The Irish in Ontario: A Study in Rural History

by Donald Harman Akenson

Akenson argues that, despite the popular conception of the Irish as a city people, those who settled in Ontario were primarily rural and small-town dwellers. Though it is often claimed that the experience of the Irish in their homeland precluded their successful settlement on the frontier in North America, Akenson's research proves that the Irish migrants to Ontario not only chose to live chiefly in the hinterlands, but that they did so with marked success. Akenson also suggests that by using Ontario as an "historical laboratory" it is possible to make valid assessments of the real differences between Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, characteristics which he contends are much more precisely measurable in the neutral environment of central Canada than in the turbulent Irish homeland. While Akenson is careful not to over-generalize his findings, he contends that the case of Ontario seriously calls into question conventional beliefs about the cultural limitations of the Irish Catholics not only in Canada but throughout North America.

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

[From book The United States and Ireland (1973):]

Donald Harman Akenson teaches history at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born in Minneapolis, took his degrees at Yale and Harvard, and taught and held administrative positions at both of those universities. He is the author of The Irish Education Experiment (1970); The Church of Ireland (1971); and Education and Enmity: The Control of Schooling in Northern Ireland (1973).

Reviews

[Robyn Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a touchstone to my own research and I was very pleased to finally come across it. I enjoy Akenson's voice that comes freely and clearly in what would be considered an academic text. He has a real love and contact with the subject matter. He is obviously a good educator as he takes the time to describe the methodology of his research in some surprising and beautiful ways. He uses sociological, philosophical an biological models in effective and insightful ways.
Research aside, he nails this in his opening chapter "Ontario: Whatever Happened tho the Irish". It's definitive and true. Searching through your own eyes, you can't see your own face. He made it crushingly obvious what I was looking for was alive around me. The character of this region is quietly alive with the culture of our emigrant ancestors.
The reason its quiet comes directly from them. And to begin to understand that is the beginning to understanding them...
My Great Great Great Grandparents came from County Antrim, Ireland in 1830. They brought four children them and had four more here. The were neither poor, illiterate or forced to come here. They settled in an Prescott County because others in their Parish had come before them. They took land. They profited from the South Nation lumber industry. They quietly succeeded because no one could tell them not to...