I had planned to - #reply-19106842 ... noticed Dale's posts around the threads, and he's not here .... i'm not a fan of strict thread moderation though, fwiw
Those weren't 'Canadians' who helped the irish, for the most part they were canadiens, quebecois ... this was of course largely because the ships landed in Lower Canada, but it's also a reflection of the hospitality of quebecois society .... a lot of the survivors from those ships were kids, and often orphans, they were taken in and cared for well, ended up being as quebecois as any 'de souche' .... you'll run into many there with irish names and features, they're pretty french now ..... i worked with a guy out here, his surname was irish, his three given names were irish, he looked about as irish as you can get, big guy, reddish hair, greenish eyes - and while he did have good english, it was clearly his second language ..... at i think the great great grandparent level, most of his ancestors came off the ships, and he had adopted cousins all over Québec ..... there have been many in the Van Doos, that is the name of the Royal 22nd regiment of Montréal, from its pronunciacion in french .... some of that history is incredible, with the most surprising connections and coincidences, for instance one time i heard of a german sailor who jumped ship and called himself irish so he could evade the return-trip obligation, he ended up mayor of his town and only confessed his nationality on retirement, he was well liked so it got a big laugh, of course the irish had kept his secret all this time, and he had married one |
