The Irish
Between the 1820 and 1845, 75% of the immigrants who disembarked in Quebec City’s port were Irish. A number of reasons explain the massive influx of Irish at that particular moment in history. For some, the decision to emigrate was based on confrontations between the Protestants and Catholics. For many others, it was attributable to an important agricultural crisis that was due to both climatic problems and a precarious economic situation that threw the population into a state of famine and hardship. This situation caused a massive migration of Irish people to Canada, the majority of which were small farmers. During 1847 alone, the year of the Great Famine, some 70 000 Irish disembarked in the port of Quebec City. The majority of those who settled in the Megantic County came from Ulster in Northern Ireland.
Grosse-Île, or Quarantine Island, a deserted island located in the St-Lawrence estuary 46 kilometres form Quebec City, was transformed into a quarantine station in 1832 in order to avoid a cholera epidemic. Most immigrants arriving from Ireland and England were brought there to be examined.
Around 1830, the first immigrants from Northern Ireland settled on rural routes 2 and 3 in Inverness. Among them were the Hogg, Marshall, Henderson, Davidson, Little, Ralston, Wright, Wislon, Belsher, McCarthy, and Singleton families. Most of them had lived and worked as artisans for a few years in Quebec City before moving to Inverness.
Insert O’Malley house
Home of the O’Malley family, of Irish descent (Collection La Route Celtique).
