Address to the Famine Summer School at Strokestown Park House, 24 June 2023
Four Propositions
First, that the Ireland, England’s first island colony, played a key role in the development of its first continental colony, North America, and its later colonies in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and elsewhere. That role continued in British North America even more forcefully during and after the American Revolution.
- Anglo-Irish from late 1700s (Guy and Thomas Carlton, John Parr, Walter Patterson, George Hamilton and his brothers, John Caldwell, Richard Bulkeley et al) to the Three Governor Generals (Monck, Young and Blackwood) before, during and after Canadian Confederation. Wellington played a decisive role in the development of Canada after 1812 with his project which I call ‘Fortress Canada’.
- Irish Protestant tenant farmers leaving Ireland after 1800, notably from Ulster and Wicklow/Wexford.
- Irish Catholic tenant farmers, soldiers, and labourers, drawn by opportunities in the building of canals, jobs in the lumber industry, and the prospect of land owning.
- Middle class Influencers: Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Nicolas Flood Davin, Ogle and James Robert Gowan, George Arthur French, explorers, missionaries, educators, journalists, and leading business figures.
Second, that local national government is a key factor in social and economic success and destiny. Conversely, its absence is a key determinant. Ireland and its capital city prospered in the 18th century with a strong (Protestant but indigenous) Parliament. Both collapsed into extreme poverty, urban decay, and economic malaise in the 19th century (Belfast excepted). The abolition of the Irish parliament in 1800 combined with the nature of Britain’s direct rule, are the key determining factors influencing the development of Ireland socially, economically, culturally, politically and demographically. The origins of the Famine and the authorities’ response to it lies in the Act of Union of 1800. The abolition of the national government and its role in the Famine does not feature as it deserves to in the historical narrative. The Anglo-Irish Ascendancy that agreed to the abolition of their parliament signed their own death warrant by handing power to London (e.g. the Encumbered Estates Act). The fate of Denis Mahon perfectly illustrates that the fate of the Anglo-Irish when disempowered in the face of a great calamity.
Third, that Canada was the future that Ireland never had: The Rising of 1916, the executions, the War of Independence and partition dramatically shifted the paradigm from the consensus of Irish nationalism that reigned from 1870 and earlier. What the Fenians failed to achieve in 1848, 1866, 1867, and 1870, they achieved spectacularly with the Rising, against the backdrop of fifty years of refusal by London to grant Home Rule. The official narrative of the new nation state offered no room for the role of the Irish of the Empire, nor even of Redmond’s National Volunteers, ten thousand of whom fought and died in WWI to validate Ireland’s claim to nationhood. It also therefore obliterated three centuries of Irish involvement in Canada.
The outcome in terms of public history has been to generate a misleading narrative of rebellious nationalists – read Catholics – and loyal unionists. In fact, the historical record suggests that reversing the polarity would be a more accurate reading. This has implications for all-Ireland reconciliation and greater mutual understanding.
Fourth, that Irish settlement overseas is the product primarily of colonialism not immigration, though immigration takes place of course, the search for economic opportunities abroad. However, colonialism provides the only coherent narrative for the Irish abroad over three centuries.
Transatlantic colonialism is also necessary to understanding the creation of the North Atlantic axis between Western Europe and North America, and indeed the fate of the Indigenous of the Americas. This relationship has been globally consequential: victory in two world wars, the Cold War and now reshaping global geopolitics.
Ireland and Canada wrested our destinies into our hands in 1867 and 1922. Had we done so more contemporaneously our bilateral relationship would have been very different. With this new autonomy, new official narratives were required about what we stood for in terms of values and ambitions. In the early formative period, this rendered inconvenient the degree to which Ireland was involved in the Empire: 30% of the British Army in the 19th century, 70% of Wellington’s Peninsular Army, innumerable administrative positions, and participation in settler projects.
However in recent decades, just as Canada has wrestled with the colonial impact on the Indigenous, Ireland has begun to recover the complexity of its past, and the many strands of Irish identity that have varied by social position and over time. I have often said that Yeats’ line about 1916 as a terrible beauty is born, is really the birth of a terrible simplicity. Our history is complicated as is our role overseas. Not for nothing is this motto of our project Fifty Irish Lives in Canada 1632-2016: “It’s complicated!”
The Famine in Canada and Ireland:
In 1847, Canada learned the lesson of not controlling its immigration laws. For many Irish in Canada, the Famine has created a false origin story. As Prof Mark McGowan has stressed throughout his research, Irish settlement patterns in Canada were established in the generations before the Famine.
For Canadians today, we have to remind them of the heroic and compassionate story of their response to the arrival of Famine refugees. Their assistance, often at the cost of their own lives, is a universal story with a moral lesson about helping the stranger on your shore.
The Famine created the iron triangle of the farm, the church, and the pub. The farm had to be passed on to one son intact. Sexuality had to be policed. The Church was there to do that. The pub was the social life of men waiting for their parents to retire so he could inherit the farm, the necessary condition for marriage. The pub was the place you went not to meet someone. The land clearances and consolidation of farms enabled by the Famine generated the strong farming class that dominated the politics of Ireland. The vacuum of direct rule empowered the Catholic Church not just in its partnership with the strong farming class but in the provision of health and education. Famine enabled the Catholic Church to rise as the pre-eminent national organization for the mass of the population. That Ireland of the second-half of the 19th century owed so much to the formative influence of the catastrophe of Famine, rendered memorialization problematic until recent years. To remember the Famine was to revive guilt, loss, gain at the expense of the victims and helplessness. Best forgotten because it was too traumatising to remember.
It is only in recent decades and the efforts of Jim and Caroilin Callery, and a new generation of historians, that the Famine is taking its rightful place. I would to pay tribute to Jim and Caroilin for what they have achieved here at Strokestown House. The establishment of the National Famine Museum and the mobilisation of historians like Jason King, Christine Kinealy and Mark McGowan has focused new attention on this seminal event. Their efforts have not only deepened our understanding but altered our perception of the Famine. It has done so by putting the tenants and the tragic fate of Denis Mahon at the heart of the story, based on the rigorous use of the archives here. The many creative ways in which this Museum tells this story have influenced both academic and public history. It is a wonderful achievement that has yet to offer much much more.
We are now graced with the next iteration of the story of Strokestown House and its tenants. Hunger and Hope, The Irish Famine Migration from Strokestown, Roscommon in 1847. The book is a brilliant addition to the history of Famine, edited by Christine Kenealy, Jason King and Mark McGowan. Through great sleuthing and research, they uncover and retrace the journey of the tenants from Roscommon to Canada. The title Hunger and Hope eloquently sums of a human story of trauma and resilience.
If we are now through post-revisionism grappling with the Famine in our collective understanding, we have yet to approach the role of colonialism in Ireland and the role of the Irish in colonialism. I would argue that the role of the Act of Union must be considered as a formative event in the unfolding narrative of the Famine and its ramifications, for example. Yet the role of colonialism in Ireland is much wider than the Famine, its ripples reaching to issues of the present day. This deserves analysis and understanding, well worth the dangers of navigating the shoals of counter-factual history. We cannot understand the role of the Irish in Canada over three centuries, nor arguably in many parts of the former British Empire, without the framework provided by colonization in Ireland and transatlantic colonialism. That is a topic for another day.
Eamonn McKee
Strokestown House
24 June 2023
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