Ambassador’s Message 22 August 2024
Eamonn McKee
We leave after an amazing four years in Canada, enriched by discoveries and encounters, new friends and collaborators, projects and opportunities. Like the beautiful expanse of Canada itself, there are so many treasures of the Irish influence and impact here to be discovered and honored. We are at the start of a reawakening of Irish Canadian heritage and new opportunities for the future.
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Autumn five years ago, Mary and I sat at the kitchen table and wondered about our next posting. Our number one choice was Canada for family and professional reasons. Canada’s name and iconic flag resonated with promise and adventure too. With the very welcome support of the then Secretary General (Niall Burgess), the Government nominated me just before Christmas. After four wonderful years in Canada, we won’t be second guessing our decision.
A microscopic entity severely restrained the normal start to a posting which is typically dominated by meetings, networking, and receptions, all voided by the pandemic. We arrived in September 2020 to a near-empty Pearson Airport and isolated at the Residence. These constraints have to be seen in perspective. Lives were lost to COVID-19, families denied the solace of last moments with loved ones. We pivoted to virtual conferences, panel discussions, even virtual receptions and Embassy podcasts (listed below, along with blogs and Opinion pieces).[1]
Local Irish radio shows like Austin Comerton (Irish Radio Canada), Ken and Mark (Irish Radio Saturday) and supremo host Hugo Straney (Facebook here) were vital platforms to keep people informed and connected. It was always a pleasure to be on their shows. One of my first and strongest impressions was how Irish groups across Canada and ICAN (the Eamonn O’Loughlin Irish Canadian Immigration Centre) retooled to address the pandemic’s impact on the community, from mental health support to food packages.
Anyone familiar with my blogs knows that I look for new stories of Irish heritage on my postings as Ambassador.[2] Wow, did I hit the jackpot in Canada! Here I discovered an epic story of Irish settlement and influence spanning three centuries, mostly untold and largely unknown.
Some forty blogs later, the story only grows in richness. These explorations uncovered new material to celebrate Irish Heritage Month in Canada, provided fodder from my Opinion pieces in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and The Ottawa Citizen, and led me to the project Fifty Irish Lives in Canada 1661-2021.
As I walked to work, my growing knowledge of the depth of Irish settlement in Ottawa turned the town into a home. All around me in the capital region, there is Irish heritage and living Irish communities in the Valleys: Low and Venosta, Arnprior and Smiths Falls, Shawville (with a functioning Orange Lodge!), Eganville, and Douglas to name only a handful.
Prof Mark McGowan, my co-editor for Fifty Irish Lives in Canada (50ILIC), has been an essential collaborator. Mark is the great historian of the Irish in Canada, a man with the integrity and determination of an Old Testament prophet, and a wonderful companion over a pint, whether in Canada or Ireland where I hope to see him often.
Our consortium of writers for 50ILIC is an amazing group of academics who did not hesitate to volunteer profiles: Professors Rosemary O’Flaherty, Michele Holmgren, Elizabeth Smyth, David Wilson, William Jenkins, Laura Smith, and many others. Curator at the Museum of History, historian and skilled editor Tim Foran never refused a request for help, saving me from countless infelicities in some of my blogs about colonization and Indigenous relations.[3] Grant Vogl of the Bytown Museum, another keeper of stories, was a great supporter and contributor.
The 50ILIC manuscript is near completion, many of the profiles are on the Embassy’s social media, and we’re looking for a publisher. Invaluable support from the President of St Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, David Sylvester, boosted our efforts, notably for the Conference last May that the Embassy and College co-hosted on Canada, Ireland and Transatlantic Colonialism.
Historian of the Irish of the Ottawa Valley Michael McBane is our great story keeper and dear friend. Like Donnie Kealey up the Gatineau Valley, Michael was among the first to reveal to me the extent of Irish settlement in the capital region. He pointed me to the final resting place of 360 Irish Famine victims in the heart of Ottawa, forgotten until now. We hosted the first ever commemoration and remembrance event at MacDonald Gardens Park in August 2022.
The exploration of Canada’s Irish heritage also triggered my interest in extending the National Famine Way from Ireland to Canada and indeed beyond. Caroilin Callery at the National Museum at Strokestown Park proved to be a true leader, harnessing up without hesitation to create the Global Irish Famine Way (GIFW), and indispensable to its development. Her father Jim as founder of the Museum has created an incredibly significant institution at Strokestown, a place for remembrance but dialogue about the Famine, historical legacies, and universal messages about humanitarianism.
Caroilin is a talented logistician whose boundless energy also wrangled a diverse group of us last May halfway across Ireland as we followed the Bronze Shoes of the Famine Walk to the Dublin Docks. Glamorous and physically very fit, she must have covered twice the distance moving between the vanguard and the rearguard as we strung out along the Royal Canal over six days! The symbolic departure of the costumed group, which included Caroilin and the great contemporary historian of the Famine Christine Kinealy, aboard the Jenny Johnson was a very moving finale, a weird time-warp back to the traumatic year 1847.
What a sight it was then last May for Caroilin, Mark and I to stand at Pier 12 in St John’s NL to watch the Marine Institute’s Celtic Explorer arrive after its North Atlantic voyage from Galway. Our fifteen emblematic Bronze Shoes were in its hold. We will never forget the reception at The Rooms, the process to and service at the Basilica, all organized by John FitzGerald who combines his passion for heritage and Ireland in the most effective ways.
The installation of Bronze Shoes is now underway at sites in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. After Canada, we plan installations at sites in Australia, South Africa, and the United States. The 40,000km long Global Irish Famine Way is a project with a long life ahead of it, acting as a vital thread collecting the stories of the migration of two million Irish around the world. Caroilin and our network of volunteers have big plans for the GIFW, the Famine Summer School, and the Famine Walk (locals call it the Famino) in the years ahead.
James Maloney MP from Toronto has just been terrific. He leads the Canada Ireland Parliamentary Friendship Group with great passion and was instrumental in designating March as Irish Heritage Month. James has also been my go-to-guy, for tasks great and small. For example, thanks to James’ influence, Prime Minister Trudeau joined us for the first and necessarily virtual launch of Irish Heritage Month back in 2021 and again for a meeting with the Tánaiste in PJ O’Brien’s for St. Patrick’s Day 2024.
Thanks to a dedicated GIFW Committee in Ottawa, Bronze Shoes are soon to be installed at Macdonald Gardens Park as part of the Global Irish Famine Way. This installation is a project that rallied passionate support from the Irish community in Ottawa and from many quarters: Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, Councilors Theresa Kavanagh and Rawlston King, the expertise of Nick McCarthy at Beechwood National Cemetery, generous local fundraisers, and of course the Irish community who flooded public hearings to push the proposal over the line.
Our motto about the Irish in Canada is ‘It’s complicated!’ because it was one colony helping create another. Both Protestant and Catholic Irish were heavily involved in settlement and colonization, as leaders as well as settlers, from the RCMP to the residential schools, from opening up Alberta to widespread land cultivation and the lumber industry. That said, we have to be careful about accountability. This was Britain’s Empire, not Ireland’s. The abolition of the Irish Parliament in 1800 inflicted major macroeconomic damage to the island, set Dublin into a spiral of decline, and denied the middleclass jobs in the apparatus of national government. There were few options for a career outside the British Empire and emigrants followed its expansion east and west. It is notable that most Irish emigration to Canada occurred between 1800 and 1847.
We can explain the Irish role in the Empire but we cannot nor should not ignore this historical record. There is a new generation of young Irish wanting to embrace this complication through ‘a more appropriate relationship with history’, to borrow historian David Olusoga’s fine formulation. The role of the Irish influence in Canada deepened my understanding of Ireland’s own history, how up to 1916 Canada was the future that Ireland never had. Look at from the wider historical narrative, there is far less dividing nationalism from unionism than Northern Ireland, seen alone, would suggest.
Yet for all that we contributed to the disasters visited on the Indigenous, we Irish have a rapport with them. Our respective forebears survived colonization and catastrophic famine, preserved our culture and language, and made a success of forced migration. Against the odds, Ireland achieved Independence and economic prosperity. We proudly assert our values on the world stage.
It is by nature difficult in the course of a mere diplomatic posting to develop relationships with Indigenous communities. However, the discovery and research by Mark McGowan and Jason King, historian at the National Famine Museum, that the Anishinaabe, Wendat and Haudenosaunee gave aid to support Irish Famine relief in 1847 provided opportunities for outreach. The Gratitude event at the Residence last April was very moving. We used the Famine Walk to promote the story, both events captured in the documentary that Jason produced.
Anishinaabe elder and Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, Claudette Commanda spoke movingly at the Residence about her love for the Irish and the significance of the Gratitude event. She had previously spoken at our St Brigid’s Day event where she and Bridget Brownlow, who works on reconciliation in East Belfast, discussed colonization, gender, and reconciliation (podcasted here). Claudette is truly inspirational and I am honored to call her my friend. We have plans to invite her to Ireland to share her wisdom and insights.
No reception at the Residence would have been complete or Irish enough without Pat Marshall, plucking the harp or offering a recitation, nor the music of the Rideau Ramblers or the dancers from Fay Healy’s School of Irish Dance. We have a great Irish community in Ottawa, anchored in St Bridget’s Well in an old Irish Church saved from neglect and decay many years ago by Pat Kelly, Paddy McDonald, Rosemary O’Brien, and Fran Healy. Thanks to them musicians, the Joyce Association, the GAA, the Embassy and many others have a venue we can call a home from home. Our active and beloved Seniors’ group have been a joy and a blessing to Mary and me. President Kay O’Hegarty and leading figures like Claire O’Connell Noon and Norita Fleming organized the Seniors’ glamourous annual summer garden parties, genuine highlights of our time in Ottawa.
Over in Dublin, Nancy Smyth has been an outstanding Ambassador and a wonderful friend. The tempo of our bilateral relations has markedly increased thanks to her ceaseless energy and networking over the past three years She joined us on the Famine Walk for over two days of trudging along the Royal Canal. Every year she supported the Valentia Island Transatlantic Cable conference. When I joined her at the opening of the garden at the Emigrant Museum in New Ross last October, she was greeted ‘Hi Nancy’ by many. Says it all.
Robert Kearns, the visionary founder and leader of the Canada Ireland Foundation, has been a towering advocate for the Irish in Canada, from supporting peace in Northern Ireland through the Canada Ireland Fund to promotion of the Irish story here. We have formed a deep friendship through this and shared interests ranging from Ancient Rome to the minutiae of Irish history. Executive Director William Peat is one of the most talented, skilled, and informed people I know. His impact on the Irish cultural exchange between Dublin and Toronto is immense. Robert and William are building the Corlek Arts Centre in Toronto and it is going to be a jewel.
I met many Irish in Canada whose families had fled Northern Ireland’s sectarianism and conflict from the 1960s onwards. During my twenty-odd years working on the Northern Ireland Peace Process, Canadians made vital appearances. I had worked closely with Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory on his investigations of collusion, a wonderful man of immense integrity. I had often heard the name General John de Chastelain but had never met the man. The decommissioning of paramilitary weapons was the sharp edge of conflict resolution. John was a key figure in that process, literally helping take the gun out of our politics. A scholar, a gentleman, a painter, a genial host with wonderful stories to tell, getting to know John and his wonderful wife Maryanne, is one of the treasures we take home from Ottawa. Likewise, indeed, the warmth and hospitality of neighbours Scott and Elizabeth Heatherington who introduced me to much of Ottawa’s history and Nick McCarthy at Beechwood Cemetery. Scott, a retired Canadian diplomat, and Elizabeth’s joie de vivre, erudition and style is an inspiration.
I joined John and Maryanne when they came to Belfast and Dublin last year to participate in the celebration of 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, notably at the Queen’s University Belfast Conference, the lunch for them graciously hosted by the Tánaiste Micheál Martin in Iveagh House, and the wonderful dinner hosted by Ambassador Smyth. As I am the last serving official from the GFA Talks Team, the visit had plenty of resonant moments for me. Representing the Canadian Government on the trip, Minister Seamus O’Regan’s eloquence when called upon revealed both the depth of his intellect and his passion for Ireland.
I could go on with all the stories, people, and connections that made this posting so enriching. Let me just say that we are only at the start of the reawakening of the Irish-Canadian relationship and its place in our Diaspora.
There are so many reasons to be confident about the future. We’ve a great Local Market Team and it has been a particular pleasure to work with Deirdre Moran and Mark Shorten at the IDA, David McCaffrey at EI and Sandra Moffat at Tourism Ireland when and where opportunities arose. We all regularly called for support from the Irish Chambers of Commerce, from BC and Alberta to Quebec, and Ontario. Along with benevolent and cultural societies, this network greatly magnifies Ireland’s presence throughout Canada. With anchors in Ireland like the Ireland Canada Business Association and the Ireland Canada University Foundation, the bilateral relationship is in great shape.
Frank Flood and then Cathy Geagan as Consul Generals in Vancouver have shown how it’s done when a new consulate opens, engages with the community and makes an impact. They have been great colleagues and friends. Building on the leadership of our former Honorary Consul Eithne Heffernan and other community leaders there, Janet and William as Consul General and Vice-Consul have gotten the new Consulate in Toronto off to a flying start, tapping into the energy of one of North America’s greatest cities. The city now ranks third among the IDA’s North American offices for inward investor visits to Ireland. Both Consulates, with terrific local staff, are great examples of the outworking of the Government’s Global Ireland strategy.
Mary and I had the pleasure of meeting so many Irish communities bound by heritage and buoyed by their commitment to each other and each new generation. This manifests in many forms, from parades and gala balls, to sponsorship, sports events, and charity. Above all, they care. They range from the big ones in Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec to myriad others seeded by previous generations. New ones are springing up, particularly in Vancouver with the new Irish there.
Mary and I had memorable visits to Irish societies, ones with deep Irish heritage like St John’s and Halifax. In Edmonton, Calgary, and Hamilton, we heard stories of emigration from Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, inspiring and sometimes painful. They built social and sporting clubs, organized chartered flights to Ireland to assuage their homesickness. The heritage and strength of the Irish communities in Montreal, along with the Irish Studies programme at Concordia University, has always impressed me, not least because of how they sustain their Irishness through successive generations.
Thanks to the McGaherns’ and their wonderful antiquarian bookshop in Byward Market here in Ottawa, I was never short of a resource when I needed it, like the pristine copy I picked up of the ground-breaking Palliser Report and the edition of William F. Butler’s, The Great Lone Land.[4] When I was writing a profile of Lord Dufferin (for the book Forgotten Heros of Ireland’s Great Hunger, just published, edited by Christine Kinealy and Gerard Moran), a box of reference material arrived in the nick of time. Only recently Liam McGahern found a photograph of Thomas D’Arcy McGee which I have long sought to hang in the Residence.
Our expanded slate of Honorary Consuls in Alberta (Colm O’Carroll and Deirdre Halferty, with Laureen Regan dynamically leading the Ireland Alberta Trade Association), Nova Scotia (Brian Doherty), Quebec (Bryan O’Gallagher), and Newfoundland and Labrador (Mark Dobbin) are terrific resources, bound by their love of Ireland and the Irish. Likewise, our Honorary Consuls in Jamaica and The Bahamas, Brian Denning and Bill Mills, represent Ireland with distinction and never hesitate to answer a call to help the Embassy or an Irish person in distress.
One very visible thing of which I am proud is the new Chancery in Ottawa. Years in the planning and execution, we moved in just a few months ago. We’re very proud of our new space. We hosted our first public event there with international students from the University of Ottawa. Last week we hosted Ireland’s first astronaut Dr. Norah Patten, along with her colleagues Aaron, and Shawna, an incredibly accomplished, visionary, and inspiring group (I wish I’d recorded our conversation because it would have made a fascinating podcast about microgravity, the Irish in space, and the logic of nothing over something!)
One thing less visible of which I am very proud is our team at the Embassy. In a small diplomatic mission, the quality of officers makes a huge difference. Deputy Head of Mission Dymphna Keogh did Trojan work, notably on the successful visit of the Tánaiste’s visit and the planning for the new chancery. Second Secretary Elisabeth O’Higgins’ leadership and management skills affirms my confidence in the latest generation of diplomats joining the Department. Local staff Glauciene, Daniele, Erin and Jenny have joined existing colleagues Breda, Aaron and Anna, and through some alchemical process, we have become one of hardest working, committed and funniest groups that I ever had the pleasure of working with. I will miss them greatly.
There is a special bond between a Head of Mission and Executive Assistant. Daniele has worked with me for just about a year. I could not have asked for more diligent and effective support. Our coordinator for the GIFW, Daniele did a terrific job organizing its launch with historian and passionate heritage advocate John FitzGerald at St John’s Basilica, NL.
It is stating the obvious that while Canada is a large, influential country, its southern neighbour is the big kahuna, the indispensable world leader, the location of our most prominent Diaspora, and the source of most of Ireland’s critical FDI. It gets a lot of attention from HQ. Yet colleagues at Iveagh House spared no effort to support and encourage us, whether from the Canada desk or from HR. HQ have approved new positions at the Embassy and expanded the team. David Guildea and Jennie Quin have been terrific temporary assignments at the Embassy.
All this culminated in the week-long visit last March of the Tánaiste and Minister, Micheál Martin TD, to Canada. He and his delegation, including our own Secretary General Joe Hackett, traversed Canada, from Vancouver to Montreal to Toronto, meeting our communities, launching new Irish companies here, and getting a genuine sense of the energy in the relationship. It was a wonderful way to spend my last St. Patrick’s celebration in Canada. Quite a contrast to my first one during the pandemic!
We have a very friendly diplomatic community with lasting friendships formed through many shared events and informal groups. Global Affairs Canada ingeniously organized virtual speed dating for us Covid Ambassadors to meet key contacts. I will be forever grateful to GAC for taking a group of Ambassadors on the Northern Tour of Arctic Canada through the Yukon, NW Territories and Nunavut. My search for Irish connections became a running joke during the trip but I found them, from the Dublin-born manager of the most northerly grocery store at Cambridge and Kono, an Inuit from Rankin Inlet, whose grandfather was born in Newry. Incredibly, this was only ten miles from the birthplace of my own grandfather in Newtownhamilton so they could have known each other! The trip was a privilege, revelatory, awe-inspiring, and unforgettable.
The career of a diplomat involves family. Separations and reunions, visits and departures have to be navigated in ways uncommon to more settled families, though reflective in ways of the emigrant life. You can be there for some family events but not all. Two of our children were born in the US, one in Ireland. They pay a price they were never asked to make. There are rewards for them too in many ways of course. They are making their own lives now. We gathered Eamonn Jr, Kali and Courtney for magical reunions and temporary stays from time to time in Ottawa.
Through it all, I have had the unstinting support of Mary, her partnership in running the Residence, her engaging presence at events. She turned a capacious Residence into a warm and welcoming space, and well run to boot! I can say, to a certain chorus of support from the community here, that she made this as rewarding a posting as it became. And since we picked up a Canadian son-in-law along the way, Quinten Mitchell, a wonderful lad from Brockville, our family bond with Canada runs deep now.
We have packed up our goods. The twenty-foot container has departed to Montreal for its voyage across the Atlantic. However, the most valuable things we carry in our head and in our hearts. Great memories, unexpected discoveries, a new member of our family, and dear friendships that will all draw us back to Canada.
Canada’s name and flag now have altered connotations and not just because I learned that an Irishman had been integral to its design. Canada now evokes the past four years and all the new treasures that we carry with us on our journey home.
Eamonn
Ottawa
22 August 2024
[1] The Presentation on Ancient Ireland with Prof Mark McGowan of St Michael’s College Toronto has clocked 11,000 views.
[2] In Korea, the heroic role of the Royal Ulster Rifles led to a monument at the War Memorial in Seoul to the Irish who died during the conflict, including members of the Columban fathers. In Israel, the story of John Henry Patterson as the founding father of the Israeli Defence Forces was a revelation about a fascinating character whose life inspired work by Hemingway and Hollywood movies. By coincidence, I was there when his remains were moved from the US to the military cemetery in Moshav Avihayil so they could lie with his comrades in the Jewish Legion.
[3] This was particularly vital when it came to the issue of the Indigenous and the Irish role there, as for example on the colonisation of the Prairie NW, the Irish heritage of the Mounties or indeed the Residential schools and all their terrible legacies.
[4] Searching for the Graves of Palliser and Butler in Ireland in the Summertime | eamonncmckee
Appendix: Op Eds, Blogs and Podcasts
Opinion Pieces
Dr. Eamonn McKee
Blogs
Podcasts
Embassy of Ireland
ENDS
eamonncmckee 