Between 1912 and 1925, Ireland convulsed with political and revolutionary upheaval in pursuit of self-government. Canadians of Irish descent, both Catholic and Protestant, diligently followed these conflicts, and many became actively involved in the dramatic events overseas. Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence tells the unique story of how Irish Canadians identified with their ancestral homeland during this revolutionary era. Drawing on ethnic weekly newspapers and fraternal society records, Robert McLaughlin finds new interpretations of how Orange Canadian unionists and Irish Canadian nationalists viewed their heritage, their membership in the British Empire, and even Canadian citizenship itself. McLaughlin also provides strong evidence that neither time nor distance diminished Irish Canadians' attachment to their familial homeland or their identification with their respective ethnic communities in Ireland. Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence reconsiders existing contextual frameworks and confronts the challenging questions inherent in understanding this period.

Canadians have been involved in, intrigued by, and frustrated with Irish politics, from the Fenian Raids of the 1860s to the present day. Yet scholars have largely neglected Canadian–Irish relations since the consolidation of the Irish Free State in the 1920s. In Canada and Ireland, Philip J. Currie addresses this lacuna and examines political relations between the two countries, from partition to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. This intriguing study sheds light on Ottawa’s responses to key developments such as Ireland’s neutrality in the Second World War, its unsettled relationship with the Commonwealth, and the always contentious issue of Irish unification.

Between 1914 and 1918, many Irish Catholics in Canada found themselves in a vulnerable position. Not only was the Great War slaughtering millions, but tension and violence was mounting in Ireland over the question of independence from Britain and Home Rule. For Canada’s Irish Catholics, thwarting Prussian militarism was a way to prove that small nations, like Ireland, could be free from larger occupying countries. Yet, even as tens of thousands of Irish Catholic men and women rallied to the call to arms and supported government efforts to win the war, many Canadians still doubted their loyalty to the Empire. Retracing the struggles of Irish Catholics as they fought Canada’s enemies in Europe while defending themselves against charges of disloyalty at home, The Imperial Irish explores the development and fraying of interfaith and intercultural relationships between Irish Catholics, French Canadian Catholics, and non-Catholics throughout the course of the Great War. Mark McGowan contrasts Irish Canadian Catholics' beliefs with the neutrality of Pope Benedict XV, the supposed pro-Austrian sympathies of many immigrants from central Europe, Irish republicans inciting rebellion in Ireland, and the perceived indifference to the war by French Canadian Catholics, and argues that, for the most part, Irish Catholics in Canada demonstrated strong support for the imperial war effort by recruiting in large numbers. He further investigates their religious lives within the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the spiritual resources available to them, and church and lay leaders’ negotiation of the sensitive political developments in Ireland that coincided with the war effort. Grounded in research from dozens of archives as well as census data and personnel records, The Imperial Irish explores stirring conflicts that threatened to irreparably divide Canada along religious and linguistic lines.

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Most historical accounts of the Irish Catholic community in Toronto describe it as a poor underclass of society, ghettoised by the largely British, Protestant population and characterised by the sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics that earned Toronto the title "Belfast of Canada." Challenging this long-standing view of the Irish Catholic experience, Mark McGowan provides a new picture of the community's evolution and integration into Canadian society. McGowan traces the evolution of the Catholic community from an isolated religious and Irish ethnic subculture in the late nineteenth century into an integrated segment of English Canadian society by the early twentieth century. English-speaking Catholics moved into all neighbourhoods of the city and socialised with and married non-Catholics. They even embraced their own brand of imperialism: by 1914 thousands of them had enlisted to fight for God and the British Empire. McGowan's detailed and lively portrait will be of great interest to students and scholars of religious history, Irish studies, ethnic history, and Canadian history. Mark G. McGowan is associate professor of history at St Michael's College, University of Toronto.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Irish and British affairs had him vilified as a murderer in The Times, and afterwards dramatically vindicated by the Westminster Parliament. It cast him as a romantic hero to the young James Joyce, and a self-serving opportunist to the journalists of the Nation. Parnell has been the subject of court cases, parliamentary enquiries and debates, journalism, plays, poems, literary analysis and historical studies. For the first time all these have been collected, catalogued and cross-referenced in one volume, an invaluable resource for scholars of late nineteenth century Ireland and Britain. Divided into fifteen chapters, including a biographical sketch, the volume contains information on manuscript and archival collections, printed primary sources, Parnell's writing, Parnell's speeches in the House of Commons and outside Parliament, contemporary journalism, contemporary writing, and contemporary illustrations on Irish affairs, and a substantial list of scholarly work, including biographies, books, articles, chapters, and theses. This volume offers readers a clear record of the substantial material already available on Parnell, and in doing so offers resources to future research in this area.

While the role of the laity in the nationalist awakening is commonly recognized, their part in the movement for religious renewal is usually minimized. Initiative on the part of the laity has been thought to have existed only outside the church, where it remained a troubling and at times insurgent force. Clarke revises this picture of the role of the laity in church and community. He examines the rich associational life of the laity, which ranged from nationalist and fraternal associations independent of the church to devotional and philanthropic associations affiliated with the church. Associations both inside and outside the church fostered ethnic consciousness in different but complementary ways that resulted in a cultural consensus based on denominational loyalty. Through these associations, lay men and women developed an institutional base for the activism and initiative that shaped both their church and their community. Clarke demonstrates that lay activists played a pivotal role in transforming the religious life of the community.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were a number of smaller religious bodies that sought to develop religious and national identity on the margins—something especially difficult when the nation was at war in South Africa. This book examines rich and varied extant sources that provide helpful windows into the wartime experience of Canada’s religious minorities. Those groups on the margins experienced internal struggles and external pressures related to issues of loyalty and identity. How each faith tradition addressed those challenges was shaped by their own dominant personalities, ethnic identity, history, tradition, and theological convictions. Responses were fluid, divided, and rarely unanimous. Those seeking to address such issues not only had to deal with internal expectations and tensions, but also construct a public response that would satisfy often hostile and vocal external critics. Some positions evolved over time, leading to new identities, loyalties, and trajectories. In all cases, being on the margins meant dealing with two dominant national and imperial narratives—English or French—both bolstered respectively by powerful Anglo-Saxon Protestantism or French Quebec Catholicism. The chapters in this book examine how those on the margins sought to do just that.