According to conventional historical wisdom, Irish nationalism in Canada was a marginal phenomenon - overshadowed by the more powerful movement in the United States and eclipsed in Canada by the Orange Order. The nine contributors in this book argue otherwise - and in doing so make a major and original contribution to our understanding of the Irish experience in Canada and the place of Irish-Canadian nationalism within an international context. Focusing on the period 1820 to 1920, they examine political, religious, and cultural expressions of Irish-Canadian nationalism as it responded to Irish events and Canadian politics. They also look at tensions within the movement between those who argued that Ireland should share the same freedom that Canada enjoyed within the British Empire and revolutionary republicans who wanted to liberate both Ireland and Canada from the yoke of British imperialism. Irish Nationalism in Canada sheds light on questions such as transference of old world political traditions into North America, the dynamics of ethno-religious conflict, and state responses to a revolutionary minority within an ethno-religious group. Contributors include Donald Harman Akenson (Queen's University, Kingston), Sean Farrell (Northern Illinois University), Mark G. McGowan (St Michael's College, University of Toronto), Frederick J. McEvoy (Independent Scholar), Michael Peterman (Trent University), Garth Stevenson (Brock University), Peter M. Toner (University of New Brunswick), Rosalyn Trigger (University of Aberdeen), and David A. Wilson (University of Toronto).

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Irish writers played a key role in transatlantic cultural conversations – among Canada, Britain, France, America, and Indigenous nations – that shaped Canadian nationalism. Nationalism in Ireland was likewise influenced by the literary works of Irish migrants and visitors to Canada. Canada to Ireland explores the poetry and prose of twelve Irish writers and nationalists in Canada between 1788 and 1900, including Thomas Moore, Adam Kidd, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, James McCarroll, Nicholas Flood Davin, and Isabella Valancy Crawford. Many of these writers were involved in Irish political causes, including those of the Patriots, the United Irish, Emancipation, Repeal, and Young Ireland, and their work explores the similar ways in which nationalists in Ireland and Indigenous and settler communities in Canada retained their cultural identities and sought autonomy from Britain. Initially writing for an audience in Ireland, they highlighted features of the landscape and culture that they regarded as distinctively Canadian and that were later invoked as powerful unifying symbols by Canadian nationalists. Michele Holmgren shows how these Irish writers and movements are essential to understanding the tenor of early Canadian literary nationalism and political debates concerning Confederation, imperial unity, and western expansion. Canada to Ireland convincingly demonstrates that Canadian cultural nationalism left its mark on both countries. Contemporary decolonization movements in Canada and current cultural exchanges between Ireland and Indigenous peoples make this a timely and relevant study.

"McLaughlin's research is highly original, demonstrating the extensive role played by Canadians in this fascinating episode of Ireland's history"--P. [4] of cover.

 In June 1866, an 800-man contingent of the Irish Fenian Brotherhood invaded Canada from Buffalo, New York, in an effort to free Ireland from British rule. The force was led by Irish-born John Charles O'Neill, a veteran of the Union Army's 5th Indiana Cavalry. The three-day invasion was a military success but a political failure, yet O'Neill was celebrated for his leadership and humanity. Elevated to the presidency of the Fenian Brotherhood, "General" O'Neill would again lead Irish nationalists against Canada in 1870. Jailed and later pardoned by President U.S. Grant, O'Neill left the Fenians and attempted a third, futile attack into Canada. O'Neill then became a colonizer, urging Irish Americans to abandon cities in the East to settle on the fertile plains of the West. O'Neill City, Nebraska, is named in his honor. This first full-length biography covers the rise, fall and resurgence of a remarkable figure in American and Irish history.

Predominantly Catholic societies subjected to British conquest and partial colonization, Ireland and Quebec rebelled unsuccessfully and entered the modern era with populations divided by language and religion. Ireland failed to achieve home rule within the United Kingdom and chose armed resistance, which led to independence for most of the country at the price of partition. Quebec achieved home rule as a province within the Canadian federation, which led to a century of relative stability followed by the Quiet Revolution and the rise of an independence movement. Almost simultaneously with increased pressure for independence in Quebec, the Irish question erupted again with an armed struggle between supporters and opponents of partition in the six northern counties.

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.

A comparative study of Irish communities in a Canadian and an American city.

This book is a comparative study of masculinity and white racial identity in Irish nationalism and Zionism. It analyses how both national movements sought to refute widespread anti-Irish or anti-Jewish stereotypes and create more prideful (and highly gendered) images of their respective nations. Drawing on English-, Irish-, and Hebrew-language archival sources, Aidan Beatty traces how male Irish nationalists sought to remake themselves as a proudly Gaelic-speaking race, rooted both in their national past as well as in the spaces and agricultural soil of Ireland. On the one hand, this was an attempt to refute contemporary British colonial notions that they were somehow a racially inferior or uncomfortably hybridised people. But this is also presented in the light of the general history of European nationalism; nationalist movements across Europe often crafted romanticised images of the nation’s past and Irish nationalism was thus simultaneously European and postcolonial. It is this that makes Irish nationalism similar to Zionism, a movement that sought to create a more idealized image of the Jewish past that would disprove contemporary anti-Semitic stereotypes.