Listeners have already learned that Saint John, a city founded by American Loyalists in the 1780s, was transformed by British immigration after 1815. Most years, Great Britain and Ireland sent an equal number of Protestant and Roman Catholic newcomers. In the second half of the 1840s, increasing numbers of Catholic immigrants, fleeing the Famine in Ireland, arrived in distress. During ‘Black 47,’ more than 100 vessels brought Irish emigrants to New Brunswick. A record number died at sea enroute to Saint John, in quarantine on Partridge Island, in the alms house, or at an emigrant hospital/sheds on shore. Children who lost one or both parents were placed in a temporary emigrant orphan asylum.
We begin with a discussion of the failure of the potato crop, a staple food for much of Ireland’s population, and its impact on Ireland starting in 1845. A demographic disaster was produced through the combination of contagious diseases, such as typhoid, typhus and dysentery, evictions of tenant farmers by landlords, and mismanagement and neglect by the British government and local authorities. Despite charitable donations from around the world, the provision of some aid, and the actions of some sympathetic landlords, one third of Ireland’s population disappeared within a few short years. Half died, and the other half emigrated to places like the United States and Canada. Most of the those who perished, and those who managed to escape, were Roman Catholic. An Gorta Mór (the Great Famine) produced massive trauma, spurred Irish nationalism and contributed to the ongoing diaspora of the Irish people.
We then examine the immediate impact of the Famine emigration of 1847 on Saint John and area during a period of local economic weakness, outmigration, on-going ethnic and sectarian conflict and animosity against Irish Catholic immigrants. Positive and humanitarian responses to the crisis included medical treatment and the provision of charity; but there were also negative, nativist reactions such as opposition to temporary emigrant shelters in the South end of the city and a proposal to send distressed emigrants back to Famine-ravaged Ireland. This proposal was based on the accusation that heartless English landlords were sending diseased paupers to New Brunswick. We end by discussing the short-term and long-term impacts of ‘Black 47’ on Saint John and how it cemented in local memory the identification of Partridge Island as a place of suffering and tragic loss.
Noted Art:
Ray Butler's painting entitled Arrival Partridge Island https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Arrival-Partridge-Island/2C89E3E070CDCB638A872EA249F598EA
Sources:
Cushing, Elizabeth, A Chronicle of Irish Emigration to Saint John, New Brunswick 1847 (Saint John: New Brunswick Museum 1979).
Irish Heritage Trust, The Famine Irish in New Brunswick (documentary, 2023): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gAgpYJc5MA
Kinealy, Christine, ed. The History of the Irish Famine Volume I: The Great Famine in Ireland (New York: Routledge, 2019).
Moran, Gerard, Sir Robert Booth Gore and his land estate in County Sligo, 1814-1876 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006),
Murphy, Peter D., Ignorant Children: Irish Famine Orphans in Saint John, New Brunswick (Halifax: St. Mary’s University, D'Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, 1999).
National Famine Way, The Global Irish Famine Way: https://nationalfamineway.ie/global-irish-famine-way/
The New Brunswick Irish Portal on the Provincial Archives of NB webpage: https://archives.gnb.ca/irish/databases_en.html
Toner, Peter M., ed. New Ireland remembered: Historical essays on the Irish in New Brunswick (Fredericton: New Ireland Press, 1988).
Whelan, James M, “ Almost As Bad as Ireland: The Experience of the Irish Immigrant in Canada, Saint John, 1847,” (1980): https://newirelandnb.ca/culture/irish-trail/early-settlement/almost-as-bad-as-ireland-the-experience-of-the-irish-immigrant-in-canada-saint-john-1847
Woodham-Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 (Toronto: Penguin, 1992).
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