Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

economic and cultural center of Canada – and doubtless a magnet of opportunity for emigrants. While a destination port for some, for others Montreal was a major dispersal point, westward by the Ottawa River for the Ottawa Valley and Bytown/Ottawa City, southwest by the St Lawrence River for Kingston, the towns and hinterlands around Lake Ontario, and the Great Lakes beyond, while to the south routes to the USA beckoned. Montreal lost the position of Capital of the Province of Canada in 1849, when rioting Tories burned down the Parliament House in protest of enactment of “The Rebellion Losses Bill” (Ch. 2B). While emigration to the US increased in 1850, UK emigration to BNA decreased to 32,961 in 1850, 17,966 in 1855 and 9,706 in 1858, with fewer Irish. Montreal Tory violence may have discouraged Catholic Irish settlement. Kingston. Population in 1861 - 13,743 : A city of strategic importance, where British Fort Henry controlled shipping at the west end of the St Lawrence River, protected the south end of the Rideau Canal and had once served as a prison during the 1837-38 Canadian Rebellion. Positioned at the east end of Lake Ontario, Kingston was a secondary port of dispersion (after Montreal) of emigrants, with Bytown/Ottawa City to the north via the Rideau Canal, the USA along the south shore of Lake Ontario, and the important City of Toronto on the northwest shore of the lake. While Toronto earned the title of “The Belfast of America”, Mark McGowan states that Kingston largely attracted Irish from western Ulster and earned the title of “The Derry of America” (McGowan, 2015). Kingston could access Lake Erie from Lake Ontario via Welland Canal. This important Canadian canal and lock system, another economically productive engineering marvel, was constructed in large part with Irish labor. Kingston could also access New York City via Oswego’s canal connection to the Erie Canal. Toronto. Population in 1861 – 44,821 : The City of York’s population increased from 720 in 1816 to greater than 9,000 in 1834, when the city was incorporated, and the name was changed back to Toronto. Provided with rich farmland and timber nearby, trade access to the Upper Great Lakes via the Welland Canal, and to the Atlantic either via New York’s Oswego and Erie Canals, or the St Lawrence River (directly or indirectly via the Rideau), Toronto was well positioned for success. The Irish who settled on the farmland in Upper Canada during the early 1800s were mostly Protestants. When the near-destitute Catholic Irish arrived during later years, they were generally excluded from opportunities in farming and were commonly despised by their fellow-countrymen, who were already close-knit through the Orange Order and assimilated into Toronto’s Anglo-Protestant community. Peter Robinson, however, met with some success in the 1820s settling Irish farmers from Cork in Upper Canada (Part l). Catholic farmers became prominent in Renfrew County in the Ottawa Valley, on the Huron Tract land (adjacent to lower Lake Huron) and in Lanark County, north of Toronto. Toronto was tightly controlled in the first half of the 19 th century by British Protestants. “In Toronto, Irish Catholics lived in caution in what had been termed ‘the Belfast of America’” (McGowan 2015). Many Irish Catholics appreciated the shelter provided by their own Irish Catholic associations and societies in Toronto. The first Catholic church in Toronto, St Paul’s Basilica, was built in 1822 in the neighborhood of Corktown, which was named for an enclave of Irish residents, both Protestant and Catholic, from county Cork. Despite interfaith Irish frictions, the appeal of Toronto as a destination city is documented by reports from the Famine year of 1847. Over 80,000 emigrants reached Quebec in 1847,

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