings over the course of this period. Source: Collections of the Maine Historical Society, courtesy of www.vintagemaineimages.com.

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1917 to 1919, as well as president of the Cumberland County AOH.125 Generally, though, the American-born middle classes predominated. These findings are in line with other studies of Irish-American nationalism in this period, where, in New England cities such as Worcester, it was likewise the upwardly mobile American-born generation that led engagement with Irish politics from 1919 to 1923.126 The first task of the new, more durable FOIF in Portland was to organize another mass meeting to rally public support for Irish independence. Bishop Walsh was to preside again, and to make up for their absence at the last meeting, Judge Cohalan and Lindsay Crawford were the principal speakers.127 Local parishes urged their members to attend the meeting, while the Irish-dominated PLSBS declared that no work would be done after six o’clock to allow members to attend.128 Prior to the public event, Bishop Walsh held a reception for the visiting speakers, and fifty “of the most representative men of Portland” were in attendance.129 The meeting on 11 April was a resounding success. According to the Argus, “never was more enthusiasm aroused in an audience than was displayed by the immense gathering that packed City Hall auditorium.”130 Lindsay Crawford’s speech was presented in a notably different tone than those he gave in St John’s and Halifax around the same time. He focused on Britain’s economic oppression of Ireland and called for Irish independence “not because we hate England, but because we hate imperialism.” Judge Cohalan gave a similar address on Irish freedom, and Bishop Walsh inaugurated the Irish Republican Bond Drive. Inspired by de Valera, these bonds were designed to fund Sinn Fein and Ireland’s fight for freedom. A separate committee, led by Flaherty, was named to oversee the drive, and collectors were named for each of Portland’s wards. Subscriptions were received from both individuals and local organizations. Bishop Walsh led the way by pledging $1,000. The PLSBS had, earlier in the week, decided to cash in their Liberty Bond in order to acquire $2,000 worth of Republican ones. The FOIF itself contributed a further $2,000, as did the Knights of Columbus – a rare example of ethnic involvement on the part of that organization. The AOH divisions each pledged $500, while other labour unions with large Irish memberships – such as the Plasterers’ Union and the Grand Trunk Railway elevator employees – also donated generous sums, suggesting widespread participation in the movement by the Irish-American working class. By the end of the night, over $20,000 had been raised.131

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Table 6.2 Places of birth of Portland subscribers to the 1920 Irish Republican Bond Drive Place of birth

Number of subscribers

% of total subscribers

United States Ireland Canada Other Total

38 32 4 2 76

50.0 42.0 5.0 3.0 100.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Figures based on a random sample of 76 subscribers listed in the Eastern Argus, 12 to 30 April 1920. Biographical information was gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.

The Irish Republican Bond Drive drew an impressive response from Portland’s Irish-Catholic community. Between 12 and 30 April, the Eastern Argus printed the name of each individual who subscribed to the fund. In addition to the associations and labour unions, 835 people were listed as having purchased bonds. A random sample of one out of every five subscribers from the Argus’s list, combined with data from city directories and nominal censuses, allows us to investigate the demographic that were willing to donate money for the cause of Ireland. This provides a total sample of 168 individuals. Of these, 76 could be identified by place of birth in the 1920 nominal census – a small but likely representative sample of Portland’s Irish nationalists (see table 6.2). Of those who were born in the United States and Canada, only 11 (26 per cent) did not have at least one Irish parent. In some of these cases, further census data reveals a different type of connection to Ireland. For example, Arthur J. LeTarte, a French-Canadian conductor who pledged $25, had an Irish-born wife. The same is true for the two foreign-born individuals. George K. Rogers (surely an adopted name) was Greek, but had a Maine-born wife with Irish parents; Father Petillo was the city’s Italian priest and would likely have had close friendships with the Irish-Catholic clergy. Some benevolent Yankees, such as the former war secretary and mayor of Portland W.M. Ingraham, participated, but based on this sample, it is reasonable to conclude that a significant majority of subscribers were either of Irish descent or had some personal connection to Ireland. In terms of gauging the occupational backgrounds of those who purchased republican bonds in 1920, the sample size is slightly larger (ninety-

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Table 6.3 Occupational breakdown of Portland subscribers to the 1920 Irish Republican Bond Drive Type of occupation

Number of subscribers

% of total subscribers

Professional or white collar workers Grocers and shopkeepers Skilled manual workers Clergy Semi- or unskilled manual workers Unemployed/homemakers Total

28 5 26 3 30 6 98

29.0 5.0 26.5 3.0 30.5 6.0 100.0

Discrepancies in percentage may occur because of rounding up or down. Sources: Figures based on a random sample of 98 subscribers listed in the Eastern Argus, 12 to 30 April 1920. Biographical information was gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920 and the Directory of Portland, 1920. Note: The occupational categories are similar to those used in table 2.1. In the above table, “Professional and white collar” includes bookkeepers, clerks, compositors, a customs official, judges, lawyers, managers, the mayor, merchants, physicians, and real estate agents. “Skilled workers” includes boilermakers, carpenters, conductors, contractors, estimators, firemen, foremen, ironworkers, machinists, masons, mechanics, melters, millmen, policemen, press feeders, soap manufacturers, stitchers, stove repairmen, timekeepers, and a tire company owner. The “Grocers and shopkeepers” category includes café owners, cigar merchants, and a variety store owner. Finally, “Semi- or unskilled” includes butlers, checkers, cleaners, furniture packers, helpers, housekeepers, labourers, letter carriers, maids, packers, painters, ship workers, stevedores, teamsters, and waiters.

eight), thanks to additional individuals whose employment could be identified using city directories. Table 6.3 provides an occupational breakdown of bond subscribers. The drive brought together individuals from all socio-economic categories. Of the ninety-eight individuals in the sample, twenty-two were women. Of these, three were clerks, one was an assistant operator, twelve were maids or housekeepers, and six were homemakers. Although the clergy and the American-born middle classes led the movement, economic support for Irish nationalism transcended both class and gender. It must be kept in mind, however, that participation in the bond drive represents only a small proportion of the total Irish population of Portland. As Alan O’Day reminds us, there was a significant gap between the entire Irish community and those who actively supported diasporic nationalism.132 It is interesting that, unlike St John’s and Halifax, Portland saw little organized opposition to Irish nationalism between 1919 and 1923. Part of the reason is undoubtedly that the city’s Yankee Protestants

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perceived Ireland and its place within the British Empire as a remote, unimportant issue. Though anti-Irishness and anti-Catholicism existed in the city – exemplified by the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1920s – the majority of Portland’s citizens were generally unconcerned with the emerging ethnic movement. More significant, though, was the absence of anti-nationalist networks. Just as the SDIL, FOIF, and AARIR were essential in organizing and rallying public support for Irish self-government, the Orange Order was central in fostering opposition in the two British North American centres. Though the Order was active in northern Maine, where it was popular among Protestants who had emigrated from Canada, it had little presence in or near Portland.133 For the Yankees who opposed Irish independence, then, there were few channels for their indignation to become public. Following the success of the bond drive, the FOIF continued to encourage public expressions of support for Irish nationalism. Social events were held in late April and early June, ending with the society’s first annual ball. As was the case with the Land League in the 1880s, social pastimes were essential in popularizing the movement. Both women and men were involved in organizing these events, and they drew enthusiastic crowds.134 Far more than in either British North American city, diasporic nationalism became intertwined with domestic politics in Portland. The Irish were overwhelmingly Democratic, and with re-establishment of the local branch of the FOIF, its members attempted to convince Maine’s delegates to the 1920 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco to promote Irish independence. In a report to Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the American Commission on Irish Independence, FOIF member John Brown stated that the local branch had chosen “five of our most representative men” to meet with the Maine delegates. Their efforts, and those of Irish-American nationalists throughout the United States, were ultimately unsuccessful. Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats refused to recognize the Irish Republic, prompting many nationalists to abandon their traditional party allegiances and support Republican Warren G. Harding in that fall’s presidential election.135 It is difficult to determine the precise extent to which Irish-American Catholics turned to the Republicans on Election Day. Some undoubtedly did, but a national ethnic bloc vote “failed to materialize.”136 In Portland, many of the Irish appear to have supported

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Harding. On the eve of the election, the Republican Express noted that “numbers of Democrats of Irish descent have decided to shift in this national election to support Harding … Both of Portland’s Democratic precincts, wards two and four, are heavily populated with voters of Irish extraction, and in tomorrow’s voting it is expected that a strong swing to the Republican preference will be in evidence.”137 Ward two stayed Democratic by the strong margin of 744 to 457, though ward four slightly favoured the Republican candidate by 586 votes to 490.138 Perhaps more than at any other point during this period, the political allegiances of Portland’s Irish Catholics were split, largely thanks to the Democrats’ failure to manage the Irish Question. As in St John’s and Halifax, the death of Terence MacSwiney caused outrage in Portland. Walsh referred to it as “another crime against civilization” and called the Lord Mayor a “martyr for the cause of liberty.” A solemn High Mass held in his honour at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on 1 November took place late in the evening so that the city’s Irish workers could attend. The FOIF paraded through the city’s main streets before attending as a body, with, reportedly, 900 members of the local branch participating. Over 2,000 attended the service.139 By the end of 1920, as tensions peaked in the two British North American centres, the FOIF organization in Portland was on the verge of shutting down. This was not the result of local apathy, but rather a schism within the national FOIF itself. De Valera had, with increasing vociferousness, expressed his opinion that Irish-American leaders Cohalan and John Devoy were too preoccupied with concerns on the western side of the Atlantic. In his opinion, nationalist organizations only existed to fundraise and lobby for the immediate cause of Irish independence. The situation reached a breaking point in September 1920 when the Sinn Fein leader eventually announced that a new, more Irish-centred organization would be established: the AARIR.140 Local branches of the FOIF across the United States had to decide whether to join the new organization, or remain true to Devoy, Cohalan, and the old FOIF. In the end, the Portland branch, along with most others, supported de Valera and abandoned the FOIF in favour of the AARIR. The old local executive was maintained, and John Brown continued to lead the reformed association.141 The new group continued to agitate publicly for the Irish cause. Lectures were organized in February and March, while a public rally and parade were held to welcome the new Lord Mayor of Cork,

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Donal J. O’Callaghan, to the city on 31 March. The AARIR was unambiguously republican, as demonstrated by a resolution at a meeting in early March that clarified its objectives. In St John’s and Halifax, principles of British-imperial freedom and justice were used to rationalize support for Irish self-government. Similarly, in Portland, America’s republican heritage was employed to justify the movement for complete independence: “We, as American citizens, urge our government to be true to the principles enunciated by George Washington … by recognizing the Republic established by the Irish people.”142 As suggested by Michael Doorley, domestic political contexts had a significant bearing on how diasporic nationalism was conceived and articulated.143 The AARIR, like the FOIF before it, continued to keep the local Portland movement in contact with the national organization. In 1921, Judge Joseph E.F. Connolly, James H. McCann, James E. Coughlan, and John Brown were selected to represent the city and state at the association’s national convention in Chicago. Enthusiasm had been high in the preceding months – Maine was said to have 3,000 AARIR members in several localities throughout the state, and the national organization claimed more than 700,000 members by its peak in 1921.144 Although membership was strong and the AARIR continued to promote the nationalist agenda, there is some evidence to suggest that momentum was beginning to falter by the autumn of 1921. Efforts to raise money for the Irish Relief Fund – designed to relieve those affected by violence and distress in Ireland, particularly women and children – fell well short of expectations, despite strong endorsements from the clergy, the AARIR, and the Knights of Columbus.145 Despite the humanitarian nature of the cause, clearly there was some disillusionment with affairs in Ireland – a trend observed in other IrishAmerican settings around this time.146 The members of the PLSBS, for example, who had so generously supported the bond drive, refused to approve a contribution to the relief fund. There were limits on how far the Irish of Portland would go to aid their ancestral homeland, and the drama surrounding the FOIF and the AARIR, in addition to the failure of their previous donations to achieve any tangible results, dampened enthusiasm.147 There was, however, one final “big day” for the Irish nationalists of Portland: the visit of Muriel MacSwiney, widow of the late Lord Mayor of Cork, on 31 July 1921. Support for an Irish Republic had not disappeared completely, and she gave a lecture in front of over

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1,000 people at city hall. Yet again, Portland’s Catholic clergy were prominent. Bishop Walsh hosted a luncheon for MacSwiney where she met some of Portland’s leading citizens.148 Reverend Timothy Houlihan of the Cathedral parish chaired the public meeting, while in his diary, Bishop Walsh praised the talk and the “immense crowd” that turned out to see the parade that followed.149 This, though, was the last great public expression of Irish nationalism in Portland in the 1920s. Michael O’Flanagan, the American vice-president of Sinn Fein, arrived as a special guest of the bishop in early December, but there was little public fanfare.150 With the truce in place, news of atrocities in Ireland became scarce in American newspapers, and the popular movement for Irish independence slowly began to die out. Despite waning interest, the committed nationalists of Portland maintained their organizations until well into 1922. In February of that year, John Brown and the AARIR announced a membership drive to boost their numbers. As part of this effort, he gave a lecture to the PLSBS, urging its members to continue to support the cause of Ireland.151 The local AARIR, moreover, continued to support the Republic through resolutions passed at its 1922 state convention.152 No further public activity was organized, however, and any chance of widespread republican sentiment continuing in Portland was likely ended when Bishop Walsh, who since 1916 had been a staunch supporter of the Irish Republic, spoke in favour of the Free State on St Patrick’s Day 1922. Walsh argued that its establishment gave Ireland a crucial measure of self-government that should be acceptable to virtually all nationalists and represented “the dream of years come true.”153 For the time being, public engagement with Irish affairs was over in Portland. The Irish-American generation almost certainly retained some awareness of their Irishness, as associations such as the AOH persisted, but their identity as Catholic Americans was in the ascendancy in terms of day-to-day expression.

conclusion Between 1919 and 1923, interest in the political destiny of Ireland rose to unprecedented levels in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland. In all three cases, local political contexts were essential in determining how Irish diasporic nationalism was conceived and articulated. The Catholics of St John’s and Halifax had grown to revere the freedom and justice of imperial institutions. In 1920 and 1921, as reports of

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Black and Tan reprisals were disseminated in each city, anger towards the British government rose, and some individuals of Irish descent were undoubtedly converted to republicanism. The leaders of the SelfDetermination for Ireland movement, such as James O’Neill Conroy in St John’s, were unquestionably republican nationalists, but judging by the public attempts to portray the organization as firmly within the boundaries of imperial loyalty, they were a minority. Most Catholics of Irish descent could not imagine an independent Ireland, free of its imperial connection. In Portland, by contrast, inspired by the example of their own American Republic, those of Irish birth and descent were far more likely to support separatism, at least after 1916, when the clergy, led by Bishop Walsh, came to publicly support Ireland’s full independence. Moreover, the Portland case, with the city’s lack of any sustained ethnic response to the First World War, followed immediately by a surge in Irish engagement in 1919, clearly demonstrates how the intensity of Irish identity could vary considerably depending on circumstances in both old world and new. Given the general concern over sectarian strife emerging from local debates on the Irish Question in St John’s and Halifax, as well as the thousands of dollars raised for the cause in Portland, interest in the politics of the old country was high. The great surge in interest in the affairs of Ireland could not have taken place without the organizational networks established by the cities’ nationalist associations. These extended beyond each port, bringing each local community into a broader, diasporic movement for Irish freedom. In all three ports, it was groups such as the SDIL and the FOIF, as well as its successor the AARIR, that popularized the Irish cause locally through rallies, lectures, parades, and social events. Furthermore, by bringing in prominent nationalist speakers from abroad, as well as leading member and branch participation in regional, national, and international conferences, they turned isolated, domestic responses into part of a pan-diasporic movement for Irish freedom. By comparing these three examples, we can clearly see how each fit into North American nationalist networks. Although they were amongst the closest port cities to Ireland, nationalist literature and speakers diffused into them from the west, and this continental context was essential in fostering the Irish ethnic resurgence of the early 1920s. More than at any point previously, there was a sense of belonging to a broader Irish ethnic group, and for a short time, large numbers of Irish Catholics in St John’s, Halifax, Portland, and beyond were

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united, regardless of socio-economic status or gender, in supporting the cause of Ireland. The ethnic resurgence that took place between 1919 and 1923 must be placed in a broader context. Although passions regarding Ireland were high, most Catholics of Irish descent did not actively participate in the movement. It is not possible to suggest, even during this period, that ethnic identities rivalled national – Newfoundland, Canadian, or American – ones. Instead, they existed comfortably together. Irish ethnic sentiment rose and fell depending on local circumstances in North America and conditions in Ireland. In some settings, like St John’s, enthusiasm for Ireland was maintained through the BIS and the Gaelic League in 1923 and after, while in others it declined considerably. However, judging by continued engagement with Ireland by those a generation or more removed from it, an ethnic attachment was maintained for many in the three cities until well into the twentieth century.

conclusion

Understanding Irish Ethnicity in the Diaspora

In the autumn of 1920, hundreds of individuals of Irish descent in St John’s joined Newfoundland’s branch of the Self-Determination for Ireland League. The Irish Question was thoroughly debated in the local press, and thousands of people attended the league’s meetings and lectures in order to forward the cause of self-government for Ireland. The organization and its objectives were opposed by the Orange Order, whose unionism was motivated not by an ancestral link to Irish Protestantism or to Ulster but rather by British North American and transatlantic networks of Orangeism. An almost identical series of events took place in Halifax, as the city’s Irish also participated in the SDIL’s organization and were opposed by the Orange Order and the British Empire Alliance. In Portland, organized nationalism likewise gained momentum at this time, led in this case by the FOIF and the AARIR, with the Catholic clergy playing a more active role in popularizing the movement. Although the Irish population of that city consisted of more Irish-born individuals than either St John’s or Halifax, the nationalism of the 1920s was led primarily by the American-born generation, making the engagement with Irish affairs an intergenerational phenomenon in all three cases. This movement, often led by men and women several generations removed from their ancestral homeland, shows how a latent ethnic consciousness could be transformed into discernible action. The rise in Irish identity in the early 1920s was neither universal nor permanent, but it shows how Irish ethnic networks connected people and places, and how North American Irish nationalism had a strong presence on the continent’s extreme northeast, bringing those of Irish descent in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland into a broader, interconnected diaspora.

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The Irish ethnic narrative in these three places was not one of gradual assimilation over generations but rather of a continual rise and fall – moments when “being Irish” was a powerful, unifying facet of group solidarity versus periods when the explicitly ethnic aspect of individuals’ identity faded into the background. We see the ethnic theories of Rogers Brubaker and Kathleen Conzen reflected in these experiences: a sense of group solidarity based around shared ethnic origins was fleeting, but could generate remarkable unity when domestic and external circumstances permitted it. When Irishness was at a low ebb, it reflected some of the characteristics of Herbert Gans’s “symbolic ethnicity,” but the intensity of the intergenerational resurgence in the postwar period shows that Irishness was still capable of taking on far more than a symbolic importance, even for those several generations removed from the homeland.1 Irish ethnic identities were complex and individual, and did not evolve in isolation. They were not passed from one generation to the next in a linear fashion, but, rather, were constructed, invented, and reinvented over time and space by myriad forces. Although the interplay between class, gender, religion, and ethnicity is impossible to articulate fully, the historian may assess the structures, networks, organizations, and institutions that affected public conceptions and expressions of Irishness. The comparative approach adopted here reveals the common factors that affected the invention of ethnicity in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland and, therefore, which aspects of the Irish experience were connected to a broader Irish world versus which were locally constructed. Together, we do see an interconnected Irish diaspora, but identities varied considerably from place to place and over time. One of the most critical aspects of Irish-Catholic identity in the three cities studied here was the close, reciprocal relationship between ethnicity and religion. Unlike Toronto or Saint John, New Brunswick, there was little sustained Irish-Protestant migration to St John’s, Halifax, or Portland, so, by the late nineteenth century at least, “Irishness” was almost universally associated with Catholicism and was juxtaposed with an Anglo-Protestant or Anglo-American “other.” The clergy, as well as the Church’s institutions and organizations, reinforced a sense of Roman Catholic distinctiveness. Separate orphanages, hospitals, associations, and especially schools created a sense of “otherness” based largely on faith, rather than ethnicity, which differentiated Catholics from their Protestant neighbours. The

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Church also reinforced national and, in the case of St John’s and Halifax, imperial identities. A sense of community, if it existed at all, revolved around Catholic parishes rather than a unity or solidarity based upon a shared Irish ancestry. Nevertheless, the clergy in each port helped sustain a romantic attachment to Ireland until well into the twentieth century. In St John’s and Halifax, Irish-born priests like Fathers Michael Clancy, Daniel O’Callaghan, and Thomas O’Sullivan were essential in keeping alive interest in the old land and leading public engagement with Irish politics and nationalism. In Portland, identity was complicated by the presence of large numbers of nonIrish Catholics, but despite this, the city’s clergy, led by Louis Sebastian Walsh, emerged as the foremost leaders of Irish nationalism in the early 1920s. These clerical connections to Ireland were, by the end of our period, waning, as an increasingly indigenized priesthood epitomized the shift in character and orientation of the Church from Irish to North American. How religion related to ethnicity, then, remains a key theme for the historian of the Irish-Catholic diaspora, but precisely how the networks of Catholicism influenced Irish identity differed from place to place. Like religion, the relationship between class and ethnicity was complex and varied widely over space and time. The examination of associational life shows that public engagement with Ireland, as led by the BIS in St John’s, the CIS in Halifax, and groups such as the IARA in Portland, was often the purview of the wealthier or middle classes. However, the success of more proletarian organizations such as the AOH in Portland and Halifax, demonstrates a strong working-class affinity for the ancestral homeland. In terms of the associational structures and networks that linked those of Irish descent to Ireland, then, we do see a rough division along class lines. When it came to a direct engagement with Ireland through the networks of Irish nationalism, however, individuals from a variety of occupational backgrounds co-operated to support the cause, though groups like the SDIL in St John’s and Halifax and the FOIF in Portland tended to be led by the educated middle classes. Only in Portland, where Irish immigrants continued to occupy the lower rungs of the socio-occupational ladder, was there a direct connection between working-class identity and ethnicity, observed through the structures of an Irish-Catholic labour union: the PLSBS. On the city’s waterfront, where competition for jobs was intense, labour solidarity incorporated an ethnic element in order to preserve shore work as an Irish-Catholic occupational niche. In St

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John’s and Halifax, labour unions rarely possessed any explicit ethnoreligious bias, and class generally transcended ethnicity. Publicly articulated Irish identities were, more often than not, masculine in the three cases examined here. The institutions and organizations that facilitated the expression of ethnicity, such as the BIS, the CIS, the AOH, and the networks of the Catholic Church, were dominated by men. In St John’s, there was an added dimension to this gendered ethnicity, as it was the Christian Brothers of Ireland who were responsible for instilling a love for the old land in many of the city’s boys. In all three ports, though, women were actively involved in the construction and expression of Irish identities. Their active engagement with Ireland was demonstrated through the Ladies’ Auxiliaries of the AOH; through nationalist endeavours, such as the successful Ladies’ Land League in Portland and the Self-Determination movement of the early twentieth century; and through the leadership roles of Callie Springer in Portland and Mary Durand in Halifax. Beyond these organizations and individuals, though, women’s sense of ethnicity is difficult to gauge. A major shortcoming of many historical studies of the Irish diaspora is the inability to understand the ways in which Irishness was transmitted generationally by family, and this variable lends yet another layer of complexity to the evolution of Irish-Catholic ethnicity.2 The comparative study reveals how these various facets of identity related to ethnicity over time and space, enhancing our understanding of the complex process of invention. It also allows us to see how Irishness was understood differently from place to place. Echoing the transnational work of William Jenkins and Malcolm Campbell, as well as Cian McMahon’s conception of “global nationalism,” where engagement with the politics of the homeland were strongly influenced by political contexts in the new, this comparison shows that Irish-American identities were quite different from those in the British Empire.3 Ethnic and benevolent associations such as the BIS and CIS in St John’s and Halifax, respectively, frequently and overtly demonstrated their loyalty and affection for the British monarchy and Empire through speeches, toasts, and resolutions. The networks of the Catholic Church, especially ultra-loyal bishops and archbishops like Michael F. Howley, Cornelius O’Brien, and Edward Roche, also sustained and promoted the imperial connection. Catholic political discourse reflected loyalty to the Empire, and, critically, widespread support for Irish republicanism did not take hold in either port, even

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after the Easter Rising of 1916. In Portland, by contrast, anglophobia and anti-imperial sentiments were far more prevalent, and in place of pro-British rhetoric, there existed a strong American patriotism amongst those of Irish birth and descent. These oppositional understandings of Irishness – one of which revered the old country’s British connection, the other which abhorred it – may have been in part due to generational differences. The Irish-Catholic population of Portland primarily settled in the city during and after the great famine of the 1840s. As argued by Kerby Miller, the collective, cultural memory of the famine created an exile mentality, or an idea of “forced migration” as a result of British misrule of Ireland. In conjunction with American ideals of republican government, this ideal fostered an anglophobic, anti-British conception of Irish identity.4 Because the Irish-Catholic populations in St John’s and Halifax arrived largely before the famine, they were not participants in this particular construction of nationalist memory. However, this explanation is somewhat simplistic: it does not take into account the significant support for constitutional nationalism that existed in American cities like Portland in the late nineteenth century nor the variety of opinion observed both in British North America and the United States. Contributing to Irish-Catholic loyalty in Canada and Newfoundland was the fact that for generations, Irish men and women and their descendants lived happily within the imperial fold, (usually) coexisting peacefully with their AngloProtestant fellow citizens. Life within the Empire was all they or their immediate ancestors had known, and as such, the Catholics of St John’s and Halifax struggled to conceive of their ancestral homeland without its imperial connection. Similarly, Irish Americans revered their country’s republican institutions, and naturally desired a comparable political destiny for the old country. Neither of these constructions of Irishness was stronger or weaker than the other. A devotion to nation or Empire did not preclude intense love for Ireland, and, likewise, a devout American patriotism did not necessarily dilute attachment to the old country. In individuals like Archbishop Howley, we see Newfoundland nationalism alongside imperial loyalty melding seamlessly with a profound esteem for Ireland. For some individuals, their ethnicity was primary, but for most others, it was secondary to class, gender, religion, and nationality. Some Catholics of Irish descent may only have acknowledged their ancestry on occasions like St Patrick’s Day, while for others it was a

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foremost aspect of their day-to-day lives. Although constructions of Irishness differed considerably both within and between these three cities, none should be deemed more “Irish” than another. A further conclusion to draw from this work is the extent to which both domestic and external factors combined to influence the invention of ethnicity in each port city. As we see in Doreen Massey’s foundational work on “space” and “place,” communities are not rigidly bounded. In order to understand the evolution of community and identity, we must look beyond their boundaries and consider how they were connected to other places.5 Ethnic associations like the AOH were vital in bringing the Catholics of Halifax and Portland into close co-operation with broader, North American Irish networks. The Catholic Church, too, was a significant agent in forging transatlantic links and leading engagement with Irish affairs. The diffusion of ethnicity from place to place was as important as its transmission from generation to generation, and we see this most obviously in the establishment of nationalist associations. Groups like the Land League, the INL and, later, the SDIL and FOIF, were not formed locally. Rather, these organizations were transplanted into our cities from elsewhere in mainland North America. The passion for Ireland held by so many of the individuals examined here was locally constructed by family, ethnic associations, education, the Church, and other sources, but the structures through which it was articulated were frequently external. In the case of the ethnic resurgence of 1919 to 1923, for example, these outside organizations provided critical momentum in the reinvention, or at least reassertion, of Irish identity. They transformed a preexisting ethnic consciousness into discernible action. Historians of the diaspora must not ignore this spatial context – how Irish-Catholic identities were transmitted from place to place. Moreover, it is particularly interesting that these Irish networks, whether nationalist or associational, were almost all North American in origin. Despite St John’s, Halifax, and Portland being amongst the continent’s closest ports to Ireland, direct transatlantic links between the old country and adopted homeland were few by the twentieth century. The Catholic clergy provided the most direct connections to Ireland, but even these were waning by the end of our period. The fact that the networks that sustained a knowledge and engagement with Ireland were so often transplanted to our cities from the west suggests that on North America’s northeastern extremity, Irish ethnicity had been thoroughly reinvented in the new world.

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239

This examination of Irish community and identity in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland is just one example of an emerging body of transnational, comparative historical studies of the Irish abroad. There are many opportunities for further study within this methodological framework. A greater variety of comparisons, of course, would enhance our understanding of the diaspora’s complexity. These should involve both Irish-Catholic and Protestant communities, and compare experiences from various parts of the world at a local, regional, and national level. How did the spatial or institutional networks that sustained Irishness evolve along the Pacific coast of North America?6 Around the Great Lakes or in the Midwest?7 In different parts of Australia and New Zealand? A tremendous opportunity for transnational comparison exists where Irish Catholics found themselves as both English-speaking linguistic minorities and ethnic minorities within their Church – such as in Quebec and Argentina. In Great Britain, Mo Moulton’s recent work has put forward yet another framework for understanding the diasporic experience – suggesting that the social, cultural, and political links between Ireland and Britain were sufficiently deep and complex as to defy conventional models of diaspora, assimilation, and ethnic identity. Moulton maintains that “it is necessary to reintegrate Ireland into English history in a way that reflects the varied links between the two countries and the central place often occupied by Irish politics and Irish people” and that “Irishness was a crucial component of interwar Englishness.”8 Although it would be difficult to impose such an integrative framework on North America’s Irish communities, aspects of it could perhaps be applied to the places where the Irish settled in largest numbers, such as Boston, New York, and Chicago. New comparative histories of the Irish diaspora could also focus on a particular transnational ethnic organization, such as the AOH, in order to clarify the role of international associational networks in inventing and reinventing Irish identities. There has yet to be a focused, academic study on how the interconnected, transnational networks of the AOH fostered a communal sense of Irish-Catholic identity. A comparative examination of how the understandings of Irishness promoted by the AOH differed between Canada and the United States would be a major addition to the literature. The Irish-Catholic diaspora was indeed a transnational, interconnected phenomenon. Thanks to local, regional, national, and international networks, Irish ethnicity was invented, reinvented, and passed

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from one generation to the next in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland. Even in three proximate communities, understandings and conceptions of Irishness varied substantially from place to place and through time. Donald Akenson’s metaphor of the diaspora as a Fabergé egg holds true.9 The most important feature of this book has been to show that the diaspora did possess a “wonderful complexity,” as borne out by the tremendous variety of experiences recorded here. Whether for a working-class, Irish-born longshoreman in Portland, a Canadianborn clerk in Halifax’s CIS, or a prominent Catholic lawyer three or four generations removed from his ancestral homeland in St John’s, a romantic and symbolic attachment to Ireland could evoke considerable passion. Their love for the old country made them part of a transnational diaspora that transcended space and time.

The Backstory

appendices

241

242

On the House

appendix a

Occupational Categories

druggists, grocers, liquor merchants, shopkeepers: bartenders, booksellers, café owners, druggists, dry goods merchants, furriers, grocers, liquor merchants, merchants, outfitters, provisions merchants, storekeepers, tobacconists, traders, variety store owners, and wholesalers professional and white collar workers: accountants, agents, auctioneers, automobile inspectors, bank tellers, barristers, bookkeepers, cashiers, clerks, collectors, compositors, customs officials, dentists, editors, insurance agents, law students, managers, morticians, physicians, police captains, politicians, principals, proprietors, public servants, real estate agents, reporters, salesmen, sheriffs, solicitors, teachers, telephone operators, and veterinarians semi- or unskilled manual workers: butlers, cabmen, caretakers, checkers, cleaners, coalweighers, drivers, fishermen, freight handlers, furniture packers, helpers, housekeepers, labourers, letter carriers, maids, night watchmen, packers, painters, ship workers, stevedores, teamsters, and waiters. skilled manual workers: bakers, boilermakers, boot and shoe manufacturers, builders and contractors, butchers, carpenters, conductors, contractors, cooks, coopers, drapers, engineers, estimators, foremen, gas fitters, harness makers, iron workers, locksmiths, machinists, masons, master mariners, mechanics, melters, millmen, painters, patternmakers, plumbers, policemen, press feeders, soap manufacturers,

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steamfitters, stenographers, stitchers, stone cutters, stove repairmen, tailors, tidewaiters, timekeepers, tire manufacturers, undertakers, upholsterers, watchmakers, wheelwrights, and woodworkers.

note The categories here are my own, though they closely resemble those used by Peter Goheen, Mark McGowan, and Brian Clarke in their studies of Toronto. Due to the narrower range of occupations recorded in St John’s, Halifax, and Portland, and for a more simplified analysis, categories such as “clerical” or “white collar” and “professional” have been combined, as have semi- and unskilled labourers. See Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 260–1; Goheen, Victorian Toronto, 229–30; McGowan, The Waning of the Green, 295–6.

appendix b

Biographical Details of Members of the Portland Ancient Order of Hibernians, 1912

Name

Occupation

Place of birth

Father’s place of birth

Mother’s place of birth

Patrick J. Barrett Joseph E. F. Connolly Thomas D. Connor Thomas Conroy Thomas L. Donohue John H. Dooley Patrick J. Feury Edward F. Flaherty William E. Flaherty John E. Flaherty Martin Flynn John J. Foley Walter Jortberg George E. McCallum George E. McLauflin George McLauflin Jr Henry O’Connor Michael T. Ragan William J. Rogers John F. White

Labourer Judge Teamster Chauffeur Feeder Superintendent Police officer Plasterer Clerk Driver Moulder Night agent Clerk Upholsterer Painter Bookkeeper Driver Letter carrier Switchman Druggist

Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Maine Ireland Maine Maine Maine Maine Ireland Maine Maine Maine Maine Ireland Maine Canada Maine

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Sweden Ireland Ireland Maine Maine Ireland Canada Ireland

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Canada Ireland Ireland Canada Ireland

Sources: The membership list was compiled from Eastern Argus, 30 January 1912 and 16 September 1912. Places of birth were gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with most of the original data from the Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Occupational profiles were compiled using the Portland City Directory, 1912.

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appendix c

Traceable Members of the Portland Land League, 1881–1882

Name

Occupation

Place of birth

Father’s place of birth

Mother’s place of birth

Robert E. Ahern James Connellan Cornelius Connelly Patrick J. Cuddyer Frank W. Cunningham Daniel Desmond Thomas F. Donohue John Egan Peter Fitzsimmons Frank M. Fogg

Clerk Grocer Saloon keeper Bookkeeper Mason Labourer Labourer Undertaker Marble worker Editor Clerk Flour, grain, and hay Teamster Labourer Law student Oyster house Labourer Attorney Flour/corn Attorney Porter Attorney Hats and caps Stonecutter Harness and collar maker

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Unknown Unknown Ireland New Hampshire Unknown Maine

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Unknown Unknown Ireland Canada

John A. Gallagher Peter H. Gordon

Maine Ireland Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Unknown Nova Scotia Ireland New Hampshire Unknown Maine Maine Ireland Maine Unknown Ireland Maine Ireland Maine Ireland Maine England Maine Ireland

Maine Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland

Mass. Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland England Ireland Ireland

Timothy E. Hartnett Robert F. Hughes T.F. Keating George Keeley Patrick Kerr Elliott King John J. Lappin W.H. Looney Thomas Love J.J. Lynch John P. Maher Daniel Mannix William McAleney

Unknown Maine

Traceable Members of the Portland Land League

Name

Occupation

M.C. McCann Dennis McCarthy Charles McCarthy Jr James H. McDonald Hugh F. McGowan Terence P. McGowan

Driver Labourer Clothier Fish merchant Clerk Co-owned bookstore (McGowan and Young) William W. McIntyre Clerk Francis D. Melaugh Harness maker John Melaugh Labourer Michael T. Mulhall Decorative painter Charles Mullen Grocer Owen Murray Labourer Peter O’Connor Saloon keeper Michael O’Neil Blacksmith Bartholomew O’Reilly Tailor William J. Rowe Tinworker Thomas F. Sheehan Shoemaker R.F. Somers Silk and hat manufacturer Richard M. Springer Publisher John M. Todd Hairdresser Timothy J. Twigg Trader P.J. Welsh Edmund J. Young

Harness maker Co-owned bookstore (McGowan and Young)

247

Place of birth

Father’s place of birth

Mother’s place of birth

Maine Unknown Ireland Maine Ireland Ireland

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland

Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland

Unknown Maine Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland Ireland Unknown Maine

Unknown Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland

Unknown Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland Ireland Unknown Ireland

Illinois Maine New Brunswick Unknown Maine

Illinois Maine Ireland

Illinois Maine Ireland

Unknown Maine

Unknown New Hampshire

Source: Occupational data was taken from Portland Directory and Reference Book, 1881. Places of birth and other data were gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the Tenth Census of the United States, 1880.

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appendix d

Provisional Dominion Council of the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland, October 1920

Position

Name

Occupation

Chairman Treasurer

Customs inspector Lawyer

Secretary Dominion Council member Dominion Council member

R.T. McGrath James O’Neill Conroy Miss Rose Donnelly J.M. Devine W.J. Higgins, KC

Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member

Hon. M.P. Gibbs J.T. Meaney Thomas Kelly P.F. Moore

Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member Dominion Council member

J.H. Dee C.J. Cahill C.J. Ellis J.A. McKenzie J.P. Crotty P.J. Berrigan J.J. Tobin John Ryan W.F. Trelegan Philip Brown P. Hickey

Unknown Lawyer Lawyer and Member of the House of Assembly Lawyer Liquor controller Unknown Plumber and Member of the House of Assembly Unknown Lawyer Tailor Unknown Broker Cashier Manager City engineer Storekeeper Dry goods merchant Unknown

Sources: Daily News, 20 October 1920; St John’s City Directory, 1924.

Appendices -- To be handled manually

249

appendix e

Names and Occupations of the 1920 Portland Friends of Irish Freedom Executive

Position

Name

Occupation

Birthplace

President Vice-president Secretary Fin. Secretary Treasurer

John Brown Ms Mary Flaherty James D. Leighton John J. Maloney Patrick A. Mahoney

Ireland Maine Maine Maine California

Orator Director of Org. Director of Publicity

Richard E. Harvey Joseph D. Walsh John H. Dooley

Longshoreman Teacher Clerk Contractor Owned plumbing company Lawyer Unknown Manager

Maine Unknown Maine

Sources: Eastern Argus, 1 March 1920. Occupational details are taken from the Directory of Portland, 1920. Places of birth were gleans from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with original data from the nominal rolls of the Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.

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Notes

abbreviations AHRCA ARCASJ CO LAC MHS MIHC NSA PANL RCDPA UCDA

Archdiocese of Halifax Roman Catholic Archives Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St John’s Colonial Office Library and Archives Canada Maine Historical Society Maine Irish Heritage Center Nova Scotia Archives Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador [The Rooms] Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Archives University College Dublin Archives

introduction 1 Daily News, 5 June 1920. 2 Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 6; Nash, “Genealogical Identities,” 35. 3 Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 9; Kevin Kenny notes that the key determinant for membership in the Irish diaspora is whether those “of a given dispersed population see themselves in diasporic terms, articulating a sense of common identity among themselves as well as with their homeland.” See Kenny, “Diasporas and Comparison,” 143; See also Kevin Kenny, Diaspora. 4 St John’s was the capital of the Dominion of Newfoundland, which did not join Canada until 1949. This is why the term “British North American” rather than “Canadian” is used when discussing Halifax and St John’s.

252

Notes to Pages 5–7

5 On the differences between Irish-Canadian and Irish-American nationalism, see Wilson, “Introduction,” in Irish Nationalism in Canada, 3–5; Senior, The Fenians and Canada, 136–48; Neidhardt, Fenianism in North America, 131–5. 6 An example is William Safran’s typology, which highlights six factors that define a diasporic population. These include a historical dispersal from a “centre” to a foreign periphery, the retention of a collective memory about the homeland, a perceived rejection by the host society, the belief that the homeland remains the place where their descendants should eventually return, a commitment to the safety and prosperity of the ancestral homeland, and, finally, continued relations – either direct or indirect – with the old country. Safran also notes that a true diasporic community must be a minority. See Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies,” 83–94. James Clifford highlights the multitude of diasporic experiences: an “ideal type” of diaspora could result in some groups being seen as more or less diasporic than others, thus diminishing the utility of the concept especially when investigating a multi-generational ethnic group. See Clifford, “Diasporas,” 302–38, esp. 306. See also Kenny, Diaspora, 11. 7 Conzen, “The Invention of Ethnicity,” 4–5. It is worth pointing out that Conzen was by no means the first scholar to note that ethnic identities are continuously evolving. In their seminal study, Glazer and Moynihan noted that “ethnic groups … are continuously recreated by new experiences in America.” See Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 17. 8 Conzen, “The Invention of Ethnicity,” 5 and 12. 9 Ibid., 14–16. 10 Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 4. 11 See, for example, Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 18–19. The idea of ethnic affiliation being a matter of “rational choice” has been more recently articulated in Hechter, “A Rational Choice Approach to Race and Ethnic Relations,” 268–77. Some recent models continue to highlight the significance of inter-ethnic competition and access to resources on ethnic identities. In his concept of “mutative ethnicity,” which emerges from a study of nineteenth-century Irish America, Alan O’Day notes that Irish identities were sustained through “the continued allocation of benefits such as employment, housing or communal sociability.” Without a common ethnic identity, the capacity for mutual benefit would be diminished. O’Day, “A Conundrum of Irish Diasporic Identity,” 323 and 327. 12 Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity,” 1–5.

Notes to Pages 7–10

13 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22 23

24 25

253

Ibid., 5. Ibid., 10. Ibid.,” 9; See also O’Day, “Imagined Irish Communities,” 250–75. Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 2–4 and 11–13. The most important work is Kerby Miller’s seminal Emigrants and Exiles. In a study of Irish-Catholic migration to the United States based largely on emigrant correspondence, Miller argues that identities were sustained by the perception that those who left Ireland were involuntary migrants who were exiled from their ancestral homeland by political and economic circumstances. Furthermore, he emphasizes the significance of Irish-Catholic culture in hampering the adjustment to American society. In Ireland, Catholicism emphasized communal values and dependence, which were at odds with the individualism required to thrive in large, industrial cities. See Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 3–4 and 556. Numerous studies of Irish immigrant social and economic adjustment have followed. Some scholars, such as Donald Akenson, have countered Miller’s argument, highlighting emigrant agency and maintaining that the decision to leave Ireland was a complex and personal one. Furthermore, far from being culturally handicapped, many Irish emigrants possessed advantages not held by other ethnic minorities in the United States: the ability to speak English, as well as, in the later nineteenth century at least, a degree of literacy. See Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 11. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse; McGowan, The Waning of the Green; Meagher, Inventing Irish America; see also Meagher, “Irish America without Ireland,” 189–223. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, xi. For example, see Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 14. Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 4. Kenny, “Diaspora and Comparison,” 135 and 150. Ibid., 135 and 146. Kenny has recently rearticulated his call for comparative studies of the diasporic experience: “As a category of analysis, diaspora reveals the transnational connections not only between migrants and their homelands, but also between emigrants of common origin in globally scattered communities. When this approach is combined with the comparative method, the result is a powerful conceptual framework for explaining the history of emigration.” See Kenny, “Irish Emigrations in a Comparative Perspective,” 421. Campbell, Ireland’s New Worlds, vii and xi–xii. Jenkins, “Deconstructing Diasporas,” 360 and 361. See also Jenkins,

254

26 27 28 29

30

31

Notes to Pages 10–20

Between Raid and Rebellion; Whelehan, “Playing with Scales,” 7–29. Donald MacRaild also provides an example of comparative methodology. See MacRaild, “Crossing Migrant Frontiers,” 40–70. McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity, 3. Ibid. Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion, 10. A number of census booklets for 1911 covering St John’s East have survived. However, their limited scope make a sampling method difficult to apply. Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 225–8. In his doctoral research on Toronto and Buffalo, William Jenkins noted that: “A major challenge facing the comparative researcher is a failure for the variables of interest to be recorded in a similar fashion.” Jenkins was able to use sources such as assessment rolls and city directories to make up for inconsistencies in census data and reconstruct Irish residency and occupational mobility. In this case, though, the near-total lack of nominal census data for St John’s makes a similar method impossible to apply. See Jenkins, “Social and Geographical Mobility among the Irish in Canada and the United States,” 54. McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity, 5.

chapter one 1 Massey, Space, Place, and Gender, 121. 2 Ibid., 120. See also Massey, For Space. 3 McPherson, “The Demographic History of St John’s,” 1; Pope, Fish into Wine, 15–20. 4 McPherson, “The Demographic History of St John’s,” 1; Pope, Fish into Wine, 53. 5 Handcock, Soe Longe as There Comes Noe Women, 102. 6 Mannion, John, “St John’s.” 7 Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1884; 1891; 1901; 1911; 1921. See Vol. I, Table I, “Population, Sex, Condition, Denominations, Professions, etc.” For 1884, 1891, and 1901, population statistics are calculated by adding “City and Suburbs” columns for both St John’s East and West electoral districts. For 1911 and 1921, they are calculated by adding the figures for the five urban wards in St John’s East and West. 8 Quoted in O’Neill, The Oldest City, 35. 9 Evening Telegram, 9 August 1883. 10 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 49.

Notes to Pages 20–6

255

11 Quoted in Baker, “Municipal Politics and Public Housing in St John’s,” 29–30. 12 Daily News, 26 June 1919. 13 Baker, “Municipal Politics and Public Housing in St John’s,” 39–41. 14 MacKinnon, “The Agricultural Fringe of St John’s,” 73. 15 Mannion, John, “Victualling a Fishery,” 15 and 55; Mannion, John, “Irish Migration and Settlement in Newfoundland,” 261. See also Mannion, John, “The Waterford Merchants and the Irish-Newfoundland Provisions Trade,” 178–203. 16 Mannion, John, “Irish Migration and Settlement in Newfoundland,” 286; Mannion, John, “Tracing the Irish,” 7. See also Mannion, John, “Origins of the Newfoundland Population, 1836.” 17 Mannion, John “Tracing the Irish,” 10. 18 Ibid; see also Mannion, John, “Introduction,” in The Peopling of Newfoundland, 7. 19 Mannion, John, “Introduction,” 10. 20 Census of Newfoundland, 1836, Appendix I; Census of Newfoundland, 1845, Fol. 1; Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1857, Appendix I. Totals for 1857 are calculated by adding figures for St John’s East and West. See also Lambert, “Far from the Homes of their Fathers,” 43. 21 Chafe, “A New Life on Uncle Sam’s Farm.” See also Reeves, “Newfoundlanders in the ‘Boston States,’” 34–55; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 44–5. 22 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 45–6 and 53–72. 23 Raddall, Halifax: Warden of the North, 7–18. 24 Ibid., 24. 25 Ibid., 42. 26 Fingard, Guildford, and Sutherland, Halifax: The First 250 Years, 16. 27 Ibid., 17. 28 Ibid., 25–6. On Halifax’s Afro-Canadian community, see Nelson, Razing Africville. 29 Wynn and McCann, “Maritime Canada, Late Eighteenth Century.” 30 Census of Canada, 1881; 1921. 31 Halifax Herald, 18 July 1883. 32 Blakely, Glimpses of Halifax, 27–9. 33 Fingard, Guildford, and Sutherland, Halifax: The First 250 Years, 114; Blakely, Glimpses of Halifax, 17. A setback to urban growth occurred in 1917, when the munitions ship Mont Blanc exploded in Halifax harbour, destroying much of the north end.

256

Notes to Pages 28–37

34 Blakely, Glimpses of Halifax, 112; 209; Fingard, The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax, 20 and 25–6. 35 Raddall, Warden of the North, 227. See also Corsi, Halifax: The Other Door to America. 36 Fingard, Guildford, and Sutherland, Halifax: The First 250 Years, 107. 37 Raddall, Warden of the North, 143. 38 Punch, “The Irish Catholics,” 25–8. 39 Punch, Irish Halifax, 7. 40 Ibid., 8; 18. 41 Ibid., 10–13. 42 Census of Canada, 1881, Table III; Census of Canada, 1901, Table XI. Figures are calculated by adding totals for each of Halifax’s six urban wards. 43 White, “Mobility in Place,” 147. 44 Ibid., 148. 45 Ibid., 166. 46 Conforti, “Introduction,” in Creating Portland, xii. 47 Baker, “Formerly Machegonne, Dartmouth, York, Stogummor, Casco, and Falmouth,” 6–9; Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 6–9. 48 Outwin, “Thriving and Elegant Town,” 29; Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 6–9. 49 Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 29; Babcock, “Economic Development in Portland (Me.) and St John (N.B.),” 5–6; Conforti, “Introduction,” xv. 50 Conforti, “Introduction,” xv. 51 Ibid., xvii. 52 Ibid., xviii. 53 Eastern Argus, 19 September 1889. 54 Conforti, “Introduction,” xvii; Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 74. 55 Conforti, “Introduction,” xxiv. 56 Carey Jr, “‘Comunidad Escondida,’” 91. 57 Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 41–6; Lee, “What They Lack in Numbers,” 218–20 and 226. 58 Conforti, “Introduction,” xxv; Eagan, “Working Portland,” 193–4. 59 Conforti, “Introduction,” xxv. 60 Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 9; Barker, The Irish of Portland, 18–20. 61 Barker, “The Irish Community and Irish Organizations of NineteenthCentury Portland, Maine,” 139–45. 62 Ibid., 155; Barker, The Irish of Portland, 43–7. 63 Connolly, “The Irish Longshoremen of Portland, Maine,” 38. 64 Grimes and Connolly, “The Migration Link between Cois Fharraige and Portland, Maine,” 28.

Notes to Pages 37–43

257

65 66 67 68 69 70

Nilsen, “The Language that the Strangers Do Not Know,” 298. Ibid., 333–4. Eagan, “Working Portland,” 195; Barker, The Irish in Portland, 65. Quoted in Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 55; Conforti, “Introduction,” xxi. Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 50; Eagan, “Working Portland,” 198. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Vol. 1, Tables 59, 61, 63, 65, and 66. 71 Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 65. 72 Connolly, “The Irish Longshoremen of Portland, Maine,” 106.

chapter two 1 Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 73–4. 2 Kelly and Comerford, “Introduction,” in Associational Culture in Ireland and Abroad, 3. 3 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 188. 4 FitzGerald, foreword to Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, vi. 5 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 10–11 and 18. 6 Ibid., 12 and 26–8; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 188. 7 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 23. 8 Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, 10–14. 9 Centenary Volume, 42–4; Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, 34. 10 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 212; Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 84 and 113. 11 Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, 2–6, 88, and 103–4. Chief Justice Thomas Tremlett wrote to Governor Erasmus Gower, noting that “although [MacKillop and Tonge] are too well known to give cause to suppose they would wish to do anything improper … the future influence they may have must be very precarious.” Gower later wrote, “I am of opinion that in forming such benevolent societies in this place, all national and religious distinctions should be carefully avoided, as tending to prevent that union of heart and general co-operation among His Majesty’s subjects from different parts of the Empire.” Tremlett to Gower, 21 March 1806, PANL, Letter Book of the Colonial Secretary’s Office, GN 2/1/A, Vol. 19 (1806), p. 7; Gower to [Sheriff] Thomas Coote, 1 June 1806, PANL, Letter Book of the Colonial Secretary’s Office, GN 2/1/A, Vol. 19 (1806), p. 17. My thanks to John Mannion for these references. See also Mannion, John, “‘Notoriously Disaffected to the Government,’” 1–29.

258

Notes to Pages 44–53

12 Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, 226; Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 146. 13 Mahoney, Benevolent Irish Society of St John’s, 182–4. 14 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 215; Colonist, 14 March 1887. 15 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 158. 16 Colonist, 8 March 1887. 17 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 158; See also Benevolent Irish Society (BIS) Minutes, 19 November 1887 and 4 December 1887, PANL, Benevolent Irish Society Fonds, MG 612, Reel 76. 18 Evening Herald, 31 August 1891. 19 Evening Telegram, 16 March 1892. 20 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 239; Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 164. 21 Evening Telegram, 23 March 1901. 22 BIS Minutes, 26 May 1899. 23 Evening Telegram, 28 May 1897. 24 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 160. 25 Ibid. 26 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 227. 27 Ibid., 237. 28 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 152. 29 Evening Telegram, 13 April 1882. 30 Ibid., 19 March 1906. 31 Benevolent Irish Society, Centenary Volume, 152. 32 BIS Minutes, 4 March 1900. 33 See McCracken, MacBride’s Brigade. 34 Evening Telegram, 30 January 1901. 35 Punch, Irish Halifax, 19–20; Harvey, “Black Beans, Banners and Banquets,” 16–17; Stewart, The Irish in Nova Scotia, 15–21. See also Kehoe, “Catholic Relief,” 1–20. 36 Harvey, “Black Beans, Banners and Banquets,” 17. 37 Stewart, The Irish in Nova Scotia, 15. 38 Harvey, “Black Beans, Banners and Banquets,” 16. 39 Stewart, The Irish in Nova Scotia, 15. 40 Harvey, “Black Beans and Banquets,” 31; Punch, Irish Halifax, 35–6. 41 Harvey, “Black Beans, Banners and Banquets,” 17. 42 Charitable Irish Society (CIS) Minute Book, 17 February 1903, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 70. 43 CIS Minute Book, 17 May 1880.

Notes to Pages 53–8

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67

259

resolutions on Irish nationalism will be discussed in further detail below. “CIS to Viscount Gordon,” n.d., February 1895, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 63, No. 3. Halifax Herald, 18 March 1896. Crooks, “The Quest for Respectability,” 171. Ibid., 178. Harvey, “Black Beans, Banners and Banquets,” 17. CIS Minute Book, 17 November 1885. Ibid., 17 August 1888. Ibid., 17 February 1892. Ibid., 17 February 1894. Barker, “The Irish Community and Irish Organizations of NineteenthCentury Portland, Maine,” 171–3. “Constitution and Bylaws of the Irish American Relief Association, 1876,” MHS, MSP837i, 4 “Constitution and Bylaws of the Irish American Relief Association, 1876,” 23–7; Eastern Argus, 5 May 1919. “Constitution and Bylaws of the Irish American Relief Association, 1876.” Eastern Argus, 19 July 1880 and 22 July 1880. Ibid., 3 February 1880. “Constitution and Bylaws of the St Patrick’s Benevolent Society, 1871,” MHS, M837s.1, 3. Ibid., 8. Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 170; O’Dea, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies’ Auxiliary, Volume II, 884–5. O’Dea, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies’ Auxiliary, Volume I, 7. Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 170 and 263; O’Dea, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies’ Auxiliary, Volume III, 1491 and 1499. Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 170; O’Dea, History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Ladies’ Auxiliary, Volume III, 1380. Portland Sunday Telegram, 2 July 1905; Barker, The Irish of Portland, 114. Places of birth are gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with most of the information coming from the Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Occupational profiles are compiled using the Portland City Directory, 1905. See also Appendix B for a biographical profile of Portland Hibernians from 1912. The proCIS

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76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Notes to Pages 58–64

portions are similar to the 1905 sample. Of the twenty individuals listed there, thirteen were born in North America, while all but two had at least one Irish-born parent. The 1912 sample also demonstrates a similar level of occupational diversity. With the exception of Judge Joseph Connolly, who was one of the city’s leading Irish Catholics, a majority of the members came from the skilled and unskilled working classes. Eastern Argus, 11 January 1888; Portland Sunday Telegram, 18 June 1905. Julian Pauncefote to Earl of Aberdeen, 31 January 1896, LAC, “Deputy Minister Dockets,” RG-9 2-A-1, Vol. 287, No. 14570. Privy Council 770 L, 28 June 1901, LAC, “Deputy Minister Dockets,” RG-9 2-A-1, Vol. 344, No. 20627. Eastern Argus, 11 August 1882 and 17 August 1883. Ibid., 18 August 1881. Ibid., 4 March 1912. For another example, see Portland Press, 1 March 1884. Connolly, “The Irish Longshoremen of Portland, Maine,” 67–9. Ibid., 149, 156, and 197. See also Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 96; Connolly, “Black Fades to Green,” 357–73. Other unions along Portland’s waterfront also had ethnic affiliations. The Freight Handlers’ Union, for example, was largely Italian. Kauffman, Faith and Fraternalism, 1. Ibid., 9. Portland Sunday Telegram, 16 July 1905. Places of birth are gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with most of the information coming from the Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Occupational profiles are compiled using the Portland City Directory. For example, the St Mary’s and St Patrick’s temperance societies had been active since the late 1860s and early 1870s, respectively. McGowan, The Waning of the Green, 165; Halifax Herald, 10 August 1902. Acadian Recorder, 26 March 1906; McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1906. Acadian Recorder, 26 June 1906. Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 170. Acadian Recorder, 9 January 1902. Ibid. Halifax Herald, 16 January 1902. Halifax Herald, 29 August 1906 and 30 August 1906. Acadian Recorder, 8 March 1909 and 22 March 1909; McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1909. Acadian Recorder, 2 May 1910 and 21 June 1910. Ibid., 4 October 1910.

Notes to Pages 64–72

261

91 Ibid., 3 August 1908. 92 Ibid., 18 March 1902; Halifax Herald, 26 September 1902; Acadian Recorder, 13 July 1908. 93 Acadian Recorder, 25 July 1904. 94 Ibid., 22 August 1904, 28 November 1904, and 9 April 1906. 95 Halifax Herald, 19 March 1904. 96 Acadian Recorder, 18 March 1902. 97 Ibid., 17 October 1904 and 24 October 1904. 98 Evening Telegram, 26 June 1915. 99 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 360. 100 Ibid., 194–5. 101 Terra Nova Advocate, 21 April 1881; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 242. 102 Daily News, 17 March 1906. 103 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 193–4. 104 Ibid., 197; Daily News, 17 March 1906. 105 Pike, The Knights of Columbus in Newfoundland, 8–9. 106 Moss, “St Patrick’s Day Celebrations,” 130. 107 Ibid., 132; Marston, “Public Rituals and Community Power,” 255–6, 260; Trigger, “Irish Politics on Parade,” 159–99. 108 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 236. 109 Ibid., 228. 110 Ibid., 106. 111 Evening Telegram, 18 March 1893. 112 See for example Ibid., 18 March 1889. 113 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 237–9. 114 Colonist, 2 March 1887 and 8 March 1887. 115 Evening Telegram, 16 March 1887. 116 Ibid., 18 March 1896, 6 March 1898, 18 March 1898, and 19 March 1901. 117 “Circular from President J.J. O’Brien to the CIS,” 13 March 1889, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 64. 118 See for example Halifax Herald, 16 March 1885 and 18 March 1885. 119 Ibid., 17 March 1886. 120 Ibid., 17 March 1887. 121 Ibid., 17 March 1887, 17 March 1888, 16 March 1889, 17 March 1890, and 17 March 1892. 122 Ibid., 17 March 1892. 123 Ibid., 17 March 1898, 17 March 1899, 19 March 1900, and 18 March 1901.

262

Notes to Pages 72–80

124 Ibid., 3 March 1908; CIS Minute Book, 17 February 1909. 125 There were exceptions, usually connected to political circumstances in the old country. In 1843, at the height of Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal movement, a large St Patrick’s Day parade and banquet took place in Portland. Much later, in 1919, the re-emergence of Irish nationalism after the Great War prompted another significant, public celebration. This will be examined in chapter 6. See Barker, The Irish of Portland, 40. 126 Eastern Argus, 18 March 1880 and 18 March 1886. 127 See for example, Ibid., 18 March 1884 and 15 March 1915. 128 Ibid., 18 February 1913. 129 Ibid., 10 March 1893; Portland Sunday Telegram, 5 March 1905. 130 Moss, “St Patrick’s Day Celebrations,” 131.

chapter three 1 O’Day, Irish Home Rule, 59 and 62. 2 Donnelly Jr, The Land and People of Nineteenth-Century Cork, 262; See also Keys, Funding the Nation, 122–3. 3 Terra Nova Advocate, 21 January 1880; Evening Telegram, 21 January 1880. 4 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 373. 5 Evening Telegram, 2 February 1880 and 10 February 1880. 6 Ibid., 21 February 1880; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 371. 7 Rollman, “Thomas Joseph Power,” 860–1. 8 Evening Telegram, 23 February 1880; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 373. 9 Terra Nova Advocate, 25 February 1880; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 371. 10 Evening Telegram, 6 February 1880; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 374. 11 Evening Telegram, 6 February 1880. 12 Ibid., 18 March 1880. Joseph Ignatius Little was the brother of Newfoundland’s first premier, Philip Francis. A lawyer, he represented Harbour Main in the House of Assembly before being named to the Supreme Court in 1884. He served as chief justice from 1898 to his death in 1902. See Hiller, “Joseph Ignatius Little,” 602. 13 [St John’s] Morning Chronicle, 18 March 1880. 14 Newfoundlander, 19 March 1880; Evening Telegram, 19 March 1880, 22 March 1880, and 23 March 1880.

Notes to Pages 81–6

263

15 Evening Telegram, 16 April 1880. 16 Ibid., 14 October 1880. An earlier update in the Irish Times had noted £1,000 as a “first instalment.” See Irish Times, 3 March 1880. 17 Morning Chronicle, 13 January 1880; Halifax Herald, 13 January 1880. 18 Halifax Herald, 31 March 1880. 19 Ibid., 11 March 1880. 20 CIS Minute Book, 17 February 1880 and 17 May 1880, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 69. 21 Support for the charitable relief fund was particularly strong in Boston and New England. See Keys, Funding the Nation, 123–4. See also Janis, “The Land League in the United States and Ireland.” 37–8. 22 Eastern Argus, 3 February 1880. Again, the influence of the Catholic clergy may have been significant – on 1 February, Father Dennis Bradley of the Cathedral parish gave a sermon on his recent visit to Ireland, noting the widespread distress throughout the country. See Barker, The Irish of Portland, 119. 23 Eastern Argus, 4 February 1880. 24 Ibid., 7 February 1880. 25 Ibid., 9 February 1880. 26 Barker, “The Time We Shared Stone Soup,” 124. 27 Eastern Argus, 2 March 1880; Barker, The Irish of Portland, 127. 28 Clark, The Social Origins of the Irish Land War, 235–40; Donnelly Jr, The Land and People of Nineteenth-Century Cork, 257–60. 29 Bew, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 62. 30 Ibid., 49; Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 111–12. For a more recent interpretation of the broader impact of the Land War on twentieth-century Irish nationalism and the construction of Irish national identity, see Kane, Constructing Irish National Identity. 31 Clark, The Social Origins of the Irish Land War, 247. 32 Ibid., 3. 33 Foner, “Class, Ethnicity and Radicalism in the Gilded Age,” 156–7; Janis, “Petticoat Revolutionaries,” 8–9. The best analysis of the Land League’s transnationalism is Janis, A Greater Ireland. 34 Janis, A Greater Ireland, 58–9. 35 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 352. 36 Terra Nova Advocate, 18 December 1880. 37 Evening Telegram, 28 October 1881. 38 Terra Nova Advocate, 13 August 1881. Thanks to the biographical research of Monsignor Francis A. Coady, fifteen of the sixteen clerical contributors to the fund can be identified by place of birth. Of these,

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39 40 41 42 43 44

45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61

Notes to Pages 86–91

twelve were born in Ireland and three in Newfoundland. See Coady, ed., Lives Recalled. Halifax Herald, 24 January 1881; McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1881–1882. Halifax Herald, 24 January 1881. Ibid., 17 March 1881, 11 August 1881, and 28 October 1881. Ibid., 5 January 1882 and 8 February 1882. Ibid., 8 February 1882. Kealey and Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be, 313–14; See also Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion, 209–11; Brundage, Irish American Nationalists, 123. Executive lists may be found in the Acadian Recorder, 7 March 1881 and the Halifax Herald, 8 February 1882. Occupational data is taken from McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1881–1882; McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1882–1883. Places of birth and further biographical details are taken from the www.familysearch.org database, with the original information coming from the Census of Canada, 1881. The idea of a “latent ethnic constituency” being mobilized by events in the ancestral homeland comes from Kathleen Conzen’s model of invented ethnicity. See Conzen, “The Invention of Ethnicity,” 16. Morning Chronicle, 24 October 1881. Ibid., 5 November 1881. Halifax Herald, 27 March 1883. Ibid., 29 March 1883. Ibid., 3 April 1883. Ibid., 13 August 1883. “Obituary,” Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 1.5 (1913): 47. Barker, “History of St Dominic’s Parish,” 21. Eastern Argus, 23 November 1880. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 92–3. Eastern Argus, 18 January 1881. Redpath was an important promoter of the Land League in America. He gave public lectures in numerous cities, and his “advocacy of the Land League further helped win support for the movement among American citizens.” See Janis, A Greater Ireland, 41. Eastern Argus, 27 October 1881 and 26 November 1881. Ibid., 19 July 1882 and 20 July 1882. Ibid., 20 December 1881. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 83–4. Eastern Argus, 21 December 1880.

Notes to Pages 91–8

62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85 86 87 88 89 90

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Ibid., 12 April 1881 and 26 April 1881. Ibid., 16 August 1881 and 26 September 1881. Ibid., 16 January 1883. Occupational data was taken from Portland Directory and Reference Book, 1881. Places of birth and other data was gleaned from the online genealogical database www.ancestry.com, with the original information coming from the Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. For a full list of the forty members, see Appendix C. On Land League co-operation across social classes, see Janis, “The Land League in the United States and Ireland,” 115–22. Eastern Argus, 21 March 1882. Barker, The Irish of Portland, 133. Ibid., 128. Janis, “Petticoat Revolutionaries,” 10–11. See also Moloney, “Land League Activism,” 67–74. Eastern Argus, 13 May 1881. Ibid., 2 September 1881, 16 December 1881, and 17 February 1882. Ibid., 13 April 1882. Barker, The Irish of Portland, 129. Moloney, “Land League Activism,” 71–2. Eastern Argus, 16 January 1883. Ibid., 1 February 1883 and 9 February 1883. Ibid., 30 April 1883 and 1 May 1883. Jackson, Home Rule, 42–3. Ibid., 45. Ibid., 45–8. Ibid., 48–51. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 161. Ibid. Janis, A Greater Ireland, 194. Moderate, anti–Clan na Gael nationalists in the United States later formed the Irish Parliamentary Fund Association, but this had no presence in St John’s, Halifax, or Portland. See Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 125. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 540; Brown, Irish American Nationalism, 164 and 168. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 354. Evening Telegram, 2 January 1883. Terra Nova Advocate, 4 May 1882. Evening Mercury, 8 May 1882. Newfoundlander, 9 May 1882.

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91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

Notes to Pages 98–106

Evening Telegram, 19 May 1882 and 26 May 1882. Ibid., 13 April 1886. Colonist, 10 May 1886, 11 May 1886, and 13 May 1886. The ire that Home Rule would create amongst Irish unionists does not appear to have been considered. See Keough, “Contested Terrains,” 30. Terra Nova Advocate, 8 May 1886. Journal of the House of Assembly of Newfoundland: First Session of the Fifteenth General Assembly, 1886 (St John’s: Government of Newfoundland, 1886), 196–7 and 213; Terra Nova Advocate, 15 May 1886; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 365–7. See also Lambert, “‘Tho Changed Be Your Climate, Unchanged Are Your Hearts,’” 51–3. Terra Nova Advocate, 15 May 1886. Evening Telegram, 14 May 1886. Colonist, 15 May 1886. Ibid., 20 May 1886. Evening Telegram, 17 May 1886. Ibid., 19 May 1886. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 367. BIS Minutes, 20 May 1886, PANL, Benevolent Irish Society Fonds, MG 612, Reel 76; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 367. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 366. Ibid., 369. Evening Telegram, 17 September 1886. Ibid., 29 September 1886. Colonist, 30 March 1886. Jackson, Home Rule, 73. Coady, ed., Lives Recalled, 76–7. Flynn, “Parish of Placentia,” 19. Colonist, 22 September 1888. Evening Telegram, 27 September 1888; Colonist, 28 September 1888. Colonist, 28 September 1888. Ibid., 5 October 1888, 11 October 1888, and 12 October 1888. Ibid., 11 March 1889. Ibid., 26 April 1889. Jackson, Home Rule, 62. Houston and Smyth, The Sash Canada Wore, 78. Evening Telegram, 2 July 1886. Colonist, 12 July 1886. The exchange also demonstrates the danger of uncritically labelling all

Notes to Pages 106–10

125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

134 135 136 137

138 139 140 141

267

popular engagement with Irish politics as “ethnic.” Opinions on the Irish Question may have been political, or, as in the case of the Newfoundland Orange Order, motivated by institutional rather than ethnic connections. It is the language of the many examples in this chapter and the next, specifically those that mention the passion or love for the old land held by those of Irish birth or descent, that is indicative of a distinctly ethnic connection to Ireland. Jackson, Home Rule, 74–6. Colonist, 6 February 1891 and 10 July 1891. Ibid., 17 October 1891 and 21 October 1891. Ibid., 31 October 1891. Evening Telegram, 3 November 1891. Colonist, 7 November 1891; See also Evening Herald, 4 November 1891 and 10 November 1891. Halifax Herald, 13 August 1883. Ibid., 27 October 1885. Ibid., 27 November 1885. Sutton was born in Clonmel, Tipperary, around 1845. His father, Michael, a Waterford grain merchant, immigrated to Quebec to work for the Union Bank. John served in the United States Army before returning to Quebec in 1869, where he married and worked as an accountant. He frequently submitted letters on Irish political questions to Canadian newspapers and was the first president of the Quebec branch of the INL. According to T.P. O’Connor’s 1886 history of the Land League and the INL, the American executive of the organization asked Sutton to revive the organization in Canada beyond his home province of Quebec where it was already well established. In addition to Halifax, O’Connor praised his organizational efforts in Toronto, Ottawa, Saint John, and Portland, Maine. See O’Connor, Gladstone, Parnell, and the Great Irish Struggle, 774–7. Halifax Herald, 28 November 1885. Morning Chronicle, 31 December 1885. Morning Chronicle, 6 July 1887. A letter from the INL president to the CIS affirmed the organization’s co-operation in bringing McCarthy to Halifax. See CIS Minute Book, 17 August 1886. Halifax Herald, 28 October 1886 and 30 October 1886; Morning Chronicle, 22 October 1886 and 28 October 1886. This editorial was reprinted in the Halifax Herald, 28 October 1886. Ibid., 30 October 1886. See Ibid., 1 November 1886, 2 November 1886, and 4 November 1886.

268

Notes to Pages 111–13

142 Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly During the Fourth Session of the Twenty-Eighth Parliament of the Province of Nova Scotia, 1886, 393 and 506–11. See also Morning Chronicle, 28 May 1886. 143 Shanahan, “The Irish Question in Canada,” 60–3. See also Shanahan, “John Costigan,” 237–40; Horrall, “Canada and the Irish Question”; McLaughlin, “Irish Catholic Voluntary Associations in the Canadian Liberal Order, 1840–1882,” 306–19. 144 Shanahan, “The Irish Question in Canada,” 68–9. 145 CIS Minute Book, 24 March 1882. See also McLaughlin, “Irish Catholic Voluntary Associations,” 309. 146 See for example Morning Chronicle, 31 May 1882. 147 Shanahan, “The Irish Question in Canada,” 89. 148 Ibid., 94–5, 137, 159–60, and 167. 149 Ibid., 160. 150 Ibid., 163–7. 151 The Liberal editor of the Morning Chronicle conceded that both parties aimed to influence “the powerful Irish vote.” Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1886. 152 The son of the Kerry-born merchant Edward Kenny, Thomas rose to become senior partner in his father’s dry goods firm in the 1870s. During this decade, he became active in politics. A Conservative Confederate and supporter of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy, he successfully ran to succeed his brother-in-law, fellow Catholic-Conservative Malachy Bowes Daly, as one of Halifax County’s two federal representatives in 1887, and held the seat for nine years. Following his withdrawal from politics, Kenny remained one of the city’s most prominent businessmen, eventually serving as president of the Merchant’s Bank of Halifax – later the Royal Bank of Canada – until his death in 1908. In an 1887 campaign speech directed at local Catholics, Kenny condemned the Liberal’s attempts to “induce the Irish electors of this city to vote against us.” He played up local Irish Catholics’ interest in their ancestral homeland by characterizing the Nova Scotian Liberals as a party that had “done much to retard the advancement of Home Rule,” and later referred to it as “an enemy of Ireland.” See Halifax Herald, 16 February 1887; Sutherland, “Thomas Edward Kenny,” 541–2. See also Kenny’s obituary, Halifax Herald, 26 October 1908. 153 Halifax Herald, 22 April 1887. 154 Shanahan, “The Irish Question in Canada,” 195. 155 Halifax Herald, 26 January 1889. 156 Ibid., 18 February 1889.

Notes to Pages 113–18

157 158 159 160 161 162 163

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172

173 174 175 176

177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185

269

Acadian Recorder, 12 March 1889. Morning Chronicle, 27 January 1885. Ibid., 26 February 1885. Ibid., 3 November 1885. Ibid., 4 December 1890. Halifax Herald, 19 December 1890. In some cases, physical-force nationalism was actively shunned. For example, in response to the Phoenix Park murders, a Portland innkeeper from Galway, George Keeley, placed an advertisement in the Eastern Argus offering a $500 reward for any information that would lead to the conviction of the perpetrators. See Barker, The Irish of Portland, 134. Halifax Herald, 27 June 1889. Eastern Argus, 1 May 1883 and 8 June 1883. Ibid., 1 August 1883. Ibid., 25 September 1884. Ibid., 26 September 1884. Ibid., 9 November 1885 and 14 November 1885. Ibid., 9 December 1885 and 10 December 1885. Portland Press, 17 December 1885. Eastern Argus, 18 December 1885 and 1 January 1886. There were similar surges in financial support for the IPP throughout Irish America in late 1885 and early 1886. See Keys, Funding the Nation, 169–70. Eastern Argus, 12 February 1886. Ibid., 1 June 1886. Ibid., 2 June 1886 and 9 June 1886. In 1880, a committee was formed to bring Charles Stewart Parnell to Portland as part of his American tour. W.H. Looney met with Parnell personally in New York, but the nationalist leader never visited the city. See Barker, The Irish of Portland, 118. Eastern Argus, 23 December 1886. Ibid., 20 January 1888. Ibid., 30 January 1888. Ibid., 25 February 1889 and 14 March 1889. Ibid., 18 March 1889 and 1 May 1889. Ibid., 1 January 1891. Ibid., 8 October 1891. O’Day, “Imagined Irish Communities,” 253–5; Brown, Irish-American Nationalism. O’Day, “Imagined Irish Communities,” 253–5 and 269; See also O’Day, “Irish Diaspora Politics in Perspective,” 235; Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity,”

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Notes to Pages 122–8

10; Conzen, “The Invention of Ethnicity,” 16; Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups.

chapter four 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

O’Day, Irish Home Rule, 155; Jackson, Home Rule, 84–5. Evening Telegram, 27 June 1893. Evening Telegram, 1 July 1893. O’Day, Irish Home Rule, 184. Ibid., 179. Evening Telegram, 13 August 1896. Ibid., 14 September 1896. On the Montreal commemoration, see Jolivet, Le Vert et le Bleu, 34–62. Evening Telegram, 18 March 1898; BIS Minutes, 18 March 1898, PANL, Benevolent Irish Society Fonds, MG 612, Reel 76. See, for example, Evening Telegram, 7 March 1902 and 27 February 1904; Daily News, 27 March 1906. Halifax Herald, 19 February 1894 and 24 February 1894. O’Brien’s participation in the Convention is detailed in his obituary, see Ibid., 28 February 1911. Ibid., 1 June 1906. See also Ibid., 22 September 1896. Proceedings of the Irish Race Convention Which Met in Dublin The First Three Days of September, 1896, 59–61. CIS Minute Book, 17 November 1897, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 70. Halifax Herald, 18 March 1898. Two years after his visit to the CIS, the Duke of Kent presided over the execution of St John’s Irish-Catholic mutineers following the 1800 uprising in the garrison. He referred to Newfoundland Catholics as Irish “of the very worst sort.” See Mannion, John, “‘Notoriously Disaffected to the Government,’” 8–10. O’Day, Irish Home Rule, 240. Acadian Recorder, 4 November 1910; Halifax Herald, 4 November 1910. Halifax Herald, 4 November 1910. CIS Minute Book, 17 February 1911. Maine Sunday Telegram, 13 March 1898; Eastern Argus, 27 June 1898; Jolivet, Le Vert et le Bleu, 47. Meleady, Redmond, 315. Daily Press, 6 November 1899. See also Barker, The Portland Irish, 142. Though not yet leader of a unified IPP, Redmond was by this point one of the most prominent figures within Irish Home Rule politics.

Notes to Pages 128–34

271

24 Daily Press, 19 March 1900. Cian McMahon notes that in the United States the Celt was frequently portrayed as “a universal proponent of the civic republican ideals that America was built on.” McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity, 9. 25 The constitutional UILA, dominated by “men of wealth and standing,” was established in 1901 and, by 1902, had over 200 branches across the United States. See Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 132–4. 26 Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 163. 27 Dolan, The Irish Americans, 112. 28 Several scholars of inter-generational Irish Catholics have made this argument. Amongst the most relevant for this study are, for Newfoundland, Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers”; for Toronto, McGowan, The Waning of the Green and Clarke, Piety and Nationalism; and for the northeastern United States, Meagher, Inventing Irish America. 29 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 3–5 and 60–1; Taves, The Household of Faith, 111, 114, and 118. Devotional, ultramontane Catholicism was also ascendant in Ireland in the post-famine period. See Larkin, “The Devotional Revolution in Ireland,” 625–92. 30 Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 258. 31 “James Louis O’Donel,” 631–4. 32 FitzGerald, “Conflict and Culture,” 2–3. 33 Ibid., 179. 34 Quoted in Howley, Ecclesiastical History of Newfoundland, 389–90. 35 FitzGerald, “Conflict and Culture,” 459. 36 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 75. 37 Ibid., 78. 38 Lahey, “Patrick Lambert,” 473–4. 39 The transition of the Newfoundland Church from Irish- to Newfoundland-oriented is well covered in Lambert, “This Sacred Feeling,” 124–42. 40 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 99; Darcy, Noble to Our View, 22. 41 Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 100. 42 Ibid., 99–102. 43 Ibid., 111. 44 The Newfoundland Almanac, 1881, 1886; A Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1891, 1896, 1901, 1906, 1911, 1916; Year Book and Almanac of Newfoundland, 1921; Coady, ed., Lives Recalled. 45 Condon, The Missionary College of All Hallows, 120. 46 Quoted in Ibid., 211. Colin Barr has examined the significance of the

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61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73

Notes to Pages 134–9

Irish clerical diaspora in influencing Catholic communities throughout the English-speaking world. See Barr, “‘Imperium in Imperio,’” 611–50. Jenkins, Irish Nationalism and the British State, 311. Crosbie, “Michael Francis Howley,” 512–14. Evening Telegram, 4 April 1885. An interest in one’s ancestral origins in the old world is yet another form of ethnic identity. See Nash, “Genealogical Identities,” 27–52. Evening Telegram, 27 September 1890. Ibid., 8 July 1891. The continued existence of French fishing rights on Newfoundland’s west coast was one of the colony’s most significant political questions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “Travel Diary,” ARCASJ, Michael Francis Howley Papers, 106/12/14. Evening Telegram, 28 February 1903. “United Irishmen,” ARCASJ, Michael Francis Howley Papers, 106/34/14. Crosby, “Michael Francis Howley,” 513. Howley, Ecclesiastical History of Newfoundland, 390. Evening Telegram, 9 February 1903. See also Lambert, “This Sacred Feeling,” 128–9. Evening Telegram, 21 June 1897. Ibid., 28 January 1901. Carolyn Lambert also uses this quotation in her examination of Howley’s imperialism. See Lambert, “This Sacred Feeling,” 130. Evening Telegram, 9 May 1910. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 48–9. This is reminiscent of John Moir’s idea that a “double minority” status is capable of enhancing a communal sense of ethnoreligious distinctiveness. See Moir, “The Problem of a Double Minority,” 53–67; See also McGowan, “The Tales and Trials of a ‘Double Minority,’” 97–123. Lahey, “Edmund Burke,” 122–3. MacLean, “Edmund Burke,” 123–5. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 67–9. MacLean, “Edmund Burke,” 124. Johnston, A History of the Catholic Church, 75–6. Ibid., 78. See also Murphy, “Trusteeism in Atlantic Canada,” 125–51; Barr, “Imperium in Imperio,” 621–4. See also Ludlow, “‘Disturbed by the Irish Howl,’” 32–55. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 86. Johnston, A History of the Catholic Church, 212. Flemming, “William Walsh,” 919–21. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 115.

Notes to Pages 140–7

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

103 104 105

273

Ibid., 71. Shook, Catholic Post-Secondary Education, 61–2. Halifax Herald, 12 August 1890. Shook, Catholic Post-Secondary Education, 102. Ibid., 104–5. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 162. Flemming, “Thomas Louis Connolly,” 191–3; Hanington, Every Popish Person, 124. Flemming, “Michael Hannan,” 381–2. Murphy, “Cornelius O’Brien,” 772–4. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 156. Murphy, “Cornelius O’Brien,” 773. “Daniel O’Connell Lecture,” 12 June 1876, AHRCA, Cornelius O’Brien Papers, Vol. 3/108. Morning Chronicle, 31 December 1885 and 26 July 1889. Ibid., 26 January 1889. Halifax Herald, 19 December 1890. CIS Minute Book, 17 February 1894. Murphy, “Cornelius O’Brien,” 772. Ibid. See Morning Chronicle, 5 June 1888; Halifax Herald, 11 July 1888, 14 December 1888, and 20 February 1890; Murphy, “Cornelius O’Brien,” 772. Halifax Herald, 23 January 1902. See McGowan, The Waning of the Green, 56. Halifax Herald, 17 March 1910. Ibid., 21 October 1910. Ibid., 17 March 1911. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 66–74; Barker, The Irish of Portland, 29–35. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 144–7. Ibid., 159. Ibid., 184. That the diocese produce more homegrown priests was a concern for Portland Bishops even quite late in our period. In 1913, Bishop Louis Sebastian Walsh announced a fund to improve local facilities for educating Maine-born clergy. See Eastern Argus, 31 December 1912. O’Toole, Passing for White, 13–20. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 35 and 41.

274

106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

Notes to Pages 147–51

Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 227. O’Toole, Passing for White, 88. Ibid., 217. Eastern Argus, 26 January 1880. Ibid., 13 May 1880; O’Toole, Passing for White, 149. O’Toole, Passing for White, 149–50. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 275; O’Connell, Recollections of Seventy Years, 224. O’Connell, Recollections of Seventy Years, 30 and 32. Ibid., 215. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 278–80. Ibid., 285. Later in his life, Walsh was a strong proponent of the “Americanist” school of United States’ Catholicism, which “sought to accommodate their Church to American circumstances, and viewed the American Catholic Church as the model for the future Church worldwide.” The bishop sat on the administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Council, a lobbying organization that aimed to secure and advance the position of Catholicism in the postwar United States. This position put Walsh in a bitter feud with the ultramontane Cardinal O’Connell in the early 1920s, which lasted until the former’s death in 1924. See Slawson, Ambition and Arrogance, ix, 88–91, and 147–51. Louis Sebastian Walsh, “Annual Report,” Maine Catholic Historical Magazine, 1.7 (December, 1913): 9–10. Eastern Argus, 17 October 1914. St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 11 May 1913, MIHC. Eastern Argus, 9 July 1915. Louis Sebastian Walsh Diaries, 19 May 1916, RCDPA. See Connolly, Seated by the Sea, 96. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 179. See also Moloney, American Catholic Lay Groups, 35–6. Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 273 and 289. Ibid., 340–3. Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 1.1 (July, 1913): 16. Eastern Argus, 7 April 1917. Ibid., 21 May 1917; St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 15 April 1917. Richard, “‘This is Not a Catholic Nation,’” 302. In his broader study of Franco-American identity in Lewiston, Mark Paul Richard has argued that Walsh’s push for Americanization within the Church was staunchly resisted by those of French-Canadian birth and descent, and if any-

Notes to Pages 152–5

131 132

133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154

275

thing, served to promote ethnic retention. See Richard, Loyal But French, 125 and 140–6. Rowe, The Development of Education in Newfoundland, 1. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 114. For an excellent analysis of how Protestant anti-Catholicism contributed to the development of separate, denominational education, see McCann, “The ‘No Popery’ Crusade and the Newfoundland School System,” 79–97. Rowe, The History of Education in Newfoundland, 37. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 121–2. Penny, “A Study of the Contribution of Three Religious Congregations,” 44. Ibid., 46–8. Ibid., 48. See also Bellamy, Weavers of the Tapestry. Penny, “A Study of the Contribution of the Three Religious Congregations,” 50–1. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 132. Penny, “A Study of the Contributions of Three Religious Congregations,” 54–5; Shook, Catholic Post-Secondary Education, 124–5. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 124–5. J.B. Darcy, Noble to Our View, 22. See Keogh, Edmund Rice and the First Christian Brothers. Martin, “From Waterford to St John’s,” 17 and 21. See also Martin, “Security and Autonomy,” 39–46. Martin, “From Waterford to St John’s,” 24–6; Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 143. Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 168–72. See Evening Telegram, 28 November 1888; Penny, “A Study of the Contributions of Three Religious Congregations,” 62 and 65. Archbishop Edward Roche, “Blessing of the School at St Joseph’s,” ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/22/4. See Archbishop Michael Francis Howley, “Circular,” 20 February 1898, ARCASJ, Michael Francis Howley Papers, 106/9/1. Penny, “A Study of the Contributions of Three Religious Congregations,” 152. The new institution’s first three graduates were, in fact, Newfoundlanders. See Ibid., 153. Darcy, Noble to Our View, 56. Penny, “A Study of the Contributions of Three Religious Congregations,” 115–17. Ibid., 126.

276

155 156 157 158 159 160 161

162 163 164

165 166

167

168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177

Notes to Pages 155–60

Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 159–60. Christian Brothers of Ireland, Irish History Reader, 262–3 and 337–8. Quoted in Lambert, “Far from the Homes of Their Fathers,” 161. Browne, Eighty-Four Years a Newfoundlander, 71–86. Burns, “Public School Education of Catholics in the City of Halifax,” 41. O’Brien to Apostolic Delegate, n.d., AHRCA, Cornelius O’Brien Papers, Vol. 3/65, 3–4. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 165; Burns, “Public School Education of Catholics in the City of Halifax,” 65–6; See also Archbishop O’Brien, “Facts about School Buildings,” n.d., AHRCA, Cornelius O’Brien Papers, Vol. 3/64; O’Brien to Board of School Commissioners, 7 April 1892, NSA, Minutes of the Board of School Commissioners of the City of Halifax, Volume Eight, mfm 12550. Hanington, Every Popish Person, 101. Ibid., 116. Shook, Catholic Post-Secondary Education, 64–5; Halifax Herald, 9 June 1913 and 4 July 1913. A copy of the contract has been preserved in Edward McCarthy’s papers. See “Copy of Contract Made Between Archbishop McCarthy and the Irish Christian Brothers,” 24 April 1913, AHRCA, Edward McCarthy Papers, Vol. 3/49. Shook, Catholic Post-Secondary Education, 66. Examples include A History of British America; A Brief History of England; Geography of the British Empire. See Minutes of the Board of School Commissioners of the City of Halifax, Volume Seven, 14 December 1882; Nova Scotia Journal of Education, NSA, Series 3, Vol. 7.1 (April 1911): 134, mfm 3376. Minutes of the Board of School Commissioners of the City of Halifax, Volume Ten, October 1898. Civis Britannicus Sum translates to “I am a British citizen.” Halifax Herald, 24 May 1899. Nova Scotia Journal of Education, NSA, Vol. 7.5 (1898): 167. Ibid., Vol. 10.3 (1921): 138. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 267. Portland Directory and Reference Book, 1881, 380. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 194. Ibid., 229. Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 3.2 (August, 1914): 28. Ibid., 4.6 (June, 1915): 5–6. Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 306.

Notes to Pages 160–9

277

178 Louis Sebastian Walsh, “The Opening of Our Schools,” Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 1.3 (September, 1913): 31–2. 179 Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 307–8. 180 Eastern Argus, 21 June 1913; Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 3.5 (November, 1914): 28; “Educational Stats for Portland Schools,” Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 6.4 (April, 1916). 181 Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 311. 182 Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 292. 183 Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 309.

chapter five 1 Jackson, Home Rule, 106. On support for Redmond and Home Rule in the diaspora, see Finnan, John Redmond and Irish Unity, 154–92. 2 Jackson, Home Rule, 109. 3 Duffy, The Integrity of Ireland, 24–6. 4 Jackson, Home Rule, 116; Duffy, The Integrity of Ireland, 27. 5 Jackson, Home Rule, 110. 6 Ibid., 120 and 132; Duffy, The Integrity of Ireland, 34. 7 Jackson, Home Rule, 120. 8 Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, 283. 9 Kennedy, Genesis of the Rising, 77–8. 10 Jackson, Home Rule, 152. See also Bew, John Redmond, 37–9. 11 Evening Telegram, 3 February 1912. 12 Daily News, 2 May 1912, 28 May 1912, and 19 August 1912. 13 Ibid., 30 September 1912. 14 See McLaughlin, Irish Canadian Conflict, 25–51. 15 Evening Telegram, 31 July 1913. 16 Quoted in McLaughlin, Irish Canadian Conflict, 38–9. 17 See “Obituary,” The Adelphian 34 (January 1949): 133–4. 18 Daily News, 22 March 1912; See also Evening Herald, 22 March 1912; Daily News, 15 January 1913. He gave similar lectures to the Star of the Sea Association, see Evening Herald, 27 March 1912. 19 Daily News, 21 March 1912. 20 Ibid., 22 March 1912 21 Ibid., 15 January 1913. This lecture was also given to the Society of the Holy Name. 22 Evening Telegram, 19 February 1913. 23 Ibid., 6 February 1913. 24 Daily Mail, 19 March 1914. On the complex and fluctuating relation-

278

25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Notes to Pages 170–3

ship between the Fishermen’s Protective Union and Newfoundland’s Irish Catholics, see O’Flaherty, “Rogues Among Rebels,” especially chapter 3. Daily News, 21 March 1914. Ibid., 27 March 1914. Ibid., 26 May 1914. BIS Minutes, 31 May 1914, PANL, Benevolent Irish Society Fonds, MG 612, Reel 76. BIS Minutes, 22 August 1914. “A Nation Once Again” is a popular nationalist song written by Thomas Osborne Davis in the mid-1840s. One of the best analyses of Canadian-Catholic involvement in the war may be found in McGowan, “Between King, Kaiser and Canada,” 97–115. See also McGowan, The Imperial Irish. O’Brien, “The Newfoundland Patriotic Association,” 124. Nicholson, The Fighting Newfoundlander, 95. Stockwood, “Catholic Cadet Corps,” 387. Lambert, ““This Sacred Feeling.” 131–2. The Cadet epitomized the connection between support for Irish selfgovernment and imperial loyalty in Newfoundland. Articles on the Irish Question were frequently published. For example, the opening article in the first issue in 1914 was a lengthy report on John Redmond’s Home Rule movement. The magazine also included a biographical series by newspaper editor P.K. Devine on the “Irish in Nineteenth-Century Newfoundland,” in which the lives of prominent Irish-Newfoundlanders were chronicled. Such pieces were placed next to articles reminding Catholics of their duty to the Crown. See “Home Rule,” The Cadet 1 (April, 1914): 1–2; “Love God, Honor the King,” The Cadet 1 (April, 1914): 3–4. “Religious Denomination, Newfoundland Regiment,” 12 June 1916, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/2/5. Archbishop Edward Roche to W.E. Davidson, 12 June 1916, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/23/17. Evening Herald, 7 August 1914. Evening Telegram, 19 February 1915. Pike, The Knights of Columbus in Newfoundland, 20. See also McGowan, The Imperial Irish, 117–18. Evening Telegram, 31 August 1914. Ibid., 25 September 1914. Ibid., 28 September 1914 and 16 October 1914. Ibid., 19 October 1914.

Notes to Pages 173–9

279

45 Winter, “Edward Patrick Roche,” 614–15. 46 Roche to Patrick H. O’York, 17 December 1915, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/14/8. 47 See for example Evening Telegram, 15 January 1915. 48 Daily News, 11 January 1915. 49 See for example Halifax Herald, 8 April 1912, 11 April 1912, and 12 April 1912. 50 Ibid., 17 August 1912. 51 Ibid., 20 August 1912. 52 Halifax Herald, 19 March 1912. “God Save Ireland” served as an unofficial national anthem for Irish nationalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It recalled the hanging of three Fenian prisoners, Michael Larkin, William Phillip Allen, and Michael O’Brien – the “Manchester Martyrs” – in 1867. 53 Acadian Recorder, 4 September 1912; New Freeman, 31 August 1912; Halifax Herald, 27 September 1912. The New Brunswick and Nova Scotian AOH were joined as a single Hibernian “province.” 54 Halifax Herald, 17 March 1913 and 25 March 1913. 55 CIS Minute Book, 17 November 1913, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 69. 56 CIS Minute Book, 17 February 1914. 57 Halifax Herald, 5 November 1913. 58 CIS Minute Book, 18 May 1914. 59 McGowan, “Between King, Kaiser, and Canada,” 101; McGowan, “The Imperial Irish of Halifax,” 224–61; McGowan, The Imperial Irish, 127–9. 60 Halifax Herald, 12 August 1914 and 13 August 1914. 61 Ibid., 16 February 1915. 62 CIS Minute Book, 17 August 1915. 63 James A Lougheed to John A. Gillis, 31August 1915, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 64, No. 9.24. 64 Halifax Herald, 18 March 1915 and 7 December 1915. 65 New Freeman, 15 August 1914. 66 Halifax Herald, 24 August 1918. 67 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 542; Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 359. 68 McGowan, “Between King, Kaiser, and Canada,” 108–9. 69 Halifax Herald, 26 August 1918. 70 Ibid., 24 August 1918. 71 For examples of Irish coverage, see Eastern Argus, 12 April 1912, 18 January 1913, and 18 July 1913. 72 Ibid., 26 September 1912.

280

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102

103

Notes to Pages 179–84

Ibid., 2 October 1912. Ibid., 18 March 1915. Ibid., 24 May 1915. Bew, John Redmond, 39. Townshend, Easter 1916, 122. McGarry, The Rising, 95. Ibid., 117–18. Ibid., 127 and 133. Ibid., 188; Townshend, Easter 1916, 246. McGarry, The Rising, 252. Townshend, Easter 1916, 279. Ibid., 289. Quoted in Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland, 53. Townshend, Easter 1916, 301; McGarry, The Rising, 281. McGarry, The Rising, 281. Jackson, Home Rule, 176–7. Ibid., 180. Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, 288. Campbell, “Emigrant Responses to War and Revolution,” 82. Overlack, “Easter 1916 in Dublin and the Australian Press,” 192. Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion, 352–3; McGowan, The Waning of the Green, 197. McGowan, “Between King, Kaiser and Canada, 110. Ibid., 110. In some Catholic newspapers, such as Saint John, New Brunswick’s New Freeman, editorials on Ireland increasingly expressed anger and frustration with the British government’s handling of the situation, but stopped short of endorsing Sinn Fein or republicanism. See McLaughlin, Irish Canadian Conflict, 102–4. McGowan, “Between King, Kaiser and Canada, 110–11. Campbell, “Emigrant Responses to War and Revolution,” 83. Rowland, “The American Catholic Press and the Easter Rebellion,” 70–1. Ibid., 80. Campbell, “Emigrant Responses to War and Revolution,” 84. Carroll, American Opinion and the Irish Question, 98 and 116. For a more detailed analysis of Newfoundland responses to the Rising, see Mannion, Patrick, “Newfoundland Responses to the Easter Rebellion,” 1–24. Some material from this section has been previously published in that article. Daily News, 26 April 1916 and 4 May 1916.

Notes to Pages 184–8

104 105 106 107 108 109

110 111

112 113

114 115

116 117 118

119 120 121 122

281

Ibid., 26 April 1916. Daily Star, 26 April 1916. Evening Telegram, 13 May 1916. Daily News, 4 May 1916. Evening Herald, 5 May 1917. Plaindealer, 20 April 1918. The Plaindealer was a small St John’s publication, edited by W.J. O’Neill, specializing in Irish and Catholic news and aimed at a working-class readership. Unfortunately, few issues have survived, but a number of scattered examples may be found in the Sir Robert Bond Collection, Archives and Manuscript Division, Memorial University. COLL-237, Box 37. Daily Star, 3 March 1917. “Seumas” was probably young James O’Neill Conroy, then a student at St Bonaventure’s College. O’Neill Conroy would become one of St John’s foremost Irish nationalists in the early 1920s. See chapter 6. “The Situation in Ireland,” The Cadet 4.2 (June, 1917): 8–13. Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Newfoundland, 3 May 1916, 200–2. Anderson maintained a keen interest in Ireland’s political destiny. Later, in a letter to the editor of the Plaindealer, he noted that “we want to see Ireland prosper under the sway of a great Empire (British). Ireland’s political North must be blended with Ireland’s political South under one King, one Flag, one Fleet, one Empire.” See Plaindealer, 16 August 1921. Daily News, 7 April 1917; Mannion, Patrick, “Newfoundland Responses to the Easter Rising,” 17. In both Australia and New Zealand, pro–Sinn Fein sentiment was partly a response to events in the old country, but strongly influenced by perceived anti-Irishness and anti-Catholicism in each colonial establishment. See O’Farrell, The Irish in Australia, 252; Sweetman, “‘Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week?’” 74. See for example, BIS Minutes, 10 February 1917. Archbishop Edward Roche, “The Great World War,” n.d., 1917, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/30/1, 11-12. Charles Alexander Harris to Walter Hume Long, 18 March 1919, CO 194/296, quoted in O’Brien, “The Newfoundland Patriotic Association,” 134. See for example, Halifax Herald, 26 April 1916 and 27 April 1916. Ibid., 12 May 1916. Ibid., 15 May 1916. Ibid., 7 March 1918.

282

Notes to Pages 188–94

123 Ibid., 5 April 1918. This is also quoted in McGowan, The Imperial Irish, 262. 124 Halifax Herald, 17 March 1917. 125 Ibid., 20 March 1917. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid., 22 March 1917. 128 Ibid., 24 March 1917. 129 McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity, 3. 130 Ibid., 3–5. See also Meagher, “Irish America Without Ireland,” 193–5. 131 Akenson, Small Differences, 133–5. 132 Halifax Herald, 26 April 1917. 133 Ibid., 2 May 1917. 134 Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 358–9. 135 Eastern Argus, 2 May 1916. 136 Portland Sunday Telegram, 14 May 1916. 137 “English Atrocities,” Maine Catholic Historical Magazine 6.5 (May, 1916): 25–6. 138 Lucey, The Catholic Church in Maine, 296–9. 139 Kenny, The American Irish, 82. 140 Ibid., 117. 141 Byron, Irish America, 173–4. 142 Kenny, The American Irish, 82–3. 143 Ibid., 209 and 213. 144 Byron, Irish America, 175–6. 145 Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 44. 146 Ibid., 146, 239, and 289. 147 See chapter 1. 148 Conforti, “Introduction,” in Creating Portland, xxv. 149 Prior to our period, Cunningham had served as a city alderman, and it was at this point, according to the anonymous author, that he “got into bad company” and “has been the companion and tool of the [Republican] ring ever since.” The letter went on to accuse Cunningham of not allowing his Irish-American workers time off to vote, as they were all Democrats, and named him a traitor to the “Irish race.” See Eastern Argus, 5 September 1884; See also his obituary, Eastern Argus, 10 November 1913; Barker, “A Collection of Brief Biographies of Early Portland Irish,” 58–9. On Looney, see Barker, “History of St Dominic’s Parish,” 21. 150 Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 139–41. Much of the Irish-American dissatisfaction with the Democrats was a result of their frustrated

Notes to Pages 194–8

151 152 153 154 155

156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

283

efforts to gain more power within party structures. Nationalists were upset with Cleveland’s position on economic tariffs, which would reduce protectionism and flood the United States with British goods. Nationalist newspapers strongly supported the Republican campaign, and as a result many Catholics of Irish descent temporarily shifted their allegiance to that party. Eastern Argus, 25 June 1884 and 25 July 1884. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 141. Carroll, American Opinion and the Irish Question, 81–4. Eastern Argus, 18 September 1916; Evening Express, 7 November 1916 and 8 November 1916. Eastern Argus, 7 April 1917, 21 May 1917, and 21 June 1917. The significance of the Liberty Bond was also reinforced at the local parish churches. See St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 21 April 1918, MIHC. Eastern Argus, 4 June 1917. Connolly, “The Irish Longshoremen of Portland, Maine,” 190–3; Eastern Argus, 30 May 1917. Eastern Argus, 10 April 1917. Ibid., 6 June 1917. Ibid., 10 April 1917 and 17 April 1917. Ibid., 4 June 1917. Ibid., 6 April 1918. After April 1917, expressions of Irish nationalism were undoubtedly seen as negative in the Yankee press. The Evening Express, for example, produced an editorial on the “treasonous” Sinn Fein movement in 1918. See Evening Express, 20 May 1918. That Irish nationalism was perceived so negatively may be why those of Irish birth or descent chose to downplay their ethnicity, while Italians, for example, whose ancestral homeland was fighting on the Allied side, were able to triumphantly display both their ethnic identities and their American patriotism.

chapter six 1 Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland, 266–7; Hart, The IRA at War, 20. 2 Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland, 274. 3 Hart, The IRA at War, 18. 4 Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland, 294–5. See also Leeson, The Black and Tans. 5 Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland, 295 and 340. 6 Ibid., 333.

284

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27

Notes to Pages 198–203

Ibid., 350. Ibid., 355–60. Ibid., 404–5. Ibid., 412–15. Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, 159. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 23. Ibid., 21–2. McCaffrey, The Irish Catholic Diaspora in America, 139–42. See also Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 550–1; Rowland, “Irish-American Catholics and the Quest for Respectability,” 3–4. O’Day, “Imagined Irish Communities,” 253–5. See chapter 1. Portions of this chapter on St John’s and Halifax have been previously published in Mannion, Patrick, “Contested Nationalism.” BIS Minutes, 17 February 1919, PANL, Benevolent Irish Society Fonds, MG 612, Reel 76. BIS Minutes, 24 March 1919 and 6 April 1919. On Irish-American support for Ireland at Versailles, see Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, 95–8. Plaindealer, 8 February 1919. Evening Telegram, 8 April 1919. Because Kelly never identified himself with a middle initial, it is impossible to establish his occupation or biographical details with any certainty. He probably owned the “Ideal Grocery” store on Theatre Hill (now Queen’s Road). See Plaindealer, 1.1 (June 1907): 9. Evening Telegram, 11 March 1920. Michael Doorley’s research on FOIF membership suggests that the St John’s branch was active from December 1919 until at least September 1920. In addition to the single branch in Newfoundland, three branches were active in Canada. See Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, Appendix 4, Table 9, “Regular Branch Development,” 189–90. Royal Canadian Mounted Police reports suggest that “Sinn Fein” societies were operating in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The Winnipeg organization was described as the “Canadian Friends of Irish Freedom.” See Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 191n29. Evening Telegram, 9 April 1920 and 16 April 1920. Friends of Irish Freedom, Constitution and Branch By-Laws of the Friends of Irish Freedom, 14. Ibid., 16 April 1920. Charles Alexander Harris to Viscount Milner, 8 May 1920. CO 194/298.

Notes to Pages 203–5

285

28 On the complex and far-reaching consequences of postwar disillusionment in Newfoundland, see Cadigan, Death on Two Fronts. 29 Jolivet, “Entre Nationalismes Irlandais et Canadien- Français,” 52–5; McLaughlin, Irish Canadian Conflict, 122. De Valera was keen that the Canadian organization not fall under the influence of the American Friends of Irish Freedom. By late 1920, relations between the Sinn Fein leader and the FOIF were becoming increasingly sour. See Doorley, IrishAmerican Diaspora Nationalism, 122–37. 30 Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 146 and 177. 31 Ibid., 183. 32 Crawford was a fascinating character. A Protestant from Lisburn, County Antrim, he was “stoutly Orange and Protestant in outlook until his mid-30s.” Working as a journalist in the early 1900s, he began to call for Catholic-Protestant unity in Ireland and, later, for Home Rule. He was expelled from the Orange Order and migrated to Canada in 1910, where he eventually embraced full-fledged republican nationalism. See Boyle, “A Fenian Protestant in Canada,” 165–76. 33 Jolivet, “Entre Nationalismes Irlandais et Canadien-Français,” 57; Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 202. 34 Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 203–4. 35 Katherine Hughes to Eamon de Valera, 23 June 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 36 See “Obituary, Charles O’Neill Conroy,” The Adelphian 37 (January, 1947): 5; Hibbs, Who’s Who In and From Newfoundland, 1927, 129; Evening Telegram, 12 May 1931. 37 Hughes to de Valera, “Who’s Who in Newfoundland,” undated, 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 38 Hughes to de Valera, 25 September 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 39 Evening Herald, 2 October 1920. 40 Evening Telegram, 6 October 1920; Daily News, 6 October 1920. 41 Hughes to de Valera, 7 October 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 42 Evening Herald, 7 October 1920 and 8 October 1920. The relationship between the Newfoundland and Canadian branches of the SDIL was somewhat ambiguous. Documents produced in Montreal and Ottawa referred to the broad organization as the “Self-Determination for Ireland League of Canada and Newfoundland,” but members in St John’s seem to have treated its mainland counterpart as a sister, rather than parent, organization. At meetings, the “assistance” of the Canadians was often

286

43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Notes to Pages 205–9

praised, and the existence of Newfoundland’s “Dominion Council” suggests a degree of independence. Much of the material released by the SDILN, however, came from the larger institution in Canada. The Ottawa Convention was held at St Patrick’s Hall from 16 to 17 October 1920. Originally planned for Toronto, it was moved to Ottawa owing to the opposition of Toronto mayor Thomas Langton Church. See Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 217–18. Hughes to de Valera, 7 October 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. Daily News, 20 October 1920; St John’s City Directory, 1924. See also Cuff, “Philip F. Moore,” 604. Meaney, a former journalist, would eventually become a controversial figure in Newfoundland. He was found to have diverted almost $24,000 for “the purposes of [Prime Minister] Sir Richard Squires” in 1924. The scandal would eventually lead to the collapse of the Squires government, though Meaney was never formally charged. He eventually became a St John’s city councillor in later life. See Colbourne, “John Thomas Meaney,” 489. Hughes to de Valera, “Who’s Who in Newfoundland,” undated, 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. Daily News, 26 October 1920. For examples of letters, see Evening Telegram, 4 November 1920 and 15 November 1920; Daily News, 2 November 1920 and 2 December 1920. Evening Telegram, 2 February 1921. This was the case for St John’s. Katherine Hughes listed two SDILN representatives in western Newfoundland, both Irish-born priests: Monsignor Andrew Sears (Bay of Islands), and Rev. Michael Brosnan (St George’s). See Hughes to de Valera, “Who’s Who in Newfoundland,” undated, 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. Evening Telegram, 24 November 1920; Evening Herald, 24 November 1920. Evening Telegram, 5 November 1920. Ibid., 5 November 1920. Ibid., 26 November 1920. Ibid., 3 December 1920. Ibid., 2 December 1920. Ibid., 4 December 1920. Harris to Milner, 4 December 1920, CO 194/299. See for example, Evening Telegram, 11 March; 16 April; 18 May 1921. James O’Neill Conroy to Hughes, 6 December 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995.

Notes to Pages 209–13

287

61 Archbishop Edward Roche to R.T. McGrath, 4 December 1920, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/15/30. 62 Harris to Winston Churchill, 31 March 1921, CO 194/301. 63 Roche to James O’Neill Conroy, 23 December 1921, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/15/31. 64 See Evening Telegram, 11 March 1922 and 18 March 1922; Daily News, 21 December 1921 and 13 March 1922. 65 Evening Telegram, 26 January 1922 and 27 January 1922. Browne’s interest in Irish affairs is a particularly interesting case. In his autobiographical memoirs, he describes his interest in the affairs of Ireland as “latent” prior to his arrival at Oxford, but his membership in the University’s St Patrick’s Society instilled a keen interest in the Irish Question. Browne read nationalist literature during his time at Oxford, including works by John Mitchel, Patrick Pearse, George Bernard Shaw, and William Butler Yeats, and travelled through Ireland in the spring and summer of 1920, witnessing Black and Tan reprisals first-hand. See Browne, Eighty-Four Years a Newfoundlander, 71–86. 66 Daily News, 17 February, 1922, 8 July 1922, and 12 August 1922. On Aonach Tailteann, see Cronin, “Projecting the Nation through Sport and Culture,” 399–400. 67 Daily News, 18 May 1923. 68 See Evening Telegram, 3 February 1921; BIS Minutes, 21 November 1920 and 6 February 1921. 69 Archbishop Edward Roche to Ryan, 26 May 1921, ARCASJ, Edward Roche Papers, 107/15/17. 70 Daily News, 24 February 1923. 71 Ibid., 13 March 1923. 72 Evening Telegram, 13 April 1923. 73 Daily News, 24 April 1923 and 27 April 1923. 74 A “large crowd” was reported at a September 1923 meeting between the associations. Daily News, 21 September 1923. 75 Evening Telegram, 10 May 1923, 18 May 1923, and 28 June 1923. 76 Ibid., 5 March 1923. 77 Evening Telegram, 18 April 1923. Following his death sentence in 1803, Emmet was reported to have said “when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written.” See Elliott, Robert Emmet, 85. 78 Daily News, 4 May 1923; Evening Telegram, 18 May 1923. 79 Daily News, 1 June 1923.

288

Notes to Pages 214–16

80 Ibid., 10 August 1923. 81 Evening Telegram, 20 September 1923 and 21 December 1923. 82 A new executive was elected in early January 1924, but was not named in the press. The league held a dinner and dance for its members in February. See Evening Telegram, 10 January 1924, 11 February 1924, and 4 October 1924. 83 Evening Telegram, 11 October 1924. The league’s football team continued to play through the 1925 season. See for example Evening Telegram, 11 July 1925. 84 Some material in this section has been previously published in Mannion, Patrick, “Halifax Catholics’ ‘Patriotic Work.’” 85 Hughes to de Valera, undated, 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 86 Hughes to de Valera, “Who’s Who in Nova Scotia,” undated, 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 87 Halifax Herald, 12 July 1920; Morning Chronicle, 12 July 1920; Ó Siadhail, “The Self-Determination for Ireland League,” 21; Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 203. 88 Evening Mail, 12 July 1920, quoted in Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 202–3. 89 Ó Siadhail, “The Self-Determination for Ireland League,” 24. 90 Ibid., 21. 91 Hughes to de Valera, 16 July 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/995. 92 Halifax Herald, 17 July 1920; McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory, 1921; Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes, 204. 93 Halifax Herald, 14 August 1920 and 9 October 1920. 94 Ó Siadhail, “The Self-Determination for Ireland League,” 27. FrenchCanadian support for Irish nationalism was not unusual in this period. In Quebec, prominent French-Canadian nationalists like Henri Bourassa were closely involved with the SDIL. See Jolivet, Le Vert et le Bleu, 213–48. 95 Halifax Herald, 20 August 1920. See also McLaughlin, Irish Canadian Conflict, 131. 96 For example, Arthur Upham Pope gave a talk to a large audience in early September. See Morning Chronicle, 11 September 1920. A lecture on Black and Tan reprisals took place in early January, see Halifax Herald, 3 January 1921. 97 Halifax Herald, 17 January 1921. MacSwiney was the nationalist Lord Mayor of Cork who died on a hunger strike at Brixton Prison in London on 25 October 1920.

Notes to Pages 217–22

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113 114

115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122 123

289

Halifax Herald, 9 October 1920 and 19 October 1920. Ibid., 14 November 1920. Ibid., 7 December 1920. Morning Chronicle, 11 September 1920. Ibid., 11 October 1920. Ibid., 29 November 1920. Ibid., 29 November 1920 and 11 December 1920. Halifax Herald, 1 December 1920. Ibid., 2 December 1920. Ibid., 30 November 1920; Morning Chronicle, 30 November 1920. CIS Minute Book, 29 November 1920, NSA, Charitable Irish Society Fonds, MG 20, Vol. 70; Ó Siadhail, “The Self-Determination for Ireland League,” 28. Morning Chronicle, 6 October 1920. Acadian Recorder, 1 March 1921 and 17 March 1921. Morning Chronicle, 12 April 1921; Halifax Herald, 21 May 1921. Acadian Recorder, 2 June 1921. Ibid., 7 December 1921. Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, 84–5. In some American settings, like nearby Boston, Irish-American nationalism was marked by increasing clerical involvement after the First World War. This was in part to counter the threat of rising socialism and radicalism within the nationalist movement and to maintain its respectable, middle-class orientation. See Murray, “Go Forth as a Missionary to Fight,” 43–65. Eastern Argus, 27 January 1919, 3 February 1919, and 17 February 1919. Ibid., 18 March 1919. Ibid., 29 August 1919 and 15 September 1919. Irish nationalist groups like the FOIF virulently opposed the League of Nations, as it was seen as enhancing Anglo-American co-operation, to the detriment of the selfdetermination movement. Edward F. Flaherty to Harry Boland, 5 August 1919, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/813. Boland to Flaherty, 9 August 1919, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/813. Eastern Argus, 2 February 1920. Biographical details are taken from Directory of Portland, 1920. Eastern Argus, 2 February 1920; St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 1 February 1920, MIHC. Louis Sebastian Walsh Diaries, 1 February 1920, RCDPA. Eastern Argus, 16 February 1920.

290

Notes to Pages 222–8

124 Ibid., 26 February 1920 and 1 March 1920; Portland Evening Express, 1 March 1920. 125 See Connolly, “The Irish Longshoremen of Portland, Maine,” Appendix R; Directory of Portland, 1915. 126 Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 362–4. 127 Eastern Argus, 23 March 1920 and 3 April 1920. 128 St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 4 April 1921; Connolly, “Nationalism among Early Twentieth-Century Irish Longshoremen in Portland,” 283. 129 Walsh Diaries, 11 April 1920. 130 Eastern Argus, 12 April 1920. 131 Ibid., 12 April 1920. See also Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society Minutes, Vol. 7, 6 April 1920, MHS, Collection 359, MA-85-15; Connolly, “Nationalism Among Early Twentieth-Century Longshoremen,” 283. Many labour unions in the United States became closely connected to Irish nationalism during this period, thanks in large part to the ethnic sentiments of Irish-American workers, as well as a broad sympathy with Ireland’s struggle against imperialism. This support was exemplified on the New York City waterfront on 27 August 1920, when Irish dockworkers boycotted British shipping. The “Irish Patriotic Strike” spread, and eventually included those from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. Other than resolutions of sympathy and financial contributions, however, no such labour action took place in Portland. See Brundage, “American Labor and the Irish Question,” 59–68; Nelson, “Irish Americans, Irish Nationalism and the ‘Social Question,’” 147–78. 132 O’Day, “Imagined Irish Communities,” 257. 133 Barker notes that “a lodge of Orangemen” was established on Congress Street in 1878, though it appears to have had little, if any, public presence in the city. See Barker, The Irish of Portland, 115. 134 Eastern Argus, 15 April 1920 and 7 June 1920. 135 John Brown to Frank P. Walsh, 16 June 1920, UCDA, Eamon de Valera Papers, P-150/969; Carroll, American Opinion and the Irish Question, 155 and 161–2. 136 Burchell, “Did Irish and German Voters Desert the Democrats in 1920?” 56. 137 Evening Express, 1 November 1920. 138 Eastern Argus, 3 November 1920. 139 St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 31 October 1920; Walsh Diaries, 2 November 1920; Evening Express, 31 October 1920 and 2 November 1920.

Notes to Pages 228–39

291

140 Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America, 149–50 and 161–2. 141 Portland Evening Express, 3 January 1921; Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, 134–5. 142 Portland Evening Express, 23 February 1921, 7 March 1921, and 31 March 1921. 143 Doorley, Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism, 159. 144 Portland Evening Express, 7 March 1921; Brundage, Irish American Nationalists, 161. 145 Portland Evening Express, 11 May 1921 and 16 May 1921; St Dominic’s Parish Mass Books, 15 May 1921. 146 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 536. 147 Connolly, “Nationalism among Early Twentieth-Century Longshoremen,” 290. 148 Walsh Diaries, 31 July 1921 and 8 August 1921. 149 Portland Evening Express, 1 August 1921; Walsh Diaries, 31 July 1920. 150 Portland Press Herald, 2 December 1921. 151 Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society Minutes, Vol. 7, 8 November 1921. 152 Portland Press Herald, 13 February 1922. 153 Ibid., 18 March 1922.

conclusion 1 Conzen, “The Invention of Ethnicity,” 3–41; Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups; Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity,” 1–20. 2 A major exception to this lacuna is the work of Willeen Keough on women and family in Irish-Catholic communities on Newfoundland’s southern Avalon Peninsula. See Keough, The Slender Thread; Keough, “The Riddle of Peggy Mountain,” 38–70. 3 Campbell, Ireland’s New Worlds; Jenkins, “Deconstructing Diasporas,” 388. See also Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion; McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity, 2 and 180. 4 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 550–1. 5 Massey, Space, Place, and Gender. 6 Malcolm Campbell’s excellent chapter comparing Irishness in Eastern Australia and California provides a tantalizing glimpse of a “Pacific World” framework applied to the Irish diaspora. See Campbell, “The Pacific Irish: California and Eastern Australia,” 85–103. 7 William Jenkins’s comparative work on Toronto and Buffalo is one

292

Notes to Pages 239–40

example of the utility of a “Great Lakes” framework. See Jenkins, Between Raid and Rebellion. 8 Moulton, Ireland and the Irish in Interwar England, 4 and 7. 9 Akenson, The Irish Diaspora, 3.

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Winter, Kathleen M. “Edward Patrick Roche.” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Volume Four, 614–15. St John’s: Harry Cuff Publications, 1993. Wynn, Graeme, and L.D. McCann. “Maritime Canada, Late Eighteenth Century.” In Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume I: From the Beginning to 1800, edited by R. Cole Harris, plate 32. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

318

Bibliography

Index

1798 Rebellion. See Society of United Irishmen Aberdeen, Viscount Gordon of, 53 Acadian Recorder (Halifax), 62, 87, 127 Acadians: and the Catholic Church, 18, 40, 139, 142; support for Irish nationalism, 111, 216 Adams, John M., 116 African Americans, 35, 37, 147. See also African Nova Scotians African Nova Scotians, 26 All Hallows College, 132, 134, 140, 173 American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR): establishment, 228; and fundraising, 229; in Portland, 200, 229–30 American Civil War, 147 Ancient Order of Hibernians: absence in Newfoundland, 67–8; Emmet commemoration, 59; establishment, 57–8; and First World War, 178–9, 195–6; Halifax divisions, 50, 55, 60, 61–4, 144,

176, 178–9, 217, 219; Hibernian Knights, 58, 59, 128; and imperial loyalty, 178–9; and Irish nationalism, 15, 116, 144, 176, 179–80, 188, 191, 219, 221, 224; Ladies’ Auxiliary, 57, 58, 65, 236; Portland divisions, 58–9, 179–80, 195–6, 221, 224; social events, 59, 64–5; and transnational connections, 5, 59–60, 64, 65, 75, 128, 238, 239; and the working class, 57–8, 63, 175, 235. See also St Patrick’s Day Anderson, John, 186–7, 281n113 Anglicans. See Church of England Anglo-Irish Treaty (1922), 198–9, 210, 219 Anglo-Irish War: escalation, 198–9; outbreak, 197–8; reprisals, 198, 206, 209, 218, 231; as a transnational event, 199–200. See also American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic; Anglo-Irish Treaty; Friends of Irish Freedom; Self-Determination for Ireland League Antigonish, Nova Scotia, 61, 139, 204

320

Index

Aonach Tailteann. See Irish Race Olympics Arichat, Diocese of, 139 Asquith, Herbert H., 126, 165, 181 Atlantic and St Lawrence Railroad, 33 Australia, 10, 84, 107, 182, 184, 186, 239, 281n115 Bacon, David William, 145, 146 Baxter, James P., 33 Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, 47 Bedford Basin, 26 Bell, Jack, 211 Bell Island, Newfoundland, 211 Belvedere orphanage, 137, 153 Benevolent Irish Society (BIS): association football team, 47; centenary, 48–9, 124, 136; charitable activities, 43, 79; Dramatic Society, 46–7, 70, 206; and education, 43, 44, 152; establishment, 42–3; and Home Rule, 49–50, 101, 102–3, 169; and imperial loyalty, 42, 48–50, 75, 137, 172, 186, 236; and Irish nationalism, 15, 47–8, 98, 201; and John Redmond, 171; Juvenile Branch, 44–6; and the middle class, 42, 44–5; occupational profile, 45; Protestant involvement, 43–4; and the SelfDetermination for Ireland League of Newfoundland, 209–10; social events, 4, 46–7; St Patrick’s Hall, 46–7, 67, 69, 136; toasts, 48–9. See also Orphan Asylum School; St Patrick’s Day Biddeford, Maine, 74, 151 Black and Tans, 198, 206, 231 Blaine, James G., 193–4

Boer War. See South African War Boilermakers Association (Portland), 91 Boland, Harry, 221 Boston, Massachusetts, 28, 239; and the Catholic Church, 145, 147, 148; connections to Halifax, 65, 119, 177; connections to Portland, 33, 58, 60, 61, 68, 116, 119; and Irish nationalism, 179 Brennan, Thomas, 115 British Empire: celebrations of, 49–50, 137–8; and unity, 98–9, 167, 169, 170, 174–5, 177, 189, 201, 217. See also Empire Day; loyalty; Roman Catholic Church British Empire Alliance, 218–19, 233 Brothers of the Christian Schools, 158 Brown, John, 222, 227–30 Browne, William J., 156, 210, 287n65 Buckley, W.P., 189–90, 215–18 Burke, Edmund (Queen’s County), 138–40 Burke, Edmund (Tipperary), 138 Burke, Thomas Henry, 88, 96 Burns, W.P., 215–19 Butt, Isaac, 106, 184 Canadian Unionist League, 176–7 Cape Breton, 25, 50, 139, 215 Carlow, County, 29, 122 Carson, Edward, 165, 166–7, 168, 189 Carty, Michael H., 100–1, 104 Casement, Roger, 181, 184 Cashin, Michael Patrick, 206 Cathedral Girls’ High School, 160

Index

Catholic Cadet Corps: The Cadet, 185, 278n35; establishment, 171–2, 204; and loyalty, 172, 185 Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic Church Catholic Institute for Boys, 160 Catholic Mutual Benefit Association (CMBA), 61, 63, 125, 130 Catholic parishes, Halifax: St Agnes’s, 141; St Joseph’s, 29, 61, 141; St Mary’s Cathedral, 61, 71, 72, 125, 141, 176; St Patrick’s, 29, 61, 64, 72, 144; St Thomas Aquinas, 141, 215 Catholic parishes, Portland: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 73, 82, 128, 145, 159, 228, 230; Sacred Heart, 145; St Dominic’s, 37, 38, 73, 145, 149, 150, 195, 222; St Louis, 149–50; St Peter’s, 149, 150 Catholic parishes, St John’s: Cathedral of St John the Baptist, 20, 69, 70, 132, 173; St Joseph’s, 132; St Patrick’s, 43, 63, 69, 132, 137 Catholic Union (Portland), 148 Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 88, 96 Charitable Irish Society (CIS): and charitable relief, 51–3, 54; establishment, 50–1; and imperial loyalty, 53–4, 126, 218–19, 236; and Irish nationalism, 53, 81, 109, 111, 124–6, 127, 144, 175–8, 188, 218–19; and the middle class, 50, 51, 124, 175–6, 235; occupational profile, 52, 175; Protestant involvement, 50–1, 218. See also St Patrick’s Day Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 61, 88, 142

321

Churchill, Winston, 209–10 Church of England, 49, 81, 127; Halifax population, 30; St John’s population, 23 Clancy, Michael A.: early life and education, 103; and the Irish Race Convention (1896), 123; support for Irish nationalism, 101, 104, 235 Clan na Gael, 83, 96, 114 Clare, County, 103 Clark, Thaddeus, 35 Clarke, Tom, 181 Cleveland, Grover, 193–4, 282n150 Coaker, William F., 169 Cohalan, Daniel, 183, 222, 224, 228 Cois Fharraige, 37 Collins, Michael, 198 Colonist (St John’s), 99, 100–1, 103, 104, 106–7 Columbus Ladies’ Association, 172, 212 Connolly, James, 180 Connolly, Joseph E.F., 229, 259n67 Connolly, Thomas Louis, 140, 141–2, 157, 158 Conroy, James O’Neill: and the Newfoundland Gaelic League, 213; and the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Newfoundland, 204, 209, 231; and Sinn Fein, 281n111 Conservative Party: in Canada, 111–12, 143; in Newfoundland, 102, 122; in Nova Scotia, 54, 216, 268n152; in the United Kingdom, 96, 105, 165. See also Reform Party (Newfoundland) Cork, County, 20, 22, 29, 89, 125, 136, 138; and emigration to New-

322

Index

foundland, 20, 22; and emigration to Nova Scotia, 29; and the Roman Catholic clergy, 89, 125, 136, 138, 141. See also MacSwiney, Terence Cornwallis, Edward, 26 Craig, James, 165 Crawford, Lindsay: and the SelfDetermination for Ireland League, 204, 285n32; visit to Halifax, 217–18; visit to Portland, 222, 224; visit to St John’s, 207 Croke, T.W., 86 Cunningham, Frank W., 89, 95, 119, 222, 282n149 Daily Mail (St John’s), 169–70 Daily News (St John’s), 166, 167, 168, 169–71, 174, 184–5, 186 Daly, Malachy B., 81, 108, 125, 268n152 Darby, T.B., 207 Davidson, W.E., 172 Davitt, Michael, 49, 63, 84, 91 Deering, Maine, 33, 38, 160 De La Salle Brothers. See Brothers of the Christian Schools Democratic Party: Irish-Catholic support for, 192–3, 221, 227; and the Land League, 92–3; in Portland wards, 194, 228 Derry, County, 35 Derry, L.A., 222 de Valera, Éamon, 198–9, 210, 221, 222, 224, 228; and the SelfDetermination for Ireland League, 203, 204–5, 215 Devine, J.M., 205–6 Devoy, John, 83, 228 diaspora. See Irish diaspora

Donegal, County, 89 Donovans, Newfoundland, 47, 212 Dow, Neal, 93 Durand, Mary, 215, 217, 236 Eastern Argus (Portland), 82, 92, 116, 117, 191, 194, 195, 225 Easter Rising (1916), 15; executions, 181–2; outbreak, 180–1; and popular opinion in the diaspora, 182–3, 194; and popular opinion in Ireland, 182; responses in Halifax, 164, 187–9; responses in Portland, 191–2; responses in St John’s, 183–7, 201, 203 education: clerical, 132–5, 140–1, 155; and imperial loyalty, 158–9; and Irish identity, 9, 151–2, 154–7, 159, 161, 238; and Irish nationalism, 3, 134, 155, 171; in Maine, 159–61; in Newfoundland, 132, 152–7, 171, 172; in Nova Scotia, 157–9. See also Benevolent Irish Society; ethnicity; Irish Christian Brothers; Presentation Sisters; Sisters of Mercy Egan, William, 130 Emerson, George, 100–2 Emmet, Robert, 49, 59, 81, 106, 213, 287n77 Empire Day, 159 Esmonde, Thomas Henry Grattan, 117 ethnicity: and alienation, 199–200; and the Catholic Church, 5, 9, 40, 41–2, 69, 75–6, 129–30, 132, 138, 149–50, 161–2, 234–5; construction of, 4–5, 6–7, 10, 11, 17, 40, 57, 68, 234, 252n7; defining, 4, 6–8, 252n7, 252n11; and educa-

Index

tion, 155–6, 159, 161; and gender, 41, 42, 75, 156, 236; and Irish nationalism, 77–8, 80, 118, 199–200, 236–7; as a mechanism for social advancement, 7, 57, 60, 252n11; middle-class expressions of, 7–8, 42, 44, 47, 48, 56, 75, 235; and politics, 9, 100, 102, 110, 194–5; spatial diffusion, 10–11, 57, 62, 236, 238; symbolic, 7–8, 118, 234 Eudist Fathers, 140–1 Evening Express (Portland), 194 Evening Herald (St John’s), 107, 185 Evening Mercury (St John’s), 97, 99 Evening Telegram (St John’s), 19, 85, 97, 98–9, 166, 184, 207 famine: fear of (1880), 51, 54, 55, 78. See also Great Potato Famine Faulkner, George E., 188–90 Fenelon, Maurice, 122, 123 Fenian Brotherhood, 83, 96, 97, 113, 117, 119 Ferryland, Newfoundland, 103, 131, 206 Ffrench, Charles Daniel, 35, 145 Fielding, W.S., 108, 110, 111 Finn, Robert E., 176 First World War, 28, 144, 198; Catholic recruitment in Halifax, 177, 217; Catholic recruitment in Portland, 149, 151, 195–6, 231; Catholic recruitment in St John’s, 171–3; and Irish nationalism, 173–4, 178, 182–3, 185–8, 191, 201, 206; Machine Gun Fund, 178; Newfoundland Regiment, 171–3; outbreak, 164, 166; Versailles Peace Conference,

323

201–2, 221. See also Ancient Order of Hibernians; Catholic Cadet Corps; Easter Rising (1916); Knights of Columbus Fishermen’s Protective Union, 169 Fishermen’s Star of the Sea Association (SOS): and Catholic identity, 75, 137; establishment, 66; and Ireland, 66, 79, 202 Fitzgerald, John F., 116 Flaherty, Edward F., 221, 222, 224 Fleming, Michael Anthony, 79, 131, 137, 140, 152–3 Foley, William J., 125, 216 Forristal, William, 86 Fraser, William, 139 French Canadians: in Maine, 35, 60, 147, 148, 159, 225, 274n130; in Nova Scotia, 29, 40, 138, 288n94. See also Acadians French Shore Question, 136 Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF): and the Irish Republican Bond Drive, 224–6; in Portland, 220–2, 223–4, 227–8; and republicanism, 202, 203; split in, 228; in St John’s, 202–3, 284n23; and transnational connections, 5, 199, 231 Gaelic language, 57, 218; in Portland, 37; in St John’s, 212 Gaelic League. See Newfoundland Gaelic League Galway, County, 35, 54, 145, 146, 152, 211; and migration to Portland, 18, 37 Georgia (United States), 146–7 Gibbs, James A., 213 Gladstone, William Ewart, 95, 96, 106, 122; support in Halifax, 110;

324

Index

support in Portland, 92, 116; support in St John’s, 49, 100–1, 102, 103. See also Home Rule; Irish nationalism Glover, John H., 79 Gorham’s Corner, 18, 37, 38, 193 Government of Ireland Act (1920), 198 Gower, Erasmus, 43, 257n11 Grand Trunk Railway, 33, 59, 115, 224 Grattan, Henry, 106 Grattan Literary Association, 91 Great Potato Famine: cultural memory and nationalism, 155, 237; and immigration to Portland, 4, 7, 18, 37 Griffith, Arthur, 198, 213 Halifax: early settlement, 25–6; ethnic geography, 29–32; ethnic and racial diversity, 26, 28; garrison, 26, 53; Irish immigration to, 28–32; map, 27; social problems, 28; urban development, 26–8. See also Catholic parishes, Halifax; St Patrick’s Day Halifax Herald, 71, 88–9, 107, 109–10, 113, 125, 174, 188 Hallisey, William A., 217, 218 Hannan, Michael, 142 Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, 47, 86, 131; Affray (1883), 99, 102; and the Knights of Columbus, 67 Harbour Main, Newfoundland, 86, 262n12 Harding, Warren G., 227–8 Harris, Charles Alexander, 187, 203, 208, 209 Harvey, Moses, 19–20, 99

Healy, James Augustine: as bishop of Portland, 116, 117, 147; early life and education, 146–7; identity, 147–8; and the Ladies’ Land League, 93–4 Healy, T.M., 90, 123 Higgins, W.J., 44, 168, 206, 209, 211 Holy Heart Seminary, 135, 140–1 Home Rule: in British politics, 84, 95–6, 126, 163, 164–6, 180, 182, 198; Canada as a model, 53, 108, 109–10, 111, 127; in Canadian politics, 111–13; and the Catholic clergy, 97, 108–9, 123, 125, 142, 144, 168–9; First bill, 49, 98–9, 100, 102, 103, 113, 117; Halifax responses, 65, 89, 107–9, 113, 119, 126–7, 174–7, 219; in Newfoundland politics, 99 102, 122–3, 186–7; in Nova Scotia politics, 109–11, 187–90; opposition to, 105–6, 113–14, 167–8, 169, 189; Portland responses, 91, 94, 115–17, 119, 128, 179; Protestant support for, 97, 99, 100, 108, 119, 166–7, 169, 187, 217; Second bill, 122–3, 125; St John’s responses, 70, 97–9, 102–3, 105–6, 119, 123, 166–71, 184–5; Third bill, 49, 164–6, 174, 176; and Ulster, 165–6, 170, 198. See also Ancient Order of Hibernians; Benevolent Irish Society; Charitable Irish Society; Irish nationalism; Irish National League Houlihan, Timothy, 195, 230 House of Commons (United Kingdom), 90, 165, 169 House of Lords (United Kingdom), 122, 123, 126, 165

Index

Howley, Michael Francis: and the 1798 Rebellion, 124; and Catholic education, 154; and clerical indigenization, 133, 134; early life and education, 134–5; and First World War, 172–3; imperial identity, 137–8, 162, 236; Irish identity, 135–6; and Irish nationalism, 86, 123, 136; and the Knights of Columbus, 67; Newfoundland patriotism, 136–7 Howley, Richard V., 134 Hughes, Katherine: and the Friends of Irish Freedom, 204; and the Self-Determination for Ireland League, 201, 203–4; visit to Halifax, 215–16; visit to St John’s, 204–5, 206, 209 identity, Irish: and exile mentality, 237, 253n17; intergenerational, 3, 8–9, 80, 86, 88, 97, 98–9, 118, 148, 155–6, 234; resurgence in, 7, 15, 156, 197, 200, 211, 231, 232. See also ethnicity Île Royale. See Cape Breton Imperial Federation League, 143 Indemnity Fund (1889). See Parnell, Charles Stewart Ingraham, Darius H., 92 Ingraham, W.M., 225 Intercolonial Railway, 26 Irish American Relief Association (IARA), 13; establishment, 55; and Irish nationalism, 82, 91, 117; membership, 55, 235; social events, 55–6 Irish Christian Brothers: curricula, 155–6; foundation, 153–4; and

325

Irish identity, 155–6, 161, 236; and Irish nationalism, 3, 70, 123, 155–6, 171; in Newfoundland, 152–6, 236; in Nova Scotia, 158. See also education Irish Civil War, 197, 199, 211, 219–20 Irish College (Rome), 132, 134 Irish diaspora: defining, 3–4, 6–7, 15–16, 239–40, 252n6; historiography, 8–11, 68, 129, 190, 199–200, 238–9; transnational networks of, 4, 6, 16, 17, 57, 64, 90, 119, 200, 233–4 Irish Free State, 163, 198, 199, 210, 213, 230 Irish language. See Gaelic language Irish National Land League: and the Catholic clergy, 85–6, 93–4; expansion to North America, 84; formation, 83–4; fundraising for, 85–6, 86–7, 89, 90–1; in Halifax, 81, 86–9, 107; Ladies’ Land League, 93–4, 115, 236; Land Act (1881), 91–2; opposition to, 88–9, 94–5; in Portland, 82, 89–93, 114–15; social events, 90, 94; in St John’s, 49, 84–6; transnational connections, 90, 95, 119; and the working class, 14, 87–8, 91, 95. See also Democratic Party Irish National League (INL): establishment, 14, 77–8, 96; in Halifax, 89, 107–9, 114, 143; in Portland, 94, 114–18, 128; in St John’s, 103 Irish nationalism: constitutional, 51, 83–4, 95–6, 107, 143, 163–4, 182–3, 237; fundraising for in Halifax, 54, 86–7, 107, 125, 126, 127, 217; fundraising for in Port-

326

Index

land, 90–1, 94, 115–16, 224–6; fundraising for in St John’s, 47, 85–6, 103; historiography, 118, 199–200, 237–8; and the labour movement, 87, 91, 224, 235, 290n131; New Departure, 1879, 83–4, 96; physical force, 89, 96, 98, 119, 124, 126, 163, 174, 178, 179, 213, 269n163; republican, 15, 83, 119, 163–4, 182–3, 188, 197, 202–3, 206, 229, 231. See also Ancient Order of Hibernians; Benevolent Irish Society; Charitable Irish Society; Clancy, Michael; education; ethnicity; First World War; Home Rule; Howley, Michael Francis; Irish American Relief Association; Irish Christian Brothers; Irish Parliamentary Party; Knights of Columbus; New York City; O’Brien, Cornelius; Orange Order; Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society; Roche, Edward Patrick; St Bonaventure’s College; St Patrick’s Day; Walsh, Louis Sebastian Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP): in British politics, 96, 113, 126, 164–5; fundraising for, 57, 115–16, 126, 127; reunification, 96, 124; split in, 106, 114. See also Home Rule; Irish nationalism; Parnell, Charles Stewart; Redmond, John Irish Party. See Irish Parliamentary Party Irish Protestants: in Halifax, 18, 28, 40, 50–1, 177; in Portland, 35; in St John’s, 43, 105, 106, 122. See

also Orange Order; sectarianism; unionism Irish Race Congress (1922), 156, 210 Irish Race Convention (1896): Halifax participation, 65, 125; St John’s participation, 49, 123 Irish Race Olympics, 210–11 Irish Relief Fund (1880): and the Dublin Mansion House Committee, 78, 81; fundraising in Halifax, 81, 83; fundraising in Portland, 82; fundraising in St John’s, 78–81, 83. See also Parnell, Charles Stewart Irish Republic, 166, 181–2, 186, 187, 197, 199, 203, 204, 219, 221 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 197–8, 199 Irish Republican Bond Drive. See Friends of Irish Freedom Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), 180–1. See also Easter Rising (1916) Irish Volunteers, 165–6, 180–1, 197, 199 Irish World (New York), 173, 194 Italians: in Halifax, 28; in Portland, 35, 60, 149–50, 195–6, 225, 260n75 James, Michael J., 213 Jones, James, 28, 138 Kavanagh, Lawrence, 50 Kavanagh School, 159 Keefe, Michael Edwin, 125 Kelly, Thomas, 202, 208–9, 284n21 Kenny, Courtney, 49, 102, 109 Kenny, T.E., 109, 112, 113, 125, 268n152

Index

327

Kent, James M., 44 Kent, Robert J., 48, 101–2, 104 Kerry, County, 29, 136, 181 Kilkenny, County, 22, 29, 132 Kilmainham Gaol, 97, 181 Kilmainham Treaty, 94, 95–6, 114 Knights of Columbus: Catholic Army Huts Campaign, 178–9; and First World War, 172, 178–9, 195; foundation, 60; in Halifax, 61, 178–9; and Irish nationalism, 217, 224, 229; occupational diversity, 60, 61; and pan-ethnic Catholic identity, 60, 61, 150; in Portland, 60, 195, 224, 229; in St John’s, 67, 172 Ku Klux Klan, 149, 150, 151, 227

Lowell, Massachusetts, 148 Loyal Orange Lodge. See Orange Order Loyal True Blue Association, 219 loyalty (British): and the Catholic clergy, 137–8, 143, 168–9, 173, 237; and Irish identity, 15, 42, 75, 97, 162, 170, 176, 186, 203, 207, 209, 231, 236. See also Ancient Order of Hibernians; Benevolent Irish Society; Catholic Cadet Corps; Charitable Irish Society; education; Howley, Michael Francis; O’Brien, Cornelius; Orange Order; Roche, Edward Patrick Lynch, J.J., 114–15, 116

Lambert, Patrick, 131 Land Act (1881). See Irish National Land League Land League. See Irish National Land League Laois. See Queen’s County League of Nations, 221, 289n117 Leinster Regiment, 72 Lewiston, Maine, 74, 151, 273n130 Liberal Party: of Canada, 111–13; of Newfoundland, 100–2; in Nova Scotia, 88, 110, 143, 188–9, 268n152; of the United Kingdom, 96, 122, 126, 164–5 Lincoln, Abraham, 53, 108 Lloyd George, David, 165, 198 London, UK, 12, 25, 103, 113, 124, 130, 184, 187, 198, 208 Long, Walter Hume, 187 Longley, J.W., 110–11, 216, 218 Looney, William H., 89, 94, 95, 116, 117, 119, 193, 222

MacBraire, James, 43 MacHale, John, 81 MacKillop, John, 43, 257n11 Macneil, L.G., 99, 102 MacNeill, Eóin, 180–1 MacSwiney, Muriel, 229–30 MacSwiney, Terence, 198, 216, 219, 228, 288n97 Manitoba Schools Question, 143, 154 Mannix, Daniel, 182, 188 Mansion House (Dublin). See Irish Relief Fund (1880) Maxwell, John, 181, 183 Mayo, County, 84, 195 McCann, James H., 222, 229 McCarthy, Edward, 63, 72, 127, 158 McCarthy, J. Bernard, 212 McCarthy, Justin: and the Irish Parliamentary Party, 106; visit to Halifax, 53, 109–10; visit to Portland, 116–17

328

Index

McCarthy Jr., Charles, 89, 92, 95, 116, 119, 128 McGowan, Joseph A., 60 McGrath, R.T., 205–6, 207, 209, 210–11 McManus, P.J., 62–3, 65 Meagher, Thomas, 43 Meaney, John T., 205, 206, 210, 286n45 Mechanics’ Society. See St John’s Mechanics’ Society Methodist College Hall, 205 migration: from Ireland to Maine, 4, 7, 18, 35–7, 54, 145; from Ireland to Newfoundland, 4, 7, 17–18, 20–2, 234; from Ireland to Nova Scotia, 4, 7, 18, 28–9, 51, 139, 234; “two boat” migration from Newfoundland, 22–5, 28, 66 Mi’kmaq, 18, 26, 40, 139 Milner, Viscount Alfred, 203, 208 Miramichi, New Brunswick, 28 Monroe, Moses, 122 Montgomery Guards, 91 Montreal, Quebec, 61, 109, 112, 119, 124, 125, 147, 149, 182–3; connections to Portland, 33, 59, 128; and the Self-Determination for Ireland League, 203–4 Moore, Philip F., 44, 206 Morine, A.B., 122 Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 88, 111, 113, 114 Morning Chronicle (St John’s), 80, 84–5 Morris, Edward P., 99, 104 Morris, Patrick, 43 Mount Cashel, 154 Mount St Francis, 155

Mullock, John Thomas, 43, 79, 131–2, 153 Munjoy Hill, 18, 32, 35, 37, 38, 193 Murdoch, John, 88 Nash, Thomas J., 44 Newfoundland Gaelic League, 211–14, 232 Newfoundland Patriotic Association, 171 Newfoundland Regiment. See First World War New York City, 11, 28, 33, 57, 147, 183, 192–3, 194, 214, 239; and Irish nationalism, 82, 84, 173, 204, 290n131 North British Society, 127 O’Brien, Cornelius: and Canadian politics, 143; early life and education, 142; and imperial identity, 143, 236; and Irish identity, 54, 162; support for Catholic education, 140, 142, 157; support for Irish nationalism, 108–9, 113, 114, 125, 142–3 O’Brien, James J., 51, 63, 65, 71, 125 O’Brien, Patrick J., 86–7, 89, 107 O’Brien, William Smith, 47 O’Brion, Michael T., 128 O’Callaghan, Daniel P., 134, 168–9, 211, 235 O’Callaghan, Donal J., 229 O’Connell, Daniel, 47, 63, 66, 106, 142, 184; memory of, 47, 71, 109, 128, 142, 168, 177 O’Connell, William H., 148, 220, 274n117 O’Connor, T.P., 90, 126–7, 177, 267n133

Index

O’Donel, James Louis, 43, 66, 130–1 O’Donnell, Jeremiah, 86 O’Donnell, Richard, 85 O’Donoghue, Daniel O’Connell, 117, 119, 128 O’Flanagan, Michael, 230 O’Mara, John T., 70 O’Mullin, John C., 53, 54, 63, 216, 218 Orange Order: formation, 105; in Halifax, 113, 176, 189–90, 217–18, 219; opposition to Irish nationalism, 105–6, 170, 189–90; in Portland, 227; and the Self-Determination for Ireland League, 207, 208–9, 217–18, 219, 233; in St John’s, 102, 105–6, 119, 167–8, 170, 207, 208–9, 233; transnational networks, 5, 40, 233. See also Harbour Grace, Newfoundland; sectarianism O’Reilly, John Boyle, 53, 90 Orphan Asylum School (OAS), 43, 152, 153, 154 O’Shea, Katherine (Kitty), 106, 143 O’Sullivan, Thomas, 141, 215, 216, 217–18, 235 Ottawa, Ontario, 61, 111–12, 205, 206, 217 Palakins, Norbert, 149 Parliament Act, 1911, 126, 165 Parnell, Charles Stewart: and constitutional nationalism, 14, 95–6, 97, 101, 107, 115, 116; death, 106–7, 114, 117, 121–2; divorce scandal, 106–7, 114, 117; indemnity fund (1889), 103–4, 113, 143; and the Irish National Land League, 84–5, 91; and the Irish

329

National League, 96, 108; and the Kilmainham Treaty, 94, 95; memory, 128, 213; United States tour (1880), 78, 82–3, 118. See also Home Rule; Irish Nationalism; Irish National Land League; Irish Relief Fund (1880) Parnell, Fanny, 93 Pearse, Patrick, 181, 191 Petillo, Anthony, 145, 149, 225 Phoenix Park murders: Halifax responses, 88–9; and the Irish National League, 96; Portland responses, 269n163; St John’s responses, 97–8, 103 Placentia, Newfoundland, 28, 100–1, 103, 123, 131, 138, 173. See also Clancy, Michael A. Plaindealer (St John’s), 185, 202, 281n109 politics. See Conservative Party; Democratic Party; ethnicity; Home Rule; Liberal Party; presidential elections (United States); Republican Party Poor, John Alfred, 33 Portland: early history, 32–3; ethnic diversity, 35, 60, 149; and the Grand Trunk Railway, 33; Irish settlement, 35–8; links to Montreal, 33; map, 34; municipal politics, 193–4; as a shipping centre, 33–5, 60; streets and neighbourhoods, 33, 37–8; urban development, 33. See also Catholic parishes, Portland Portland Longshoremen’s Benevolent Society (PLSBS): establishment, 59–60; and First World War, 195; and Irish identity, 7,

330

235; and Irish nationalism, 91, 224, 229, 230 Power, Thomas Joseph: and Catholic education, 135, 153–4; connection to Ireland, 70, 79, 81, 86, 103; early life and education, 79 Presentation Sisters, 131, 137, 152–3, 154–5, 156, 158 presidential elections (United States), 193–5, 227–8 Quebec, 61, 64, 108, 109, 115, 119, 138–9, 140, 239. See also French Canadians; Montreal; Séminaire de Quebec Queen’s County, 138 race: in historiography, 10, 190; “Irish,” 58, 64, 173, 186, 190, 214 Redmond, John: in British politics, 124, 126, 164–5, 166, 180, 181; death, 182; and Halifax, 127, 176, 177, 188; and Portland, 128, 179–80; and St John’s, 171, 174, 184, 187 Redpath, James, 90, 264n56 Reform Party (Newfoundland), 100–2 Renews, Newfoundland, 85 Repeal movement (Irish), 47, 66, 109, 262n125 Repeal movement (Nova Scotian), 109–10, 112 Republican Party: Irish support for, 192–3, 282n149; in Portland wards, 193–5, 282n149, 282n150 Rice, Edmund Ignatius, 153 Riverhead (St John’s neighbourhood), 19, 43, 69

Index

Robie, Frederick, 116 Robinson, James A., 184 Roche, Edward Patrick, 20, 66; and Catholic education, 154; early life and education, 173; and imperial loyalty, 172, 173, 187, 236; and Irish nationalism, 209, 210 Roman Catholic Church: clerical indigenization, 14, 129, 132–4, 136–7, 140–2, 143–4, 145–6, 235; early history in Halifax, 138–40; early history in Portland, 144–5; early history in St John’s, 130–2. See also Catholic parishes; education; ethnicity; Irish nationalism; loyalty; St Patrick’s Day Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), 182, 197, 198 Royal Newfoundland Regiment. See First World War Royal Society of Canada, 137 Russell Street School, 157 Ryan, J.B., 3, 171, 201 Ryan, James D., 44, 123 Saint John, New Brunswick, 33, 61, 64–5, 177, 215, 234 Scallan, Thomas, 131 Sebago Lake, Maine, 59 Second Boer War. See South African War sectarianism: and the Irish Question, 106, 127, 166–7, 170, 185, 207–8, 209, 218; in Newfoundland politics, 99–100, 101, 167. See also Orange Order Self-Determination for Ireland League (SDIL), 15; establishment, 203–4; in Halifax, 215–18, 219–20; and Irish identity, 200,

Index

211–12; national convention (1920), 205, 206, 217; of Newfoundland, 201, 203, 204–11, 233. See also Hughes, Katherine; Irish nationalism; Orange Order; women Séminaire de Quebec, 132 Shea, Ambrose, 100, 101 Sheehan, Thomas F., 92 Sinn Fein: and Irish politics, 164, 182–3, 197, 198–9; responses in Halifax, 188, 189; responses in Portland, 224, 230; responses in St John’s, 185, 186, 187, 202, 213; support in the United States, 183. See also American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic; Self-Determination for Ireland League; Easter Rising (1916) Sisters of Charity, 158 Sisters of Mercy: in Newfoundland, 54, 131, 137, 152, 153, 154–5, 156, 158; in Portland, 159–60 Slattery, John L., 44 Society of the Holy Name, 137, 168 Society of the Sacred Heart, 158 Society of St Vincent de Paul, 66, 80, 130 Society of United Irishmen: 1798 Rebellion, 43, 70; centenary (Halifax), 126; centenary (Portland), 127–8; centenary (St John’s), 124; and memory, 124, 136. See also Howley, Michael Francis South African War, 49, 72, 128, 169–70 Springer, Callie, 93, 236 Star of the Sea. See Fishermen’s Star of the Sea Association

331

St Bonaventure’s College: and clerical education, 103, 132, 135, 153; establishment, 132; and Irish nationalism, 3, 161, 171. See also Irish Christian Brothers St Bride’s College, 153 St Dunstan’s College, 142 Stewart, H.L., 178 St John’s: denominational breakdown, 22–3, 25; early settlement, 18–20; ethnic geography, 19–20; and Irish immigration, 17–18, 20–5; map, 21; municipal council, 44, 186, 189, 211–12; social problems, 20; urban development, 19–20. See also Catholic parishes, St John’s St John’s Mechanics’ Society, 66 St Joseph’s Catholic Institute, 66, 130 St Joseph’s School, 154 St Mary’s College, 63, 140, 158 St Mary’s Collegiate School. See St Mary’s College St Patrick’s Day: and the Catholic Church, 68–9, 71–2, 73, 74–5; and engagement with Irish nationalism, 74, 117, 124, 128, 135, 144, 176–7, 209, 219, 221; in Halifax, 71–3, 127–8, 144, 176–7, 219; parades, 44, 69–70, 71–2, 74, 176; in Portland, 59, 74–5, 117, 128, 179–80, 221; social events, 47, 65, 70–1, 72; in St John’s, 44, 47, 69–71, 124, 135, 209, 212 St Patrick’s Hall. See Benevolent Irish Society St Patrick’s Hall School, 44 Sutton, John P., 108, 115, 267n133

332

Terra Nova Advocate (St John’s), 85, 97, 100 Thorburn, Robert, 102 Tipperary, County, 44, 123, 198; and the Catholic clergy, 85, 130, 131, 132, 136, 138; and migration to Newfoundland, 22; and migration to Nova Scotia, 29 Tobin, Michael, 50 Tobin, Stephen, 81 Tonge, Winckworth, 43, 257n11 Toronto, Ontario, 8, 10, 87, 143, 176–7, 182, 234 Total Abstinence and Benefit Society (TABS), 66, 67, 68, 70, 75, 79, 137, 168 Tupper, Charles, 157

Index

Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), 164, 165 ultramontanism, 9, 129–30, 271n29 Uniacke, Richard John, 50 unionism (Irish), 105, 165; Halifax responses, 174–5, 176–7, 189; St John’s responses, 48, 166–7, 167–8, 170, 234; in Ulster, 163–4, 165, 181, 198 United Irish League (UIL), 126, 179 United Irish League of America (UILA), 128 United Irishmen. See Society of United Irishmen Urban College (Rome), 135, 142

Walsh, Frank P., 227 Walsh, Lizzie, 93 Walsh, Louis Sebastian: and American patriotism, 149, 151, 195; and Catholic identity, 149–50; early life and education, 148–9; and Irish nationalism, 179–80, 191–2, 220, 221–2, 224, 228, 230, 231, 235; support for Catholic education, 158, 160–1 Walsh, Michael J., 211–12, 214 Walsh, William, 139 Waterford, County, 20–2, 29, 50, 130, 136 West Country, England, 19, 22 Wexford, County, 22, 29, 79, 131, 136 White, A.J., 110 Wilson, Woodrow, 183, 194, 201, 227 Wolfe Tone, Theobald, 106 women, 46, 55, 56, 226; and First World War, 195; and the Friends of Irish Freedom, 222; and the Gaelic League of Newfoundland, 312; and Irish identity, 42, 156, 236; and the Self-Determination for Ireland League, 206–7, 215. See also Ancient Order of Hibernians; ethnicity; Irish National Land League; Presentation Sisters; Sisters of Mercy Worcester, Massachusetts, 8–9, 147, 150, 191, 193, 224

Wabanaki, 32, 35

Young Irish Societies, Halifax, 71–2