Ontario and Quebec’s Irish Pioneers

The compelling story of Canada’s Irish pioneers, revealing the enormous scope of their achievements.


Beginning in the eighteenth century, an increasing number of Irish people sought the better life that Ontario and Quebec offered. Set free from the stifling economic and social constraints that held them back in their homeland, they prospered. And yet, strangely enough, they continue to be mourned as victims.

In this second book of the Irish in Canada series, Lucille Campey takes on the victim-ridden mythology of destitute Irish immigrants fleeing the famine of the 1840s. In fact, the Irish influx to Quebec and Ontario began a century earlier.

Comprehensive and extensive research has been distilled to produce an informative and lively account of this great immigration saga, whose roots date back to the time of the British Conquest of New France in 1763.