Category Archives: Anglo-Irish

February 2, 2025 · 9:47 am

John Palliser and the Expansion of Canada

Born: 1817, Dublin, Co. Dublin, died: 1887, Comeragh House, Waterford

Horses, hunting, and debts loomed large in the life of Ireland’s Protestant landed gentry. They shaped the adventurous life of John Palliser.[1] Palliser learned his outdoor skills at home in the Comeragh Mountains. He absorbed profligate ways from his family on their frequent continental holidays where he learned to speak fluently in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. By the time he turned thirty in 1847 he was pursuing big game on the US Prairies. Palliser became adept enough in its forbidding conditions to hunt and travel alone, accompanied by his big half-wolf white dog Ishmah.[2] His popular book Solitary Rambles and Adventures of a Hunter in the Prairies (London, 1853) recorded his apprenticeship as an explorer. Palliser’s attention then turned northwards, across the ill-defined border along of 49^th parallel and the southern prairies of British North America. Diminished wealth led him to approach the Royal Geographical Society for financial support, casting his travel plans as an expedition exploring routes across the Prairies and into the Rockies. The Society added scientific purposes and submitted the proposal to the Colonial Office.

Canada’s Prairies lay within 1.5 m square miles to the north and west of colonial Canada, comprising Prince Rupert’s Land, granted originally to the Hudson’s Bay Company by Charles II in 1670, and the North-Western Territory. The Indigenous inhabitants, living there since time immemorial, were never consulted. The War of 1812 had put London on notice of US ambitions to seize Canada.[3] By the 1850s, they viewed the Prairies as vulnerable given that American hunters and traders were already active there. Yet they blanched at the cost of a transcontinental railway to enable settlement and assert sovereignty. While American action was unlikely during the emancipation crisis and Civil War, it was time to consider less expensive ways to assert domain. Personal and imperial interests found then a convenient match in Palliser’s proposed expedition. The Colonial Office provided £5,000 (£400,000 today).[4]

Palliser’s dilettantish professional life offered little comfort for the expedition’s prospects. An indifferent student at Trinity College, he left without a degree. Obliged by class to serve as county High Sheriff, deputy lieutenant, and justice of peace, his attention to duties in his father’s Waterford Artillery Militia were fitful. Palliser’s natural intelligence, social skills and outdoor accomplishments revealed his true talents; writes Spry, ‘as much at home in Rome or Heidelberg as he was in Dublin or London, on a Scottish grouse moor or in the Swiss Alps as he was in the wild, beautiful Comeragh Mountains of County Waterford.’[5]

Over three seasons between 1857 and 1860, Palliser’s leadership of the Expedition was the key to its success, marked by indefatigable good humour, supreme tact, and egalitarian charm to all he met. His hunting prowess fed his team and his knowledge of horses ensured success in regular trading for replacement stock from the local Nēhiyawak (Cree) and Siksika (Blackfoot). His personal diplomatic skills de-escalated conflicts within the team and with locals, whether Indigenous or settler, in what was a lawless region beset with all the ill effects of the trade in whiskey, guns, and pelts. Since Lewis and Clark’s violent encounter with members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in 1806, the region had a reputation as hostile. The “scientific” purpose of the Palliser Expedition was to chart opportunities for transport infrastructure, agricultural and mining development, and settlement. This was science as colonisation. Palliser’s success in avoiding violent conflict was all the more remarkable since both Indigenous and his team knew that their research portended settlement and the destruction of the Indigenous way of life.[6]

Canada confederated and established its own government in 1867, a year after the end of the American Civil War. Any renewed US ambitions would have to brush aside a democratic government not a mere colony. London then organised the transfer of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to Canada through a sale agreement for £300,000 in 1869. The costs of a railway would fall to Canadians, not the Exchequer.

The Palliser Report was a landmark, prodigious with data and insights. As Spry records: “After Prince Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory had become western Canada, the Expedition’s successors made much use of its Report. Outstanding among them were the geological survey teams, the North-West Mounted Police, and the negotiators of the Indian treaties. Among them, too, was Sandford Fleming, Engineer-in-Chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who was ‘very desirous’ of making Palliser’s acquaintance and did contrive to meet him. He always took a copy of Palliser’s Report with him when going over the ground the Expedition had covered, finding it of great use.”[7]

The transactions between London and Ottawa on the fate of the Prairies represented a profound violation of the rights of the Indigenous and the Métis. Under the leadership of Louis Riel, the Métis of the Red River Settlement armed themselves and established a provisional government in late 1869 to assert their rights to their land, culture, and livelihood. A military expedition led by Garnet Wolseley (from Dublin) suppressed the Resistance.[8] Riel fled to the US and a settlement negotiated with Ottawa established Manitoba as the fifth province to enter the Confederation the following year.[9] To police the vast and lawless prairies, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald created the North West Mounted Police, modelled on the Royal Irish Mounted Constabulary, and appointed George Arthur French from Roscommon, who had briefly served in the Royal Irish Constabulary, as its first Commissioner.[10]

Palliser had other adventures, notably in Siberia, before retiring to Comeragh House, unmarried and relying on his brother-in-law for financial support. After a long walk in the mountains, Palliser died while reading in his living room, aged 70, and was buried at Kilrossanty Cemetery.[11] Comeragh House was burned down at the end of the Troubles in 1923, along with Palliser’s papers. Palliser’s achievement lives on in his Report and in place names in Alberta.

The many Irish gentry like Palliser involved in colonisation shared similar characteristics. Protestant (mostly[12]), landed gentry by birth, heritage, upbringing, and lifestyle, variously profligate and impecunious, many made careers advancing the British Empire’s interests. From North America to the Middle East, from Africa to Asia, they brought leadership, courage, good horsemanship, and hardy constitutions to their roles as very effective colonisers. Though largely forgotten, their actions were often consequential, not least for those on the Empire’s receiving end.[13] Personal rather than imperial objectives drove Palliser. However, Palliser helped open the Prairie North-West to colonisation with all its devastating effects on the Indigenous population. He was a significant participant in a broader strategy that extended Canada’s jurisdiction to the Pacific.

Further Reading:

Irene Spry, The Palliser Expedition, The Dramatic Story of Western Canadian Exploration 1857-1860 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1963).

Irene Spry (editor), The Papers of the Palliser Expedition, 1857-61 (The Champlain Society, 2013): her Introduction is masterful.

[1]DIB: Settled on the fertile Goldenvale between the Galtee and Comeragh Mountains, William Palliser left Yorkshire for Ireland, becoming archbishop of Cashel from 1694 to his death in 1727. English novelist Anthony Trollope borrowed the Palliser surname for the main character in his ‘Parliamentary’ novels that were popularised by a BBC dramatisation in 1974, The Pallisers. Trollope’s fifteen-year stay in Ireland was formative to his development as a public servant and novelist.

[2] Irene Spry, The Palliser Expedition, The Dramatic Story of Western Canadian Exploration 1857-1860 (1963), p. 3. Palliser brought Ismah and a menagerie of deer and buffalo back to Ireland, all to unhappy fates. Ishmah’s taste for sheep put him in Lord Dunraven’s private zoo and the buffalo died of TB. Spry’s account of the Expedition is a classic, detailing the thrills, dangers, and hardships of the expedition, and detailing the significance and impact of the Palliser Report as the standard reference work for decades.

[3] The Duke of Wellington, outraged by this stab in the back, set about fortifying Canada with canals, citadels and Martello towers: see Wellington and Ottawa: How an Irishman and a Pot of Spanish Silver Transformed Canada at www.eamonncmckee.com.

[4] See Irene Spy’s Introduction, The Palliser Papers, op cit. Palliser had the persistent support of fellow Irishman and official John Ball in securing this funding.

[5] Ibid, p.2.

[6]Palliser recommended against trying agriculture in a triangle of semi-arid steppe that later bore his name, the Palliser Triangle. Yet the impulse to settlement over-rode his advice and generations of farmers there endured punishing periodic droughts. Palliser also recommended preservation of the buffalo herds to help Indigenous survive.

[7] The Papers of the Palliser Expedition, pp cxxxii-cxxxiii.

[8] According to the DCB, Wolseley “moved a force consisting of nearly 400 British troops, over 700 Canadian militia, and a large party of civilian voyageurs and workmen from their port of embarkation at Collingwood, Ont., to the Red River between 3 May and 24 August, without losing a man. Altogether the expedition made 47 portages and ran 51 miles of rapids.” The expedition’s projection of Canadian authority was an unmistakable signal to the US about who ruled north of the 49th parallel. Wolseley was born in Dublin in 1833 and his family seat was in Carlow. However, his father died when he was young, leaving his widow to raise seven children. Under financial pressure, she educated Garnet in Dublin rather than England (as was the custom) and he joined the British Army to start a career, without having to purchase the commission thanks to his father’s service. Wolseley became the leading commanding officer of his era, with active service against the Fenians in Canada, in Burma, India (rebellion), China (Opium War), Egypt, and the Crimean War.

[9] The Irish Governor General, John Young (Lord Lisgar), had wisely warned Macdonald against executing Riel if intercepted. Riel’s execution after the 1885 North-West (Second) Resistance embittered the Métis and French Canadians against the federal government and exacerbated tensions along ethnic, linguistic, and confessional lines across Canada.

[10] French served from October 1873 to July 1876 and led the famous 2000 km ‘march west’ of 1874, establishing bases at Fort Macleod, Swan River, Bow River, Fort Walsh and Fort Saskatchewan to ‘bring order’ to the region. The iconic red tunics were chosen to impress the Indigenous and to distinguish themselves from the blue tunics of the US cavalry. See The Irish and the Colonisation of the Prairie North-West at http://www.eamonncmckee.com

[11] Kilrossanty is near Lemybrien, County Waterford. The charming Church and Cemetery are deserted but well-tended. I found the Palliser grave, a low crypt enclosed by a modest railing, appropriately enough beneath tall pines. A bronze plaque is there, presented in August 1977 by Alberta to honour Palliser’s expedition as a significant contribution to the development of the Province.

[12] William F. Butler, from Tipperary, was Catholic and had a storied career with the British Army. He had volunteered as an intelligence officer for Wolseley on his march west to counter Riel’s Resistance. Like Palliser, Butler’s published account of his adventures on the Prairies was popular: The Great Lone Land (1872) and The Wild North Land (1873).

[13] Leading the army of the East India Company, Richard Wesley, supported by his younger brother Arthur, seized India between 1798 and 1803, laying the foundation for the British Raj; Arthur of course defeated Napoleon. Lord Dufferin diplomatically and Wolseley militarily combined to secure the Suez Canal and control of Egypt for Britain. When Viceroy of India during the 1880s, seven of Dufferin’s Lieutenant Governors were Irish. He led the destructive invasion of Burma.

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February 18, 2024 · 8:13 pm

How the County Meath brothers Richard and Arthur Reshaped the British Empire East and West

Richard was the older of the two brothers. The Colleys had been in Ireland for many generations when his grandfather changed the name to Wesley on inheriting the Dangan estate from his cousin Garrett Wesley. Richard was born in Dangan Castle in 1760 and would adopt Wellesley as his surname when he was 29, as would his brother Arthur.

After 17 years in the Houses of Commons and Lords, and in Government, Richard was appointed Governor General of India in 1797. After seven months at sea, Richard Colley Wellesley arrived in Calcutta: he “would change the history of India as much as Napoleon would change that of France; indeed, though his name is largely forgotten today, in the next seven years he would conquer more territory in India and more quickly, than Napoleon conquered in Europe.’ The quote (p. 335) is from William Dalrymple’s magnificent page-turner The Anarchy, The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and The Pillage of an Empire. Revealingly, the chapter is called ‘The Corpse of India’.

Richard’s aim was to displace his employers, the East India Company (EIC), with British government control over all of India and to oust the French (p. 337). In achieving this, through divide and conquer, and with a massive investment in the EIC’s private army, Richard laid the foundation for the British Raj. As Dalrymple writes, by the end of his tenure, Richard was the real emperor, with 600 professional civil servants, and a well trained army of 155,000. His king had gained an additional 50 million subjects. London was largely unaware of what Richard had done. Richard had concealed it from his nominal bosses in the EIC. The Government was focused on the threat from Napoleon (whose failed Egyptian campaign ended any French hopes of challenging for control of India), ‘But within India everyone knew that a major revolution had just taken place…The sinews of British supremacy were now established. With the exception of a few months during the Great Uprising of 1857, for better or worse, India would remain in British hands for another 144 years, finally gaining its freedom only in August 1847.’ (p.382)

It had taken cunning and courage to be sure. Richard’s brother Arthur, a major general, faced off against two Maratha armies in August 1803, the dominant power in the western Deccan plateau. The Maratha’s had learned European methods of warfare and had well used French mercenaries like the brilliant general Benoit de Boigne to train their infantry and artillery. In the ferocious battle of Assaye, Arthur had two horses shot from under him, staff officers killed near him as grape shot flew all around. A horse still carried its headless dragoon as Arthur forged the Khelna river. Dalrymple’s thrilling account (pp 369-372) records the bloody outcome of Arthur’s victory, his first ‘close-run thing’: 6,000 dead Marathas and one third of Arthur’s army, 1,584 out of 4,500 troops. General Lake’s conquest of Delhi in September sealed India’s fate: impoverishment as Britain plundered its wealth and shipped its global textile hegemony to Britain.

As I have written here previously, Arthur would reshape Canada in the wake of the US’s failed invasion attempt in the War of 1812. He determined to fortify Canada believing that it was the bulwark of the British Empire, graphically illustrated when Napoleon cut off Baltic timber from the British navy. In 1804, Henry Caldwell, from Fermanagh who had fought with the distinction against the French in Canada, persuaded Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, the Lord of the Admiralty, that Canadian timber could provide for Royal Navy what it had formerly secured in the Baltic. The Canadian lumber industry was born and Caldwell along with his wife’s nephew George Hamilton (from Dunboyne) would make their fortunes as lumber barons in respectively Quebec and the Ottawa Valley. Arthur had a point about Canada: even in the twentieth century Churchill imagined taking the Royal Navy to Halifax should Hitler succeed in conquering England.

The careers of both Richard and Arthur came together over the infamous Koh-i-Noor diamond. I cannot recommend highly enough http://www.empirepod.com by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple. The four podcast episodes about the diamond combine as enthralling story-telling. The massive diamond was swiped from India and given to Queen Victoria. Uncut, it was a major disappointment to the crowds that came to see it at the Great Exhibition in 1851. Though warned that a flaw would split it, Prince Albert decided to have it cut and polished using a bespoke steam-powered grindstone. The honor of the first pass went to Arthur, the hero of Waterloo, Duke of Wellington. The process split the diamond in half, though the final product was still the size of a duck egg. Queen Victoria often wore it as a broach. It is today part of the crown of Elizabeth the Queen Mother. India, along with Pakistan and even the Taliban, demand its return.

Eamonn

Ottawa

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Tagged as Anita Anand, Arthur Wellesley, Battle of Assaye, County Meath, Dangan, Dangan Castle, Duke of Wellington, East India Company, Empirepod, history, india, Koh-i-Noor, Koh-i-Noor diamond, medieval, Richard Wellesley, The Anarchy, War of 1812, William Dalrymple

August 28, 2023 · 7:19 pm

Searching for the Graves of Palliser and Butler in Ireland in the Summertime

It may seem like an unseasonal hobby. Seeking out graveyards and searching through their long damp grass of a summertime in Ireland. No beach for me with its tedious horizon and throbbing ennui. Give me the name of some historical figure and send me to find his or her grave. It has its rewards. On this trip to Ireland, I had two names in mind, John Palliser and William F. Butler.

Palliser was born in 1817, descendant of a Protestant clergyman who had arrived in Ireland in the 17^th century. Though born in Dublin, Palliser’s family roots lay between the Galty and Comeragh Mountains. The area forms part of the Goldenvale, the richest farmland in Ireland. If his surname rings a bell, its because the prolific English novelist Anthony Trollope borrowed it for the main character in his ‘Parliamentary’ novels that were popularised by a BBC dramatisation in 1974, The Pallisers. (Trollope’s fifteen year stay in Ireland saw him develop as both a public servant and novelist).

Palliser shared in the outdoor pursuits of his landed peers, in which horsemanship was a prized skill and hunting an obsession. His love of hunting took him to the prairies of North America in 1847. Longing to return there, his proposed expedition to British Northern America was sponsored by the Colonial Office as a scientific one that also had the ulterior purpose of projecting British sovereignty above the yet to be defined border of the 49^th parallel separating British North America from the United States.

Palliser’s report of three years’ exploration between 1857 and 1860 was a landmark, opening the way to eventual settlement of what became Alberta. Irene Spry’s history of the expedition details the thrills, dangers, and hardships of the expedition, led with exemplary diplomacy and tact on the part of Palliser (The Pallister Expedition, The Dramatic Story of Western Canadian Exploration 1857-1860 (Toronto, 1963)). His leadership skills were tested in territory that suffered lawlessness and much conflict between Indigenous communities and interloping hunters and traders, including those from the United States. Whiskey as a trade commodity caused untold social damage. Palliser’s hunting skills were put to good use helping to feed the expedition members with bison, deer, wapiti, mountain goat, sheep, wild fowl, fish and just about anything else edible. His knowledge of horses ensured success in trading for replacement stock from the local Cree and Blackfoot.

After further adventures, notably hunting in Russian territories, Palliser spent the end of his days in Comeragh House, trying as best he could to manage his heavily mortgaged estates. I was keen to find the grave of this consequential but largely forgotten figure.

According to the RIA’s online Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB), Palliser was buried in 1887 in Kilrossanty Church of Ireland Cemetery. Google Maps put it northwest off the N25, west of Kilmacthomas and near Lemybrien. It was a fine sunny day. Under the Comeragh Mountains, the narrow roads with their high hedgerows and overarching trees wound gently uphill. After a bit of back and forth, we found the gates across from a cottage (the Sexton’s house, said a sign) that led to the chapel and graveyard. The grass was lush and deep, though generally the graveyard looked well kept. The chapel was locked, with tell-tale cobwebs across its keyhole. Inside, the pews were still there as if waiting for the return of the local gentry in carriages, horses, and Sunday finery. Beneath tall pines we found the Palliser grave, a low crypt enclosed by a modest railing. A bronze plaque had been placed there. The legend said that it had been presented in August 1977 by the Province of Alberta to honour Palliser’s expedition as a significant contribution to the development of the Province. Lingering at Palliser’s grave brought a sense of intimacy with the vivid accounts of his adventures in the prairies of the Northwest.

Next on my list was the final resting place of William Francis Butler. He was born in Golden, Co Tipperary in 1838. While the Butler was a prestigious and storied one in Ireland, his family were a cadet branch without much wealth. His father was a substantial farmer though he rented far more land than he owned. Butler had to make his own way in the world and his thirst for adventure brought him to a career in the British Army, despite the disadvantages of being a Catholic and without the money to buy an officer’s rank. Though a Catholic and a Home Ruler, his adventurous life as an officer of the British Army had not only taken him to Canada but involved him in some of the seminal colonial events of the British Empire in the latter half of the 19^th century: rebellions in Burma and India, attempting to rescue General Gordon in Sudan via Egypt (where he recruited Canadian voyageurs to man a fleet of boats), fighting the Ashanti in West Africa, and reluctantly countering the Boers in South Africa.

In 1870 Butler had been engaged as an intelligence officer by the leader of a military expedition to confront Louis Riel, the Métis leader who had led the resistance to settlement around the Red River settlement (today’s Winnipeg). Riel’s provisional government was instrumental in creating the Province of Manitoba, but the Act establishing it contained no amnesty for his actions. The expedition was led by Dublin man Garnet Wolseley, regarded as the most capable British Army officer of his generation. Public opinion in the US gleefully assumed failure. Wolseley proved his mettle by successfully leading 1100 troops supported by 400 voyagers from Lake Superior to Fort Garry, building 40 miles of road and undertaking 47 porterages. Riel had fled to the US by the time Wolseley arrived at Fort Garry, but the expedition was a key event in the colonisation of the prairies. Butler’s role had been to explore the territory in advance of Wolseley, in the course of which he met Riel (it is fair to say Butler was unimpressed). He was then commissioned by the Lt Governor to continue his explorations. Butler’s recommendations led to the creation of the Northwest Mounted Police, later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Through it all, Butler kept up his writing. His account of his adventures in the prairies of the Northwest, The Great Lone Land, had been a bestseller. It remains today an immersive read, full of descriptive gems, and suffused with much admiration for Indigenous life and sorrow at its inevitable extirpation by white settlers. Butler’s sympathies were influenced by his upbringing. His father had impoverished the family by charitable donations during the Great Famine. He had brought his young son to see the terrors of evictions which left an indelible mark on Butler and a sympathy for the oppressed and the doomed. In his writings, Butler is clear about the savagery of the white settlers and his doubts of the true values of Victorian progress, however inexorable its course. He seemed happiest travelling alone in the untamed wilderness of the Canadian Northwest. Butler’s novel, Red Cloud, The Solitary Sioux, was on the syllabus of Irish secondary schools up to the 1930s.

On retirement from his successful military with the rank of Lt General and a knighthood, Butler lived at Bansha Castle, Co Tipperary, near his birthplace at Golden and purchased for him by the British Government as a house of favour. He died there in 1910, and was buried locally with an impressive military escort. The DIB noted his burial at Killardrigh (from the Irish for church of the high king). This proved hard to find because the cemetery is locally called Killaldriffe. However, find it we did, with the lavender backdrop of the Galty Mountains resplendent under a bright blue sky. A stone plaque cemented into the wall of the cemetery reads: “This is the burial place of Lt Gen William Francis Butler…famous soldier, author, Irishman.” It quotes a poem by Butler found among his papers with the plea to “give me but six foot three (one inch to spare)/ of Irish ground, and dig it anywhere/and for my poor Irish soul say an Irish prayer/above the spot.”

We found his grave beneath a modest Celtic Cross at the far end of the graveyard, overlooking the rich pastures of the Goldenvale. There is a heavily overgrown early medieval church ruin in the graveyard but it was clear too that the cemetery has been in use continuously to the present day.

Nearby, I found Bansha Castle but circumstances meant I could only see it from the outside. We repaired to our accommodation at nearby Bansha House, run by the marvelously hospitable Mary Marnane. In the sitting room, surrounded by memorabilia of the grand old house’s horse-rearing and horse-racing legacy, which continues to this day, we met another guest, Claire from the US, whose great, great, great, grandfather was Darby Ryan. In two hours’ time, his famous 1830 lyric ‘The Peeler and the Goat’ was to be commemorated at the local Church of Ireland in the heart of the village. (The Wolf Tones put its mocking lines to music in a rousing, tongue-twisting rendition, available on YouTube.) We couldn’t resist Claire’s invitation and joined the large crowd at Ryan’s grave and later in the church, now a community centre, packed for talks about Ryan with a keynote address by Tipperary historian Denis Marnane. It is one of the wonderful features of many small Irish towns and villages that local history generates both expertise and popularity.

The historical connections between the southeast of Ireland and Canada are deep. In the 17th century, fishermen from Waterford and Wexford were the first Irish in Newfoundland, there for its great shoals of enormous cod. After the rebellion of 1798 and the dissolution of the Irish Parliament, there was a virtual exodus from south Wicklow and Wexford, many Protestant farmers. Recession in Ireland after the end of the Napoleonic Wars boosted emigration, and the religious balance shifted to Catholic emigrants in the 1820s, drawn by employment on Canada’s canals and fortifications, and available land for farming. Irish soldiers fighting in the British Army were settled in British North America to help deter any thoughts of invasion and annexation by Washington. This strategy of fortification and settlement was devised by Irishman, the Duke of Wellington whose influence on the development of Canada in the 1820s and 1830s was profound. Irish Catholic tenants from Wicklow (such as the Coollattin estate of the Fitzwilliams) were subsidised to emigrate to Ontario in the late 1840s and 1850s to speed the switch to pasturage.

John Palliser and William Butler were just a part then of the very significant Irish contribution to the development of Canada that stretched over three centuries. While some 109,000 Irish Famine refugees arrived in Canada in 1847, twenty percent of whom would die in the process, the year marked the end of major Irish emigration to Canada. Much of the Irish contribution to Canada has been forgotten, as has so much of what happened in Ireland in the decades prior to the Famine. It was also obscured by the centrality of the US in emigration from Ireland for the second half of the 19^th century. This is the way of things. History moves on and contemporary events and concerns rewrite history. What was significant previously loses relevance, just as the obscure can gain significance and prominence in official narratives, the stories we tell ourselves.

The next morning, we set out find two nearby sites that in their own way illustrated this point. Knockgraffon proved elusive, though I knew it was near Bansha. Our drive spiraled into a tightening circle on our target, a tree-covered prominent hill. Suddenly a finely preserved Norman tower sprung into view. I knew that the Butlers had built one at Knockgraffon. A short drive further along the road revealed a stumpy hill, not looking at all significant with its thick hedging. Yet that was Knockgraffon. The name means the Hill of the Rath of Fionn. In Gaelic Ireland, for centuries before the arrival of the Normans in 1169-70, this Hill was central to the O’Sullivan rulers of the area. It was the site of the inauguration of their kings. As I climbed the short, sharp slope to its top, I could see why. The summit presented a fine 360-degree view of the surrounding land, rich and fertile all the way to the slopes of the Galty mountains. Part of the regnal inauguration in Gaelic Ireland was the candidate holding a white wand and pointing to all points of his kingdom. The emergence of nearby Cashel as the centre for the kings of Munster and the defeat of the O’Sullivans by the Normans robbed Knockgraffon of its role. The O’Sullivans were forced to decamp to the wilds of Kerry. The Butlers claimed the land and built their tower at Knockgraffon, part of the defensive network that spread out from their famously impregnable castle at Cahir.

Heading north toward Golden, we found Athassel Priory. Across a dung-strewn field that was mercifully dry underfoot, we crossed a delightful stone footbridge and through the stone-arched ruin of a gatehouse. The extent of the site was unexpected and impressive. Even more so were the ruins of the many magnificent buildings that had comprised the Abbey complex. I had not expected anything on this scale, though Athassel had been Ireland’s largest priory. It was founded by William de Burgh right at the outset of Norman colonisation. The sheer height of some of the remains was stunning (photos on my instagram account, eamonnseye). I tried to imagine the priory in its heyday. It must have been magnificent: So large and well endowed it generated a sizeable town in its environs. When it was dissolved in 1537, the lands went to the loyal Butlers.

Athassel has been ruins for centuries and its significance lost, its fame eclipsed in the modern imagination by earlier Christian monasteries like Clonmacnoise. The latter fit the official narrative of Independent Ireland in a way that an Augustinian priory at the heart of Norman Ireland could not. The de Burghs became Burkes, now regarded as indisputably Irish, just like the Butlers. What we remember is a matter of selection, how we remember a matter of choice.

I left the beautiful area of the Comeragh and Galty mountains satisfied with small objectives achieved. I mentally checked the possibility that at some future point the graves of Palliser and Butler will feature in an Irish-Canadian heritage trail. I wondered too about how we designate so many of them and their peers as Anglo-Irish, not simply Irish, or even in some references as British. The so-called Anglo-Irish had been in Ireland for many generations, even centuries. The Butlers had been Old English, descendants of the Normans and other early English colonisers, but had kept their Catholic faith. So, William could be Irish but Palliser, a Protestant, Anglo-Irish: Questions of history, historiography, even of philosophy but hardly irrelevant to the politics and future of our island.

Thinking about the Irish in Canada, about the imperial Irish, Protestant and Catholic alike, I find to be endlessly enriching. It is a gateway into our own history and role in the British Empire. The imperial Irish far outnumbered those aligned with republicanism, in careers and activities if not beliefs. As I have written elsewhere, Canada was the future Ireland never had, displaced by the dramatic paradigm shift triggered by the Easter Rising in 1916 and all that flowed from it. After a hundred years of Independence, I think we are ready to embrace the complexity of our past. We are free to choose to find a place for figures like Palliser and Butler.

Eamonn

Rathfarnham, 28 August 2023

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Tagged as Bansha Castle, Bansha House, Darby Ryan, Irene Spry, Irish in Canada, John Palliser, Red Cloud The Solitary Sioux, Story of the Irish in Canada, The Great Lone Land, The Palliser Expedition, William F Butler

August 3, 2023 · 6:13 pm

The Irish and the Colonisation of the Prairie North-West

Ever heard of John Palliser, William Francis Butler, John Macoun, Garnet Wolseley, George and John French, Lief Crozier, or Frederick Middleton? All were leading figures in the colonisation of the Prairie North-West. All of them were from Ireland.

Some context. Canada confederated in 1867 following an earlier phase in the 1840s of responsible government that held the British appointed executive accountable to locally elected assemblies. Canada as a Dominion consisted initially of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Manitoba became the fifth Province in 1870, British Columbia the sixth in 1871, and PEI the seventh in 1873.

The one and half million square miles to the north and west of Canada was Rupert’s Land, granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company by Charles II in 1670. The rest was the North-Western Territory, ‘added’ in 1821. The Indigenous inhabitants who had called it home since time immemorial were not consulted about the HBC’s charter or its claims to civil authority over their ancestral lands. (There is evidence of human settlement in Bluefish Caves, fifty miles from Old Crow in Yukon dating to 24,000 BCE: the first human presence in Ireland is 8,000 years ago.)

By the 1860s and the development of railways, British officials in the Colonial Office in London blanched at the cost of opening of this land to settlement. Yet they feared too that the United States might shift their manifest destiny northward after reaching the Pacific. Britain was keen that the newly confederated Canada establish its claim to the North-West before the Americans got any ideas. Enter John Palliser proposing an expedition to the North-West.

John Palliser grew up in an Anglo-Irish family settled in Ireland for many centuries. By the 1840s, Palliser’s devotion to big-game hunting had taken him deep into the interior of northern North America. His proposal to return came at an opportune time for the Colonial Office. With persistent support from fellow-Irishman at the Colonial Office John Ball, the Colonial office agreed to sponsor a scientific expedition to the Northwest. With an eye to projecting sovereignty and learning about the region, the Colonial Office offered support of £5,000 (over £400,000 today).

We cannot tell when Palliser himself reframed the expedition in his mind from hunting to exploration, but his leadership of the expedition over three seasons was marked by indefatigable good humour, no matter the hardship, and egalitarian charm to all he met. This kept his team together despite the truculence of one member. Significantly and singularly, it meant that the expedition avoided any violence in what was widely regarded as the hostile territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika). Lewis and Clark’s violent encounter with members of the Confederacy in 1806 had not been forgotten. The lack of violence around Palliser’s travels through the region was all the more noteworthy because both Palliser’s party and the Indigenous knew that the expedition portended settlement, colonisation, and profound changes ahead.

Indeed, the “scientific” purpose of the Palliser Expedition was to investigate the potential of the land for transport infrastructure, agricultural and mining development, with the intention of settling a whole new European population there. This was science as colonisation. Even Palliser’s recommendations were not ultimately heeded by this impulse to colonise. He recommended against trying agriculture in a triangle of semi-arid steppe that later bore his name, the Palliser Triangle. Yet indeed homesteads were established in Palliser’s Triangle and the region was subject to punishing periodic droughts.

Palliser’s report was prodigious, full of data. It would remain a standard reference point for many years. Writes Irene Spry: “After Prince Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory had become western Canada, the Expedition’s successors made much use of its Report. Outstanding among them were the geological survey teams, the North-West Mounted Police, and the negotiators of the Indian treaties. Among them, too, was Sandford Fleming, Engineer-in-Chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who was ‘very desirous’ of making Palliser’s acquaintance and did contrive to meet him. He always took a copy of Palliser’s Report with him when going over the ground the Expedition had covered, finding it of great use.” [Palliser Papers, pp cxxxii-cxxxiii]

Palliser is remembered today in many place names in Alberta. However, like so many of the Anglo-Irish in British North America, both his direct contribution and his Irish identity has been largely forgotten. Comeragh House was burned down at the end of the Troubles in 1923, along with his personal papers. Thanks to the efforts of The Champlain Society, devoted to the preservation of the stories, rigorously tested against the highest academic standards, of those who helped create Canada, Palliser’s papers were compiled and published in 1968, superbly edited by Irene Spry. Her introduction is marvellous. She captures so much detail and personality, without losing sight of the geopolitical context and the consequences of the Expedition. Spry’s account of the Expedition is a classic: The Palliser Expedition, The Dramatic Story of Western Canadian Exploration 1857-1860 (1963). Palliser is buried at the Comeragh Church of Ireland cemetery, near Lemybrien, Waterford.

The American Civil War had consumed not just vast numbers of people, property, and materiel, but any capacity for foreign affairs beyond the demands the war. (The transatlantic cable between NL and Ireland was delayed until 1866). After 1865, Reconstruction was a priority and would remain so for years.

Almost immediately after Canadian Confederation, London set about organising the transfer of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada through a sale agreement for £300,000 in 1869. A sale was prosaic but profound; who could challenge a transaction with money changing hands?

Another key advocate for Canada’s westward expansion getting Prime Minster John A. Macdonald’s attention was John Macoun from County Down, hired as the Geological Survey’s first naturalist and an obsessive collector of flora and fauna. Macoun, at the time a 51 year old botanist, would lead the development of the first natural-history collections for the Museum of Nature and become the founder of Canadian natural history. Through his popular talks in Ottawa he promoted the productive capacity of the North-West, while underplaying the rigors of its winters.

Before the Dominion of Canada could establish its control over the North-West, the Métis of the Red River Settlement mounted an armed resistance and asserted their rights to their land, culture, and livelihood. Under the leadership of Louis Riel (his surname possibly from Reilly or O’Reilly some generations previously), the Red River Métis established a provisional government in late 1869 and negotiated the establishment of Manitoba as the fifth province to enter the Confederation the following year. The Manitoba Act however did not contain an amnesty for the members of the Provisional Government.

To assert its authority in the region, Canada organised a military expedition under the command of Garnet Wolseley. Wolseley was born in Dublin in 1833 and his family seat was in Carlow. However, his father died when he was young, leaving his widow to raise seven children. Under financial pressure, she educated Garnet in Dublin rather than England (as was the custom) and he joined the British Army to start a career, without having to purchase the commission thanks to his father’s service. Wolseley made his way up the ranks through energy, bravery, and leadership. A decorated soldier who saw active service in colonial wars in Burma, India (rebellion), and China (Opium War), and losing sight in one eye in the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, Wolseley travelled to and investigated the American Civil War from the Confederate side. He was active countering the Fenian raids into Canada as Deputy Quartermaster (at 34, the youngest ever in that role).

Macdonald therefore picked a brave and experienced officer, “the most capable British soldier of the period” says the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB), to lead the Red River Expedition against Riel and his provisional government. The Expedition had a two-fold purpose: end the Red River Resistance and project sovereignty over the region to forestall any American intentions.

Wolseley wanted to know more about the territory before committing his troops. He picked another Irishman as an intelligence officer to go in advance of the main force and report back. William F. Butler was born in 1838 in Tipperary and as a young boy witnessed the terrible effect of the Great Famine. As the DCB notes: “William Francis Butler was born into an impoverished family of Tipperary gentry with a tradition of service to the British crown. As a child, he observed the ravages of the Great Famine and seems to have been left with a permanent sympathy for the underdog. Although his education was interrupted because his father spent all his money aiding famine victims, Butler developed a passion for history and biography that occupied his leisure until his death.”

An experienced soldier, Butler had no experience of the rigors of the Northwest but he was tough and learned quickly from Indigenous guides and trappers. He convinced Riel of his peaceful intentions and was free to travel. Butler covered over four thousand miles on foot, horseback and dogsled, from Lake Superior to the Rockies, north to Edmonton and Lake Athabasca, along the Saskatchewan River, and back to Winnipeg. A talented writer, like Wolseley himself, Butler’s report was published as The Great Lone Land. It became a best seller and instant classic of Western Canadian History. Thanks to the great McGahern’s Antiquarian Books here in Ottawa, I got a copy. It is a great adventure story, with beautifully descriptive passages and vivid characters he meets along the way. Butler, from a Catholic family that survived centuries of turmoil in Ireland, demonstrates a huge empathy with the Indigenous communities whose lifestyle and even existence faced extinction in the face of the white settlement to come.

One of Butler’s tasks was to make recommendations to ensure the rule of law before an influx of white settlers in an area that had been roiled by tensions between Indigenous people, commercial hunters and trappers, stoked often by sales of whiskey (one of the forts, near present-day Lethbridge, Alberta, was actually named Whoop-Up). A Catholic and life-long advocate for Home Rule for Ireland, Butler was keen to bring order with the least amount of corruption. His recommendations led to the establishment of the Northwest Mounted Police, modelled on the Royal Irish Mounted Constabulary.

Like Palliser before him, Butler was acutely aware that he was participating in work that would bring an end to an Indigenous way of life in areas whose very lack of European settlement was what he found most alluring about it. The Cree, he wrote, had yet to suffer injustice at the hands of the white man because their land was theirs, their hunting grounds undisturbed. But their days were numbered, he lamented, “and already the echo of the approaching wave of Western immigration is sounding through the solitudes of the Cree country”. He continued in an eloquent summary of colonialism’s progress:

“It is the same story from the Atlantic to the Pacific. First the white man was the welcome guest, the honoured visitor: then the greedy hunter, the death-dealing vender of fire-water and poison: then the settler and exterminator – everywhere it has been the same story.” [The Great Lone Land, p 242.]

(Interestingly, Butler rose to become Commander of British Forces in South Africa in 1898 but resigned, sympathetic to Boer demands for home rule and unwilling to take the offensive against them. Failure in the war fanned Butler’s fame. He died in Bansha Castle, Tipperary, in 1910. Bansha Castle is a wonderful guest house today.)

Briefed by Butler and very well prepared, Wolseley led the Expedition from Toronto in May 1870. Expectations, notably in the US, were high that it would end in abject failure. They had not reckoned on Wolseley. According to the DCB, Wolseley “moved a force consisting of nearly 400 British troops, over 700 Canadian militia, and a large party of civilian voyageurs and workmen from their port of embarkation at Collingwood, Ont., to the Red River between 3 May and 24 August, without losing a man. Altogether the expedition made 47 portages and ran 51 miles of rapids.”

Wolseley’s expedition completed its mission, though Riel and his followers had abandoned Fort Garry and Riel himself fled south to the US. This was itself a good outcome, considerably easing tensions. The Anglo-Irish Governor John Young (Lord Lisgar) had warned Macdonald against execution were Riel intercepted. Years later, Riel’s execution after the 1885 North-West Resistance was a travesty of justice. It embittered the Métis and French Canadians against the federal government and exacerbated tensions along ethnic, linguistic, and confessional lines across Canada.

One of the most arduous military marches in Canadian history, hacking out new roads in places, Wolseley proved it was possible to reach the North-West without a major detour into US territory. (US refusal to allow Wolseley pass on their side of the rapids on the St Mary River led to the construction of the Salte Ste Marie Canal.) If Palliser had avoided provoking confrontation through inter-personal skills, Wolseley did so through the size of his force and the overweening power of the British Empire he represented. The expedition’s projection of Canadian authority was an unmistakable signal to the US about who ruled north of the 49th parallel.

Informed by Butler’s report, Macdonald instructed that the policing of the Northwest should be modelled on the Royal Irish Mounted Constabulary. The man he picked to lead it had briefly served in the Royal Irish Constabulary, George Arthur French from Roscommon.

The extended French family was deeply rooted in Galway for centuries, with a base created in Roscommon through a grant of five thousand acres. French found himself impecunious like successive Anglo-Irish generations who did not inherit land. They had to fend for themselves, often finding employment in the service of the British Empire. George French’s professional career personified this. French enlisted in the Royal Artillery, a branch of the armed services open to those who could not pay for commissions in, for example, the cavalry. Before he did so, he briefly joined the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), which was to prove consequential for him. In 1862, two years after being commissioned as a lieutenant, French arrived in Kingston as an inspector of artillery for the Canadian militia. Canadian Confederation in 1867 was followed by plans for the withdrawal of British forces in 1870. French was in a key role overseeing the transfer to Canadian militia of forts and artillery. The militia would need artillery batteries and at his urging the Department of Militia and Defence instructed him in 1871 to establish and run artillery schools at Kingston and Quebec. In the 1870s then, French was one of the many Irish, Anglo-Irish, and Irish Canadians making Canadian nationhood a reality.

The foundational event in the establishment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was its famous March West in 1874. Its purpose was to bring ‘order’ by establishing a presence in key locations and project Canadian authority over the region. Macdonald chose French to become the first Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, the RCMP’s forerunner. Aged 32, he served from October 1873 to July 1876. The Government in Ottawa refused London’s request to send him back to the British Army because he was “urgently required.” The March West made the arduous journey of 2000 km and established bases at Fort Macleod, Swan River, Bow River, Fort Walsh and Fort Saskatchewan.

Enforcing strict standards of probity in the new force, a strict disciplinarian and very assertive with the authorities in Ottawa, there were tensions between French and the Government. Yet a review of what he and the NWMP police had achieved was deemed very successful and French demanded that Ottawa thank his force for their accomplishments. After fifteen years’ service in Canada, French returned to his British military career and rose to the rank of major-general in 1902, retiring two year later. It was a measure of the dramatic changes in Canada that French travelled across Canada in his seventies by train on the eve of WWI.

Among French’s 16 officers during the March West was his dashing and fearless brother John. An expert horseman, he cut quite a figure with his jet black hair and beard. John built a career in the NWMP (as would two of his sons), retiring in 1883 with the rank of Inspector, to take up farming and become a local politician. With the outbreak of Riel’s North-West Resistance in 1885, John raised a militia of 34 men, known admiringly as French’s Scouts. John was killed at the Battle of Batoche, shot through the chest reputedly by Métis combatant Alexander Ross who also died in the battle.

By 1885, another member of the famous March West, Lief Crozier from Newry, had been promoted to Inspector in the NWMP. (The only surviving red tunic from the March West was worn by Crozier and is currently on display at the Canadian Museum of History.) Crozier was prone to bouts of irrational behaviour that at times convinced his soldiers he was insane. He explained this as “prairie madness” and the episodes did little to thwart his career. Crozier warned Ottawa that Louis Riel’s return the previous year would cause trouble but Ottawa did nothing. Outnumbered by Métis at the battle of Duck Lake, nine volunteers and three NWMP officers were killed but Crozier escaped thanks to the intervention of Riel. He was promoted to Assistant Commissioner and resigned in 1886, disgusted that he was not chosen to take command of the force. He opened a general store in Oklahoma and became a popular figure regaling his customers with stories of his adventures.

The North-West Field Force sent to suppress the Second Resistance was led by Major-General Frederick Middleton, born in Belfast in 1825. “Middleton was 59 and his days of active soldiering should have been over, but under a Blimpish exterior he hid remarkable courage and endurance, considerable common sense, and more practical experience of frontier warfare than most British officers of his seniority.” [DCB] By 15 May, the Métis stronghold of Batoche had fallen and Riel was in custody.

Pompous, bad tempered, and fearless, Middleton was a canny soldier but failed miserably at winning friends and influencing people. He left a trail of outrage when he left Canada, accused of stealing a Métis’ furs and being dishonourable to his fellow officers. The DCB concludes: “In 1896 he was appointed keeper of the crown jewels, a fitting rebuke to those who had harried him from Canada as a thief. To the end, he remained fit and active, walking daily and skating when he could. He died suddenly in his quarters at the Tower of London.”

Of course I write all of this from my privileged position and white, European, Irish perspective. The view from the Indigenous side is profoundly different. I can only guess at it principle features, knowing nothing of the trauma and damage inflicted on generations of Indigenous families and communities. The fate of their homeland was decided across the ocean by kings, merchants, and strokes of a pen. The Indigenous assisted and rescued trappers and travellers (explorers only to us Europeans!). This hospitality facilitated the mapping and observations that led to colonisation. Treaties entered into with great solemnity and trust were vitiated, by London but in the main by Ottawa. Confederation and colonial legislation led to the expropriation of their land and the near destruction of their freedom, languages, ways of life, and culture. The formation of the NWMP and later RCMP became the cutting edge of imperialism, enforcers of the pass system on reserves, and the detention of their children in the Indigenous Residential School system.

A balanced and accurate account must record Indigenous agency. Indigenous communities had over millennia developed their societies and cultures in some of the most challenging environments on earth. As keepers of knowledge and in their relationship to the land, they lived far more sustainably than the European socio-economic model that colonised their homeland. They responded to the European presence as guides, allies, trappers, and traders. As the 19^th century progressed, Indigenous people faced almost impossible odds with concerted attempts to annihilate their culture and identity. The Residential School System was established on the basis of a report by Nicholas Flood Davin from Limerick.

The Irish involved in the colonisation of the Prairie North-West shared characteristics. They were Irish, deeply rooted in Ireland. Anglo-Irish by birth, heritage, upbringing, and lifestyle, they made choices based on necessities and the opportunities available to them. Most of those opportunities were available through service or business in the British Empire. Whatever they thought about the demands for Irish Home Rule, or indeed the impact of the Empire on the Indigenous peoples forcibly brought within its ambit, they were loyal servants of the Empire. They doubtless shared its self-declared values as well as the biases of the age when it came to notions of what constituted ‘civilisation’. Some of those opportunities, notably those in Canada, called for an adventurous spirit, courage, good horsemanship, and a hardy constitution.

The Irish of the North-West were not alone as émigrés from a colonised Ireland engaged in colonisation on behalf of the British Empire. Over 30% of the British Army throughout the 19^th century were from Ireland. They were many generations of Irish similarly engaged in British North America, whether willingly like the Anglo-Irish leaders of the late 18^th century (the Carletons, Parr, Bulkeley, Patterson, Hamilton et al), or unwillingly like the Famine refugees. People made choices in circumstances scarcely conceivable to us today.

We in Ireland have notions about constitutes our history, derived in part from our struggle against the very Empire that many Irish served. Our perspective in the 20^th century was derived too from an official narrative that was largely shaped by the republican seam in our history which took root after the French Revolution and was canonised by the Easter Rising in 1916. It is as satisfying as it is simplistic. Yet the Irish in history are all the more fascinating when looked at in their myriad roles from in and not just against the British Empire.

The Irish in Canada remind us that our history is more complicated than official narratives and approved perspectives allow. Exploring these complications allows us to embrace all of the seams of Irish history – Catholic, Protestant, nationalist, unionists, loyalist, republican, imperial Irish, and the many identifies that formed and changed over the generations.

Eamonn McKee

Ottawa

3 August 203

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Tagged as Frederick Middleton, Garnet Wolseley, Imperial Irish, Irish in Canada, John Macoun, John Palliser, Lief Crozier, North -West Mounted Police, NWMP, William F Butler

June 25, 2023 · 6:04 pm

Colonial Twins: Ireland, Canada, and the Great Irish Famine

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 18^th century with a strong (Protestant but indigenous) Parliament. Both collapsed into extreme poverty, urban decay, and economic malaise in the 19^th 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 19^th 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 19^th 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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Tagged as Denis Mahon, Great Irish Famine, Ireland and Canada, National Famine Museum, Strokestown House

January 20, 2023 · 10:09 pm

Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

19 January, 2023

Statement by Eamonn McKee

Anglo-Irish Division 1986-89

I joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in October 1986 and was assigned to the Political Section of Anglo-Irish Division. The Division had increased its staff numbers to implement the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, notably:

The establishment of the Secretariat of the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) at Palace Barracks, Belfast. The Secretariat serviced the regular meetings of the Conference and was manned 24-7 by Irish and British officials and staff members.

An expanded team of travelers based out of Iveagh House with specific areas of responsibility derived from the objectives of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Their reports were vital to the briefings and discussions at the Secretariat and the summit meetings of the BIIGC.

The weekly pattern in the Division entailed the dispatch of travelers early in the week to meet with contacts and to report back. Their reports were compiled on Friday morning along with other reports of contacts and meetings from the embassies in London, Washington, and elsewhere into the weekly brief, known as the ‘Box.’ The Box was copied and circulated to the Government and senior officials on Friday afternoon. That day also saw the return of the team from the Secretariat and the departure of the weekend team to Belfast, under high security.

The background of the Ulster Says No campaign led by the DUP, loyalist protests outside the Secretariat, ongoing paramilitary violence, and allegations of security force collusion and human rights abuses created a sense of purpose and consequence in the Division. Writing speeches and briefing notes, responding to a high level of PQs, attending meetings with official counterparts, NGOs, and groups and party representatives from NI, and responding to acts of violence generated a very full work programme. The SDLP, notably John Hume and Seamus Mallon, were frequent visitors to Dublin. SDLP representatives across Northern Ireland were essential sources of advice and guidance.
As a junior officer, I supported the work of the political traveller, Liam Canniffe. Liam and I worked with members of the SDLP, notably Alastair McDonnell, to develop the Disadvantaged Areas Programme to help direct funds from the International Fund for Ireland to areas most affected by the conflict.
The Department of Foreign Affairs conducted a human resource strategy that ensured that officers who were assigned to Anglo-Irish Division were rotated to related postings (Embassy London and Missions in the United States) and back to the Division on return to HQ. This developed a cadre of officers who had in-depth knowledge of, as well as a range of contacts relating to, the key issues in the peace process. This was an important factor in the negotiations of the GFA and the long process of its implementation.
Following the pattern established by the Department, I was posted as Vice-Consul General Boston in August 1989. I was then transferred to the Embassy Washington in January 1990.
1990-1996
I worked directly with the Political Director at the Embassy Washington, Brendan Scannell. Early tasks included countering Ancient Order of Hibernia critiques of the International Fund for Ireland, the establishment of a funding scheme for Irish emigrant groups in the US, and support for the passage of legislation creating the Morrison visa programme which solved the problem at that time of the undocumented Irish. The Embassy’s relationship with Senator Kennedy, the Speakers O’Neill and Foley, the Congressional Friends of Ireland and related staffers was particularly strong and productive on issues related to Northern Ireland but also on all other issues, from visas to agricultural regulations.
Ambassador Dermot Gallagher had opened lines of communication with Bill Clinton and the Clinton-Gore campaign. At the request of Senator Kennedy’s office, which was providing advice to Clinton-Gore on foreign policy and policy in relation to Northern Ireland, I wrote the draft text for the Clinton-Gore letter on Northern Ireland. Clinton’s presidency transformed the role of the White House with regard to the peace process and gave the Embassy unparalleled access. Brendan Scannell played a key role in this, having developed key contacts from his time as Consulate General in Boston. The Saint Patrick’s Day receptions at the White House were invaluable opportunities for networking and validating the significance of the Peace Process.

Anglo-Irish Division 1996-1999

I returned to Anglo-Irish Division at the request of its then Director, Sean Ó hUigínn, to act as the traveller for the Justice and Security Section. Sean had been the key architect, along with Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, of the Downing Street Declaration, one of the breakthrough documents of the peace process leading to the 1994 ceasefires. This breakthrough built on the courageous outreach of John Hume in the Hume-Adams talks. Issues on my desk included parades (the Government’s submission to the North Commission), Bloody Sunday (the Irish Government’s Assessment of the New Material), policing, administration of justice, use of lethal force by the security forces, and allegations of collusion. I worked closely with a number of key contacts, including Alex Attwood of the SDLP, Don Mullan, Martin O’Brien and the Committee on the Administration of Justice, Jane Winter of British Irish Rights Watch, Brendan McAllister of Mediation Northern Ireland, Resident groups in Belfast, Garvaghy Road, Dunloy, journalists, solicitors, and republican contacts. I travelled extensively, more or less weekly, filing reports for the Box and regularly briefing the Secretariat on current issues and participating in meetings there with NIO officials. I acted as the lead official for the proximity talks on Drumcree 1997-1998. My opposite number was Jonathan Powell, Prime Minister Blair’s Chief of Staff.
In the run-up to the negotiations for the GFA, the new Director of Anglo-Irish Division, Dermot Gallagher, formed the Talks Team. I was a member of that team with particular responsibility for policing, justice and security normalisation. Martin Mansergh worked on the new proposed text for Articles 2 and 3 and I sent him a paper recommending the addition of ‘entitlement’ to the ‘birth right.’ By the time I arrived at Castle Complex, draft text had been agreed to on the policing section of the GFA. I invited Seamus Mallon and Alex Attwood to review it, and they confirmed my concerns. Thereafter I was the lead official negotiating new text with the NIO team. The NIO were focused on policing, that which continued to be effective, whereas I was focused on a future policing service that in its composition and ethos reflected society. Both objectives were essential. This creative tension produced hard bargaining, but a very good outcome regarding the terms of reference for what would become the Patten Commission’s recommendations. I extracted some final concessions at our last negotiation session unaware that PM Blair had instructed his officials that all text be finalised with the exception of the language around the North-South bodies.
Overall, the Patten Commission did an excellent job through extensive consultations and a comprehensive set of recommendations that adhered closely to the terms of reference. Patten himself made this clear on the publication of his report when some unionists expressed surprise at the outcome of the Commission’s work. The post-conflict transition in the security sector is one of the most difficult to achieve and sustain in any peace process. In the formation of the Patten Commission, I insisted on the inclusion of Professor Peter Lynch. I understand that he made a significant contribution that helped eliminate the use of plastic baton rounds. The PSNI is an outstanding example of a successful security sector reform process.
I would like to pay tribute to Alex Attwood and Brian Barrington who helped steer the whole implementation of the Patten Recommendations and the establishment of the Policing Board with a forensic focus and determination. For example, Alex played a particularly crucial role in resolving the issue of the Policing Board’s access to sensitive material involving national security on matters relevant to the Authority and its credibility. As with the Finucane case, the SDLP were determined to ensure that allegations of state collusion in the use of lethal force could not and would not be outside the mechanisms for accountability that it endorsed.
Another crucial factor in the success of the policing transformation was the creation of the Oversight Commission led by former New York police officer John Considine and the Office of the Police Ombudsman under Dame Nuala O’Loan. The Oversight Commission ensured that the recommendations of the Patten Commission were fully implemented and operational on the ground. This provided a vital assurance for the acceptance of the PSNI and the eventual decommissioning of paramilitary weapons.

Consulate General New York, 1999-2001
I was assigned as Press Officer to the Consulate General in New York and returned to HQ in December 2001.

Anglo-Irish Division, 2002-2004
I was again assigned to Anglo-Irish, this time as head of the Justice and Security Section.

During the negotiations of the GFA, I learned that it had been agreed that while policing would have a full independent commission, the justice system would be reviewed only. This reflected a strong belief in the NIO and among Unionists that the justice system had continued to operate throughout the conflict and did not require fundamental reform. However, the review process was not without its problems. When I returned in 2002, I learned from contacts that the Criminal Justice Act, which gave effect to the recommendations of the Review, fell short of requirements, notably on judicial appointments. In anticipation of another round of talks to advance the implement of the GFA and secure the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, I convened talks involving the SDLP, led by Alex Attwood, and Sinn Féin, led by Gerry Kelly, at the Wellington Park hotel to agree a common agenda for amendments to the Act. These proposed changes became part of the negotiations convened at Hillsborough in March 2003. These commitments, including to a new Act, were published in a Joint Declaration by the British and Irish Governments in April 2003.
I was also involved in secret talks at Farmleigh with British security officials on security normalisation. This was the culmination of many years of talks about the pace of normalisation. For example, the Chief Constable regarded the Observation Towers in South Armagh as essential to the safety of his officers where locals detested them as unwarranted intrusions. They had continued in operation for many years after the signing of the GFA. Seamus Mallon with mordant humour regarded them as the bane of his life. The eventual dismantling of the Towers and other military installations were seen as tangible indications of the progress of the peace process.
Arising from the Weston Park Agreement and the SDLP’s endorsement of the new policing arrangements, the British and Irish Governments agreed to appoint a judge of international standing to investigate allegations of collusion in six controversial cases, including the murder of Pat Finucane. The judge was to make a recommendation on whether any or all of these cases merited a public inquiry. There was considerable back and forth between Dublin and London as to the appointee7. I interviewed and recommended Judge Peter Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada. This was endorsed by the British Government. Judge Cory did an outstanding job with speed and great integrity. His recommendation for a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane has yet to be implemented.

Irish Aid, UN Director, Director Conflict Resolution Unit, 2004-2009

In 2005 I was asked by the Secretary General Dermot Gallagher, acting at the request of the Minister, Dermot Ahern T.D., to establish a conflict resolution unit to share the lessons of the peace process. We launched a number of initiatives including a National Action Plan on UNSC 1325 Women, Peace and Security, and projects in East Timor, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In 2009 I was appointed as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

2013 to the present
In 2013 I was appointed Ambassador to Israel. In 2015 I returned to HQ as Director General for Trade. In 2020 I was appointed as Ambassador to Canada, Jamaica and The Bahamas.

Eamonn McKee
Ambassador of Ireland, Ottawa
15 January 2022

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January 1, 2023 · 8:34 pm

The Good Friday Agreement Twenty-five years on: The Summer of 1998 and the Long Road to Peace

Travelers were officials working in Anglo-Irish Division who would weekly travel north to meet contacts, learn what was going on, report back and feed into intergovernmental discussions. Memory jog seeing my NI reports surface in the released state papers.[1] The parades issue was my beat as a traveler. It pitched NI into new levels of heightened social tensions with dire potential.

Flashpoints combusted when Orange Lodges insisted on marching through nationalist areas. Places like the Lower Ormeau Road in south Belfast and the small village of Dunloy in the heart of Orange country in Antrim. Drumcree in Armagh, the birthplace of Orangism, emerged as the leading battle of wills.

Portadown Orange Lodge No. 1 held a traditional church service at Drumcree on the Sunday before the Twelfth of July, the annual celebration of King William of Orange’s victory over King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1691. The traditional route took them along the Garvaghy Road, a nationalist housing estate on the edge of the predominantly loyalist Portadown. For the Twelfth, Portadown centre would be festooned with red, white and blue bunting, curb stones similarly painted, and triumphal arches erected across the street depicting King Billy astride a white horse.

Why now, with the ceasefires in place? As my contact and friend Brendan McAllister of Mediation Northern Ireland explained to me, the parades issue emerged after the paramilitary ceasefires as the new vehicle for the cross-community divisions that lay at the heart of the conflict. The struggle between the paramilitaries and the security forces had acted as a default, a kind of lethal Punch and Judy show between ‘professionals’ on both sides, paramilitaries and the security forces.[2]

The Orange Lodges insisted that they had the right to march ‘the Queen’s highways.’ Resident groups resisted this, saying they should not be locked in their homes with the security forces aiding a sectarian and triumphal demonstration. Each side saw in this a contest about their place in society, their rights, and the esteem of their identity.

The British Government appointed the North Commission to review parades and marches. It reported that “The dispute in the summer of 1996 between the Loyal Orders and Nationalist residents groups, which required major intervention by the police under the public order legislation, brought Northern Ireland close to anarchy.”[3] Since the issue was on my desk, I drafted the Government’s response to the North Review. It appeared from my research that while the right to assembly was a well-established one in many jurisdictions, there was no right to decide the route to that assembly. Our submission argued that each parade dispute be subjected to arbitration based on the rule of law to adjudicate between those who insisted on marching and those who resisted such marches. The Director General, Sean Ó hUigínn, reviewed, honed and approved the draft. We traveled to meet the North Review to discuss the submission, Sean leading the delegation and responding to their questions with his eloquence and deep intellect. He left satisfied with the outcome. The North Review recommended the establishment of a Parades Commission operating under a new Public Processions (NI) Act 1998.[4]

Tensions spilled over again in July 1997 as the Garvaghy Residents were cleared off their streets by the RUC on the night before the Orange parade. Riots broke out across the North. The Minister, Ray Burke, called me to his office and instructed me to meet the residents. From the rise above Newry town, an eerie sight of plumes of black smoke rose across the North.

With the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, the Drumcree march in July became a test case. The newly established Parades Commission had ruled against the parade going via the Garvaghy Road. Loyalists and Orangemen gathered outside the church at Drumcree. Nationalist supporters flooded into the Garvaghy Road. The British Army dug a ditch and put up barbed wire in between both groups. There was something primal about the carnival of menace, jeering, fireworks and hatred from Drumcree hill. Everything seemed to be on the line: rights, law and order, the authority of the Parades Commission, the future.

In an attempt to head off the confrontation, ‘proximity talks’ were convened. The Orange Order refused to meet directly with the Garvaghy Residents, seeing in this an admission that the Residents had a say in public order. I was with them as the Government’s representative. Their legal advisor was Rosemary Nelson from nearby Lurgan. I knew Rosemary from previous cases that we had raised through the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Conference. We talked a lot about the North in the longueurs of the proximity talks, about the tensions of living there, of the relief she felt whenever she crossed the border south. There wasn’t much for me to do but observe, check with contacts, make sure no untoward or unacceptable initiatives made matters worse, and keep Dublin closely informed. Under the leadership of the new DG of Anglo-Irish, Dermot Gallagher, senior officials in Dublin, Belfast and London were actively engaged and monitoring developments, advising the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as developments unfolded. I’m sure the lines between Ahern and Blair were busy. Up north, as a mediator trusted by all sides including leading churchmen on both sides, Brendan McAllister was trying his best to cajole a solution. My opposite number was Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff. Jonathan too tried his best to negotiate a solution as he shuttled between Portadown Orange Lodge No 1 and the Garvaghy Road Residents.

Then a horrific incident changed the atmosphere. Jason, Mark and Richard Quinn, three young boys, died in a UVF firebomb attack on their home in Ballymoney on July 12th. Widespread condemnation was immediate, including from some very courageous Protestant clergymen who spoke out from the pulpits. A new consensus coalesced, enough was enough. Tensions eased, the Parades Commission’s decision was upheld. Garvaghy Road did not see an Orange Parade.

The Good Friday Agreement faced another dreadful test a month later. On August 15^th the Real IRA exploded a bomb in Omagh, killing 29 and including more than 200. It was the worst incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, surpassed in lethality only by the Dublin Monaghan bombings in 1974 that killed 33 and injured more than 300. The consensus hardened that such murderous violence had to be consigned to the past, that the GFA was the future.

In that summer of 1998, it was as if the Agreement, the shield of good intentions and high ambitions, made of words and ink, blessed by the people’s endorsement North and South, was being tested by the swords and dragons of Northern Ireland.

Though Northern Ireland’s swordsmen and dragons died hard, the shield stood. There would be other killings, for sure. In March 1999, Rosemary Nelson was killed when a bomb exploded under her car. It was claimed by a loyalist group. Yet peace had the upper hand and the inclination to use of violence ebbed. Even the means to carry it out were tackled, led by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Canada’s General John de Chastelain played a key role in this along with its other members. I had never been sure that decommissioning had been feasible. In the wake of the GFA, a republican contact in Derry had thrown a live round across a table at me, said take it to Dublin and “tell them that’s the only f—king decommissioning they’re going to see.” It was a stubborn issue that took years to unlock but that too was achieved. As the new policing represented by the PSNI took hold, the prize of decommissioning all paramilitary weapons was finally won. The monopoly on the use of violence was returned to the state.

Twenty-five years on, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement reminds us of what we left behind: killing and hatred, a decent future frustrated by the claims of the past. Finding peace in Northern Ireland had been a long road: the Sunningdale Agreement 1973-74, the Haughey-Thatcher summits in the early 1980s, the Anglo-Irish Agreement 1985, the Hume-Adams talks, the paramilitary ceases fires in 1994 and 1997, the GFA in 1998 and the twenty-nine subsequent agreements to implement it. Through infinite hours of talks, meetings and negotiations, peace came dropping slow.

Great leaders emerged who took courageous decisions: Hume, Mallon, Haughey, Thatcher, FitzGerald, Spring, Major, Reynolds, Adams, McGuinness, Trimble, Robinson, Bruton, McAleese, Paisely (eventually) and Blair. Countless others included the women of the Peace Movement like Mairead Corrigan and later leaders of the Women’s Coalition like Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sagar. People working in NGOs and community groups at interfaces, risking vilification and physical violence to inch forward toleration.

Now the black swan of Brexit calls again for leadership of a very high order, provided on the Irish side by a new political generation. Like generations of peace makers of all kinds, as officials we were sustained by a ‘duty of hope’, committed to the process, always working toward a better future. Here’s to more progress in 2023.

Eamonn

Ottawa

1 January 2023

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/pithy-and-precise-the-post-it-notes-from-bruton-s-era-1.4765531

[2] Security forces as a term covers many organizations, including RUC, its Special Branch which was regarded as a force within a force, the British Army and a host of covert intelligence agencies, including MI5 and the British Army’s Force Research Unit.

[3] https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/parade/docs/north97sum.pdf

[4] http://www.paradescommission.org/

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Tagged as Drumcree, Garvaghy Road, Good Friday Agreement, Parades Commission, Rosemary Nelson

December 31, 2022 · 6:16 pm

Bloody Sunday: When and Why Apologies Work

Interesting to read about British discussions in 1997 about an apology for Bloody Sunday. Northern Ireland Secretary of State Mo Mowlam wanted a review but only one such that “no soldier or other crown servant should be placed in jeopardy of legal action by whatever the reviewer might find or by what might flow from his findings”.

As the Irish Times reports, “the restricted files released in Belfast show there was considerable debate within the UK government during 1997 over whether a fresh inquiry was necessary, or if a more limited review and apology might suffice.”[1] The Defence Secretary, George Robertson, was concerned either that a review without legal consequence could not be guaranteed since a decision to prosecute lay with the AG, or that such a review would be of little interest to the Bloody Sunday relatives. “A heartfelt apology should, in my view, be the Government’s last word on the subject.”

Here’s why an apology would not have worked in 1997 but was appropriate and fitting in 2010.

An apology in 1997 would have been an attempt to head off the pressure for a new inquiry into the 1972 killing of 14 people in Derry by the British Army (the Paras). Pressure to revisit the killings increased dramatically with Don Mullan’s Eyewitness Bloody Sunday. With forensic skill and detective work, Don worked through the contemporaneous statements ignored by Widgery. Over 500 statements had been collected by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the National Council for Civil Liberties.[2] His account directly challenged the official British version contained in the report of the Widgery Inquiry.

Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice of Britain, had conducted a public inquiry under the gold-standard Tribunal of Inquiries Act 1921. With undue haste, it took him only a month. Yet his conclusions echoed through the years. In exonerating the soldiers and blaming the victims with false accusations that they were armed, Widgery became synonymous in Ireland with a white wash. The Widgery Report was dismissed, including by the Irish Government.

The events of Bloody Sunday and the Widgery Report exacerbated the conflict, strengthened the Provisional IRA, cast the British Army into the role of aggressor, and robbed nationalists of any belief that the rule of law or justice was available to them under British rule.

Yet however much nationalists would denigrate the Widgery Report, it was the official British version of events by the Lord Chief Justice, the officer at the very apex of the British legal system. This is what the long campaign of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign was up against. If there was ever to be a new inquiry, the Widgery Report would have to be set aside. By 1997 the case against Widgery was reaching a climax.

The publication of Mullan’s Eyewitness Bloody Sunday prompted renewed calls for another inquiry and the campaign of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign got a fresh impetus. In addition to Don’s work, others like Professor Dermot Walsh of the University of Limerick had analysed the statements by soldiers to the Military Police and Treasury Solicitors, detailing their many discrepancies and alterations. New ballistic evidence emerged, reinforcing the questions raised back in 1972 by Samuel Dash. Channel Four News broadcast new interviews with soldiers on duty that day that challenged the Widgery version of events. We discovered 101 statements by eyewitnesses collected by Irish Government officials. Investigative reporting by the Sunday Business Post added to the growing body of evidence that the Widgery was indeed a white wash, at the very least an incomplete and distorted account of events.

Parliamentary Questions were tabled in the Dáil. In drafting responses, I suggested and the Department of the Taoiseach (Paul McGarry) agreed, that the ‘new material’ presented by Don Mullan would be assessed. Initially I had no idea how to do this. A colleague and friend, Gerry Corr, was intrigued. “You are summoning beasts from the deep” he said, “What will you do if they come?” (Gerry became a life-long friend with a highly distinguished diplomatic career and one of the Department’s great speech writers. He had worked as a traveler in Anglo-Irish Division during some of the worst years of the conflict.)

So I went back to the source and read the Widgery Report. It was a rich repository of material about the events of that infamous day. It was plain to see where Widgery had to distort the narrative to validate pre-determined conclusions. The rationale for ignoring eyewitness statements that conflicted with Widgery’s mission to exculpate of the soldiers was clear. The new material from all its various sources did not need to be proven factually or legally correct. Rather it could be collated and aimed directly at Widgery’s claims, paragraph by paragraph. The Widgery Report could be hoist on its own petard. The draft Assessment was finished with great editorial and research support from colleagues in Anglo-Irish Division, and Gerry Cribben and Wally Kirwan in the Department of the Taoiseach.

However to my mind, the real test of the Assessment’s merit was the judgement of the Director General of Anglo-Irish Division at the time, Sean Ó hUigínn. Sean played a pivotal role in the peace process, a supreme intellect at work navigating the way forward in the crucial transition from conflict to ceasefires. He had been the architect of the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, working closely with the Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, another driving force in the peace process. After Sean had read the draft, I was summoned to his office. He was leafing through the document and lay it on the coffee table as I sat down. As long as there were no glaring errors in it, he approved text. Relief. In his view, the new material fatally undermined and discredited the Widgery Report. More than that, Sean subsequently added concluding paragraphs that resounded with the high principles of justice at stake. His indictment was eloquent and excoriating:

“There have been many atrocities in Northern Ireland since Bloody Sunday. Other innocent victims have suffered grievously at various hands. The victims of Bloody Sunday met their fate at the hands of those whose duty it was to respect as well as to uphold the rule of law. However, what sets this case apart from other tragedies which might rival it in bloodshed, is not the identity of those killing and killed, or even the horrendous circumstances of the day. It is rather that the victims of Bloody Sunday suffered a second injustice, this time at the hands of Lord Widgery, the pivotal trustee of the rule of law, who sought to taint them with responsibility for their own deaths in order to exonerate, even at great moral cost, those he found it inexpedient to blame.”[3]

Under Sean’s seal of approval, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern conveyed the Assessment to the newly elected British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I understand that he underlined in the strongest possible terms the import of how Blair would respond and of the significance of overturning the historic wrong of Bloody Sunday. Blair could have little doubt that such a powerful gesture would reinforce the momentum toward peace and reconciliation.

The intention was to publish the Assessment eventually so that even if the British Government refused a new inquiry, the Irish Government would table in effect an alternative narrative. It was a great example of the collective talent and teamwork that the Irish system was able to bring to the peace process.

Legend has it that Blair gave the Assessment to his wife Cherie to read with her legal eye. She had just taken silk, become a Queen’s Counsel. I like to think that that might be true. Imagine the scene as, possibly armed with a legal pad of her notes, she tells Tony that he can’t stand over Widgery.

It was quite a moment then in January 1998 as, across the floor of the House of Commons, Blair faced Ted Heath, the Prime Minister who had established the Widgery Inquiry over twenty-five years earlier. Blair announced a new inquiry: “I have been strongly advised that there are indeed grounds for such a further Inquiry. We believe that the weight of material now available is such that these events require re-examination.”

The Inquiry would take twelve years and cost £200 million. Yet in that brave decision Blair sent a profound message that he meant business about a new form of engagement in Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s apology in 2010 was meaningful precisely because it was based on the conclusions of the Saville Inquiry. “What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong……Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government, indeed, on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.”

An apology in 1997 would have done little to substantively correct the double injustice of the victims, murdered and then blamed for their own deaths. Thanks to the Saville Inquiry, the victims of Bloody Sunday had their innocence not just declared but proven. The wrongs of Bloody Sunday were laid at the door of the British Army. And through the long years of the Saville Inquiry, there was much truth recovery that in future years will be invaluable for future assessments of what happened that day and why.

Eamonn

Ottawa

31 December 2022

[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2022/12/31/bloody-sunday-mo-mowlams-draft-apology-on-soldiers-not-intending-murder-ruled-out/

[2] Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, 25^th Anniversary edition, p 23.

[3] Bloody Sunday and the Report of the Widgery Tribunal, The Irish Government’s Assessment of the New Material, p

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December 15, 2022 · 2:56 am

Death of a Peace Maker and Friend: Brendan McAllister RIP

As we approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, there is naturally a focus on the negotiations of that historic agreement and its implementation. That is right and proper. However, peace in Northern Ireland was the achievement of courageous people who reached across the sectarian divide in myriad gestures of reconciliation. Peacemakers worked for years, decades even, through the haze of violence, riots and blood, reaching for a better future, for the better part of our natures, for peace.

One of those people was Brendan McAllister. He died unexpectedly, suddenly, too young, this week. His name will not be familiar to most. To those who knew him, and loved him, his name is in our hearts.

Brendan worked with Mediation Northern Ireland in the years before and after the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994. Alex Attwood, member of the SDLP and a former Assembly member and Minister, was one of his closest friends. Reflecting on Brendan’s life and work, Alex said Brendan went to the hardest places. There were no harder places in mid-1990s than the confrontations between the Loyal Orders and nationalist residents.

In 1996, parades in contentious areas like the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast and the Garvaghy Road in Portadown exposed sectarian emotions at their rawest. Peace in Northern Ireland felt like it was on the line. As a mediator, Brendan went there armed with his humanism, his abiding Christianity, his determination to make Northern Ireland a better place, a place where people weren’t murdered for their beliefs. Brendan explained the parades issue. Before the ceasefires, the Northern Ireland conflict was fought between ‘professionals’ on both sides: the PIRA versus the security forces. In a way, they were the Punch and Judy show, avatars and mediums of the deeper divisions within society.

Brendan worked hard as a mediator to win trust on all sides, to bridge the sectarian divide, to find common humanity. Drumcree emerged as the titular confrontation of the parades issue. As a traveller with Anglo-Irish Division, we found each other in the no-man’s land between the Garvaghy residents and the Orange Order. He was working to mediate, to connect the key stakeholders and find an agreed solution. Jonathan Powell, PM Tony Blair’s chief of staff, was lead for the British Government. I was point for the Irish Government. Daily, I would talk to Brendan, analyze, assess, and report back to Dublin.

The annual Drumcree crisis washed over us, nationalist residents beaten off their own road by the RUC in daylight in 1996. Then beaten off their own road again at night by the RUC in 1997. Still Brendan worked to connect, and not just in Portadown about across innumerable interfaces in Northern Ireland, firefighting for peace, for that better future.

The Good Friday Agreement changed the equation. Lines were held in 1998. Courageous people spoke for toleration. As the Parades Commission adjudicated each confrontation, the energy drained slowly from the parades issue. Again Brendan was at the coalface, injecting into the arbitration the philosophy and practice of mediation, reason, and compromise.

Brendan was also truly influential on the policing project. His experience of the parade confrontations the critical role of policing in avoiding escalation and calm tensions. Security sector reform is one of the most difficult challenges of any peace process. In Northern Ireland, it was not only critical but successful. Thanks to his input and influence before the Patten Commission and during the implementation of its recommendations, policing change in Northern Ireland was profound and successful. It remains an enduring success of the peace process precisely because it is no longer on the radar screen.

Years later, Brendan served as a Victims Commissioner and the Department of Foreign Affairs nominated Brendan for the UN’s panel of standby mediators. I am sure that his wisdom, compassion and experience of conflict were invaluable in the places where he worked.

I met Brendan and his wonderful wife Elizabeth a few years ago at a dinner hosted by the Irish Joint Secretary in Belfast. It was a wonderful evening, a joy to spend time with Brendan and other old contacts. When we parted, we hugged. Brendan was a hugger. And a smiler too with a ready infectious laugh that said ‘sure what’s it all about?’ By then the shadow on Brexit had fallen over the North. There would be more work for Brendan, endless work of reconciliation. Reflective as ever, his thoughts turned back to his faith and earlier this year he was ordained a Deacon. When Brendan died last Tuesday, Northern Ireland lost a true friend and a gentle guide on its journey to a better future.

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador of Ireland to Canada

Ottawa, 14 December 2022

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November 24, 2022 · 2:56 pm

Irish Night on the Hill, 23 November 2022, Remarks

Failte romhat, a chairde, welcome everyone. Tá an-athas mór orm, I’m delighted to see you all here. Good evening ladies and gentle, friends of Ireland. What a thrill to have you all here this evening.

This is our third Night on the Hill. The first two were organized by Jamie and my dear colleagues Jim Kelly and Michael Hurley. Tragically, both passed away in their prime. Earlier this year, I was shocked to get a phone call saying that Jim had died suddenly last St Patrick’s Day. It is impossible to reconcile his wife Anne and their two daughters, Orla and Ciara, to their loss. That is permanent, eased only by loving memories.

However, it was some comfort to recall to Anne how many people Jim had touched in Canada with his humanity, his warmth and his professional integrity as a diplomat so proud to represent his country. Knowing Jim’s love for Canada and the Irish in Canada, he would be well chuffed about our gathering this evening. We remember him this evening.

There is no better place for a Parliament than on a Hill. I love this Hill. At the confluence of the Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau Rivers, this Hill was always a meeting place. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional territory of the Anishinabek and the Algonquin.

We recall too that it was John Egan from Galway who played the instrumental role in securing the land at Maniwaki for the reserve at Kitigan Zibi in 1853. Egan arrived here in 1830, penniless. He became the Ottawa Valley’s leading lumber baron. He helped to develop Bytown through lumber, stream boats and rail connections, and as a leading politician. Egan entertained Governor General Lord Elgin during his visit to Bytown as part of the campaign to make it the capital city of Canada.
Egan sold land at half price to the Irish. That is why we had such strong Irish settlement in the Ottawa and Gatineau Valleys. I’d like to recognize our Irish friends here from Brennan’s Hill, Martindale and Venosta in Gatineau and from Douglas.

The Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin and raised in Trim. Most of his soldiers were Irish. Without Wellington, there would have been no Rideau Canal. No canal, no Ottawa.

Michael McBane is here, a great local historian. Thank you Michael for all your research on this region’s Irish Heritage. It is thanks to Michael that we know that Famine Irish emigrants died of fever on this hill, men, women and children, in 1847. Thanks to Michael too, we know that some 300 hundred of their remains lie in Macdonalds Gardens Park. We are working to commemorate that site.

Thanks to Canadian compassion, like that of Sister Bruyère of the Grey Nuns, most of the Famine Irish survived in Bytown as well as all along the St Lawrence River, from Quebec and Montreal to Kingston, Toronto and Hamilton. Through such Canadian compassion, the Irish found hope here. Through the opportunities in Canada, the Irish found success here.

The Irish gave much to Canada too. Irish and French workmen built the Parliament complex. In the halls of Parliament, Thomas D’Arcy McGee could marvel at the outcome of the negotiations for Confederation in 1867. His friend, Lord Monck from Tipperary, was the Governor General who played a key role in steering those negotiations to success.

Indeed, the first three Governor Generals after Confederation were Irish; Monck, Lisgar and Lord Dufferin. Monck bought Rideau Hall. Lord and Lady Dufferin added the Ballroom, the Tent Room and skating rinks there, making it the centre of social life in Ottawa. They were part of a long line of Anglo-Irish Governor Generals, Lieutenant Governors, officials and soldiers who shaped Canada, from Guy Carlton to the Duke of Wellington.

Thomas Ahearn, son of an Irish born blacksmith, brought electric lighting to Parliament. With his genius for invention and his command of the science of electricity, he brought electric power to Ottawa, electric trams, an electric car and even invented the electric oven. His son Frank Ahearn owned the Ottawa Senators when they won the Stanley Cup in 1923, 1924 and 1927.
Frank and his daughter Lilias lived at 7 Rideau Gate. She became vice regal consort to her father-in –law, Governor General Vincent Massey, and accompanied him to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Today their home is the Government’s official guest house. In three generation, the fabulous Ahearns went from blacksmith, to business empire, to Rideau Hall itself. That says something about them. And it says something great about Canada too.

So we are working on a Bytown-Ottawa Irish Heritage Trail. Call it reverse colonization. By the time we’re finished, Ottawa will be Canada’s leading Irish town. I’d like to welcome newly elected Mayor of Ottawa, Mark Sutcliffe. Great to see him here and have to chance to brief him on our plans to promote the city’s Irish heritage.

I’d also like to recognize Robert Kearns and William Peat from the Canada Ireland Foundation. They have been working for years to promote the Irish Story in Canada and have fantastic plans for the future. We deeply value our collaboration with you.

Grant Vogl of the Bytown Museum is here too. Grant and his team at the Bytown Museum do such great work promoting Ottawa’s great heritage. We’re looking forward to taking our work with them forward. Celebrating the Irish story in Canada is an exciting journey of discovery.

This night is also about friendship. Saying thanks to all our friends and supporters. And working together to build the relationship between Ireland and Canada.

Canada has been a great ally to Ireland. Next year, we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Canadians played a key role in our peace process. Canada was a founder member of the International Fund for Ireland in 1986. Canadians supported the talks process. Judge Peter Cory became a legend for tackling the issue of collusion in Northern Ireland, a wonderful man of compassion and impeccable integrity. General John de Chastelain played a key role on the Decommissioning Commission in taking the gun out of Irish politics. Al Hutchinson helped consolidate the new policing as Police Ombudsman.

Our Peace Process is a work in progress. We are working to restore power-sharing, to remit the damage caused by Brexit. Our future faces challenges that are daunting but exciting, the prospect of unification. That is journey where Canadian support will be vital. Because in Canada we learn that divergent loyalties can happily the same space in peace and stability.

I would like to say a special thank you to my wife and our small team at the Embassy for all that they do promoting Ireland in Canada. They have worked really hard to make this event happen. The team was led by Second Secretary Sally Bourne and she did a terrific job pulling all this together. A warm round of applause and thanks to them.

We have to say goodbye to John Boylan, our Deputy Head of Mission and I know a friend to many of you here. We will sorely miss you John, thanks for your outstanding contribution and best of luck for the future to you, Deirdre and your family.

I would like to acknowledge the Sue Healy school of Irish dancing, and dancers Nora and Nessa Healy, Joely Henderson, Rosalie Boisselle, Hannah Clegg, Ainsley Smith, Lauren Mortimer, Anna Jackson and Adele Stanton-Bursey. Thank you!
Piper Ross Davison, thank you! That’s a genuine set of pipes he’s got there, Uilleann pipes! None of this blowing in a tube stuff!

I would like to pay a particular tribute to my friend James Maloney, Member for Etobicoke. It has been my honour and pleasure getting to know him and to count him as my friend. Thanks to his leadership and support of the Parliamentary Friendship Group, March is officially Irish Heritage Month. And we have great plans for the future. James, the floor is yours.

I am honoured to introduce Senator Robert Black. If his devotion to farming and agriculture is anything to go by, he definitively has Irish genes!

I am now honoured to call on his honour, Kevin Waugh MP. Kevin distinguished himself in his great speech on the Second Reading of the Motion to Irish Heritage Month. In fact, he proved his Irish credentials by breaking into song!

Eamonn McKee

Ambassador

Ottawa

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Tagged as Bytown-Ottawa, Global Ireland, Ireland in Canada, Irish Canadians, Irish Diaspora Canada, Irish Night on the Hill

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