E'en when the fog rolls in, veiling your placid face
E'en when the wild waves toss
Nobly there stands our Celtic Cross
Raised by the sons of Gaels - marking fore'er this holy place."
It is only now becoming known that Quebec played an important part in Irish history. Ellis Island in New York looms large as a point of arrival in the New World, and it has only recently emerged that a large portion of the Irish entering North America in the eighteen hundreds, did so through Quebec. Ships on their way up the Saint Lawrence River to Quebec City, were required to stop for inspection at Grosse-Ile. (click to see) During the famine years, a doctor from Grosse-Ile station would board every ship, and if he detected disease, all passengers would disembark at that point, for a health inspection. Anyone showing symptoms of disease was kept in quarantine at the island of Grosse-Ile, where they received medical treatment. There are five thousand souls buried there, most of whom were Irish. (No McAteers or McTeers are known to be among them. Two McAtee children were received at the orphanage in Quebec, whence they later vanished without explanation.)
Quebecers were old hands at receiving refugees by the time of the Potato Famine. In our research here we found a story of an entire shipload of Scotch refugees being abandoned in a deserted cove in the Gaspe region of Quebec. This was during the Highland Clearance, when the English land owners were moving the small Scottish farmers off the land to make way for sheep, as the wool trade was then enjoying an economic boom. Old slaving ships were refitted for Scotchmen, and often they carried more Scots than they had carried slaves. (One ship outfitted for four hundred slaves was regularly transporting seven hundred Scots.)
In one such case, the ship's captain wanted to return to England before the winter, so he just dumped his "cargo" in the wilderness, rather than make the long trip up to Quebec City. As the abandoned Scots were starting to realize that they were in the middle of nowhere, a jolly "Habitant" stepped out of the woods, where he had been hunting. He somehow figured out what had happened, and his solution was to take the entire group back to his farm (I wonder what his wife said!), where he managed to keep them all alive until Spring. Doubtless his entire parish assisted in the effort, as it would surely have been beyond the resources of one farmer, no matter how brave.
The story of the Famine Irish in Quebec is a harrowing one, for Typhus and Cholera had set into these poor, malnourished refugees aboard ship, and the dying had already begun when the ships docked at Quebec City and Montreal. So many fell ill, and the ravages of the disease proceeded so fast, that entire dockside warehouses had to be turned into hospitals, to accommodate the Irish. So fast were they dying, that all that could be done was to pile the bodies in lime pits, and cover them over. The pits were not always marked, and so for years, mass graves were uncovered from time to time in Montreal.
Construction workers building the Victoria Bridge (Montreal) uncovered such a pit, and they marked the spot with a huge rock, which can be seen today from a car as you leave the city. I saw it as a child, and I can well remember my parent's unease in explaining it to me, more than a hundred years later. It is estimated that six thousand souls were buried thus, at Montreal.
Montrealers, and even the mayor, went into action to try to relieve the suffering. Many volunteered their services in the makeshift hospitals, and many were overtaken by the disease, and joined the dying. Mayor John Mills himself succumbed to Typhus and died perhaps as much from the strain he was under, as from working at the bedsides of the dying.
Quebec, being the smaller city, had a harder time. During the famine, Quebec City's population grew from forty thousand, to more than a hundred and forty thousand. In 1832, a quarantine station was established east of the city, on the island of Grosse-ile. After Canada became a nation in 1867, this facility was much upgraded, and the latest in medical know-how and technology was brought to bear on its redesign. It became a complex of dormitories, hospitals, laboratories (there was a resident bacteriologist), doctors residences, disinfection halls, dining halls, hotels, churches, and even a school. No effort was spared to save lives. Unfortunately, though much had been learned, it came too late to spare a lot of suffering during the famine years.
In memory of their fallen kin, the Irish community in North America has
errected a great cross at the tip of Grosse-Ile, where it can be seen
today by all passing ships. The cross is of Celtic style, and is over
forty-five feet high. It stands at the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking
the river.
Mary Eileen O'Gallagher
Children were less effected by Typhus, and so Quebec faced a mounting tide of Irish orphans arriving, who had begun the voyage with their parents. The Church acted with great efficiency, and great care was taken to try to preserve the family name and history of each child. Father Charles-Félix Cazeau worked so hard caring for these people, and seeing to it that the orphaned were adopted out with dispatch, he became known affectionately as the "Curé of the Irish". In Montreal this role was played by Monseigneur Ignace Bourget, and the Grey Nuns, whose tireless work was truly heroic.
After the great hunger in Ireland, the loss of parents and family, and a terrifying trip in the dark hold of a ship, it must have been a welcome shock to these children to find themselves warm and well dressed, stuffed with hearty Quebecois cuisine, and attending church with their new families, as though nothing had happened.
It is hard today to give percentages, but enough refugees hung onto their names, that directories for Quebec City and Montreal show many Irish names, although these are usually pronounced differently, especially in Quebec City, where today they are good Quebecois names. It is estimated that forty percent of Quebecers carry Irish blood, which makes Quebec the most Irish province; a figure to which the ubiquitousness of red hair and green eyes bears silent testimony.
While many of the orphans hung onto their Irish names, many more simply vanished into the fabric of their new families, and their new communities.
An unforseen factor is probably responsible for there being so little recognition of this part of history today. People who have lived through such trials are often reluctant to even discuss them. A recent article by a woman of Irish descent in Australia, explained that Ireland was a forbidden topic in her family, as she was growing up, and it was only through reading, much later, that she learned of the potato famine, and of the exodus from Ireland.
Many Irish must have headed south to escape the harsh
northern winters, and to join the growing Irish communities in
the USA. If you cannot find your family's point of entry into
the USA, it might be worthwhile to search through the large collection
of records held by the provincial government in Quebec.
of Clan Mhac an t'Saoir |