Beginning in the 1810s, there was an influx of immigration to Montreal from Ireland. Immigrants who landed in the city were very often poor tenant farmers seeking a better life in the colonies. Most settled in the neighbourhood of Griffintown, which was founded at the beginning of the century By Mary and Robert Griffin after they illegally obtained the land from Thomas McCord’s agent. The Griffins sought to develop the land in Nazareth Fief for industrial purposes. In 1804 Mary commissioned a plan to be drawn up of the development which shows a neighbourhood which from the beginning was centered around industry. Mr. Griffin’s factory appears at the center surrounded by blocks of housing. Just outside of the city at the time, this area grew into a prosperous industrial neighbourhood, mostly because of developments such as the Lachine Canal .
Irish immigrants began arriving in the 1820s as part of government emigration programs in the British Empire. Many came to Lower Canada and settled in Montreal. The first influx of Irish people to Canada occurred between 1825 and 1845 when 450’000 people left Ireland for Canada. The subsequent famine years also caused a great migration. When they arrived in Montreal they were for the most part too poor to leave the city and so worked as unskilled labourers in the city’s port or on new infrastructure projects such as the Lachine Canal. After the canal was built, industry would begin to spring up all around it, and there was no shortage of unskilled labour. The former tenant farmers from Ireland were easily employed because they relied on the jobs when they arrived.
The building of the Lachine Canal was formative in creating a working-class identity for the newly arrived immigrants. This can be seen through the events surrounding the strike of 1843. In 1843 the canal needed a series of upgrades due to increased traffic and need for new docks. It was clear that the area around the canal was becoming a hub for Canadian industry. Most of the men who worked on the canal widening project in 1843 were Irishmen under the direction of Henry Mason. Mason kept wages at two shillings a day, and the migrant workers wanted an increase in wage. It is easy to see the plight of the Irish worker in his quest for higher wages. Griffintown, the area where most of these workers lived due to its proximity to the canal, was overcrowded and a “Mish-Mash” of temporary shanty houses. Their living and working conditions were particularly harsh and the contractors exploited their workforce. More than 1’100 people participated in the strike, this goes to show the scale of employment in Montreal’s public works projects, and thus the size of the working Irish community. While results of the strike were not favourable to the Irish migrant workers, they attained some level of recognition from the press and Elites of Montreal.
Press coverage was overwhelmingly negative, but there was some sympathy for the wretched condition of Irish immigrants in the city. Papers like The Gazette ignored the plight of workers, while the Catholic paper Les Mélanges Religieux went so far as to invite the workers into the city and out of their shanty-town. This, along with the marches in the streets made the business class of Montreal aware of working class struggles – particularly Irish struggles. Benjamin Holmes, an administrator at the Bank of Montréal and an Irishman himself, heard the plea of the canal workers and organized relief for their families. His influence within the St. Patrick’s Benevolent Society and among city elites helped engrain the Irish business class within the city. The strike also affirmed a sense of solidarity among the working-class Irish, despite all of the violence that took place in the winter of 1843, they were all fighting the “contractors who want to live of the sweat of our brows.”
The building of the canal and the canal strike represent a growing Irish labour force in the city, and a community that was beginning to assert itself. Because of the canal, industry would blossom in the Lachine Canal Basin over the coming decades, and so too would the Irish community. The strike is also seen as important to Canadian labour history in general, as it was one of the first and biggest, showing that the Irish played an important role in the future of labour relations in Canada.
The completion of the Canal heralded a new era of industrial power for Montréal, it attracted industry and brought many more people into the city. In the mid-century, the manufacturing sector grew exponentially, with 60% of all Canadian manufacturing taking place along the canal by 1871. This rise in industry also coincided with the largest influx of Irish immigrants to Canada: In 1848 a Great Famine devastated Ireland and forced hundreds of thousands to flee – many came to Montréal. Between 1851 and 1861 there was a 56% increase in the population of Montréal, this also coincided with the arrival of thousands of immigrants. These immigrants were a steady source of cheap labour for industrialists setting up around the Lachine Canal.
Industries such as tanneries, sugar mills, slaughterhouses, and soap factories began appearing along the canal in the 1850s. In the latter half of the century the iron and steel industry, along with carbo-chemistry, would dominate the landscape. These new industries, some of which were owned or operated by the Irish, provided immigrant workers with a constant source of work and a regular wage. Because of this, a more permanent working class neighbourhood was established in Griffintown, and soon – due to another infrastructural development – Pointe St. Charles would follow. The 1850s and 1860s, and to some extent the rest of the century can be seen as an era of prosperity for the Irish in Montreal.
To understand this coming prosperity, it is important to look at the improving situation of industrial Montréal as a whole. In this period manufacturing and industry were the city’s main economic sectors, they created Montréal as a prosperous city with improving infrastructure and services such as sewers, hospitals, and financial institutions. Several things caused this – the canal being one. The railroad and the building of the Victoria Bridge was another major factor. The coming of the railroad influenced the economics of Montreal and greatly changed the Irish community.
The Victoria Bridge was completed in 1859 and connected Montréal with the south shore. It was significant for two reasons, firstly, it created the Grand Trunk Railyards in Pointe St. Charles, which employed hundreds of unskilled labourers and created another working-class community. Secondly, it alleviated a problem particular to Montréal – winter. Before the railroad came in the 1850s, there was a seasonal lull in production because of the freezing of the St. Lawrence. This caused considerable stress for the working-class community that relied on industry and trade to subside – being without work in winter could be a death sentence for the lowest on the economic ladder – 38% of whom were Irish in 1842. The bridge and the railroad alleviated this seasonal obstruction allowing the poorest workers to continue to work.
It is reasonable to assume that this increase in job security lead to an increase in quality of life and income. This can be demonstrated through the shift in housing that took place in the mid-century.
Before the 1850s the housing situation for Irish migrants was dire. Shanty towns and large units sometimes holding up to 100 people were not uncommon. Only 8% of people in these neighbourhoods owned houses or property, compared to 57% or more in 1890. The temporary shanty-towns and tenement housing contributed to an overcrowding and health problem. Typhus and Cholera both spread quickly in the 1830s and 40s. While the housing put up in the 1850s and 60s was not substantially better, it was permanent. And a lot of it was put up, alleviating some of the overcrowding.
However, this small increase in quality of living was not the only way Montréal’s new industrial economy shaped and improved the Irish position in the city. The Irish started moving out of the working class. While the majority of Irish people in the city remained working class, Irish business men and professionals in sectors such as manufacturing and wholesale became increasingly common – not only in well-established protestant circles, but within the working-class neighbourhoods themselves. Evidence of this can be found in a contemporaneous Irish Catholic newspaper: The Montreal Evening Post. In one edition from 1860*, there are some revealing advertisements.* One advertises an “E. Doran, Architect and Evaluator” whose offices were located near the City Gas co. which was in Griffintown. Other ads in newspapers reveal that the Irish played a big role in the wholesale industry as grocers and traders. This was due in part to their proximity to the port. Businessmen like James McShane who was an importer and exporter of meat became a city councillor and used his position to help working class Irish men and women find jobs during the depression of the 1880s.
Irish industrialists also played a role in shaping the economic landscape of the city. One of the largest examples of this was the ‘Messrs. Clendinnengs Foundry of Stoves and Pipes’ which occupied an entire block in the heart of Griffintown and was said to be “One of the largest if not the most extensive [foundries] of the dominion.”[fig. 2] It was owned by William Clendinneng, an Irish protestant. Other Irish names in industry include Gault, Coghlin, and Henderson, to name a few. Another notable man was Joseph Quinn, who supplied the city of Montréal with ice from his Ice cutting business at Pointe St. Charles. He provided valuable employment to day labourers in the winter months when the port was not as active. In the latter half of the 19th century many Irish Montréalers began to work in more senior positions in the railyards and canal as well. Superintendents, engineers, and clerks on the Lachine Canal were mostly Irish in the 1870s. However, 37.8% of the Irish workforce was still made up of unskilled labourers.
It is clear that by the middle of the 19th century, the Irish were moving into the business class more and more. They would remain far fewer than the English or the Scottish, however, it is nonetheless a shifting demographic. This accumulation of Irish industrialists and business men also meant an accumulation of capital that could be used towards the creation of institutions and the dispensation of charity for the Irish community. In another section of the February 4th, 1860 edition of the Post, an “Irish Relief Fund” appears: “for the suffering Irish of all denominations.” The Irish Protestant Benevolent Society aided poor Irish people in the city, dispensing 1,449$ in funds for the year 1878. Institutions were also founded during this period – St. Patrick’s Hospital, for example, which can be seen on an 1859 map of Montréal. [fig. 3]
Another example of the gained prosperity of the Irish in the mid-19th century was the population growth. Despite less immigration to Canada in this period, the population of Irish people in the city rose dramatically between 1861 and 1871, owing to the boom in economic and industrial activity. It subsequently dropped during the economic depression between 1871 and 1888. This shows that the population of settled Irish people, 50% of whom lived in St. Ann’s Ward in 1871, was directly impacted by economic conditions.
While the 19th century saw a struggling migrant community grow into a well-established working and business class community, the 20th century brought new changes to the Irish community. The economy of Montréal shifted as it had in the mid-19th, effectively removing the large working class Irish communities centered around the Lachine Canal. The middle of the 20th century would see the main dissolution of the community, however, events in the inter-war period also caused a decline. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s affected the community. During the decade of the 1930s, people who could afford to leave neighbourhoods like Griffintown did, but since it was still a working-class area most couldn’t.