Irish Newfoundlanders - History

History

The Irish migrations to Newfoundland, and the associated provisions trade, represent the oldest and most enduring connections between Ireland and North America. As early as 1536, the ship Mighel (Michael) of Kinsale is recorded returning to her home port in County Cork with consignments of Newfoundland fish and cod liver oil. A further hint of what one scholar has termed a diaspora of Irish fishermen dates from 1608, when Patrick Brannock, a Waterford mariner, was reported to sail yearly to Newfoundland. Beginning around 1670, and particularly between 1750 and 1830, Newfoundland received large numbers of Irish immigrants.

These migrations were seasonal or temporary. Most Irish migrants were young men working on contract for English merchants and planters. It was a substantial migration, peaking in the 1770s and 1780s when more than 100 ships and 5,000 men cleared Irish ports for the fishery. The exodus from Ulster to the USA excepted, it was the most substantial movement of Irish across the Atlantic in the 18th century. Some went on to other North American destinations, some stayed, and many engaged in what has been called "to-ing and fro-ing", an annual seasonal migration between Ireland and Newfoundland due to fisheries and trade. As a result, the Newfoundland Irish remained in constant contact with news, politics, and cultural movements back in Ireland.

Virtually from its inception, a small number of young Irish women joined the migration. They tended to stay and marry overwintering Irish male migrants. Seasonal and temporary migrations slowly evolved into emigration and the formation of permanent Irish family settlement in Newfoundland. This pattern intensified with the collapse of the old migratory cod fishery after 1790. An increase in Irish immigration, particularly of women, between 1800�1835, and the related natural population growth, helped transform the social, demographic, and cultural character of Newfoundland.

In 1836, the government in St. John's commissioned a census that exceeded in its detail anything recorded to that time. More than 400 settlements were listed. The Irish, and their offspring, composed half of the total population. Close to three-quarters of them lived in St. John's and its near hinterland, from Renews to Carbonear, an area still known as the Irish Shore. There were more Catholic Irish concentrated in this relatively restricted stretch of shore than in any comparable location in Canada.