The Irish in Canada Podcast

15/03/2025

Tomorrow Montreal is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the city's St Patrick's Day Parade! 🍀🍁🍀 To celebrate, why not listen to the story of an Irish rebel who was living near Montreal when the parade began?

When the Brock Monument exploded at Queenston Heights on 17 April 1840, the colonial authorities quickly decided upon the identity of the guilty culprit: the notorious Irishman, Benjamin Lett. A fo…

29/10/2024

Feel like something spooky this Hallowe'en? 🎃 Check out our episode on "The Ghost of Griffintown" 👻 🩸🪓

Our final episode this season recounts the tale of Mary Gallagher, Montreal’s ‘Ghost of Griffintown,’ and the gory murder that has had her ghost searching for her lost head for the nearly 150 years…

02/05/2024

Who doesn't love a good ghost story? 👻 One of the most popular ghoulish tales in Montreal over the past 150 years has been the story of Mary Gallagher, a murdered Irish-Canadian pr******te better known as "The Ghost of Griffintown," who returns every seven years to her old Irish neighbourhood 🍀 in search of her lost head. 🫣😵

But do we really know Mary's story, or that of her alleged murderess, Susan Kennedy Myers — or have we just assumed things about them because of *how* their story was told in the newspapers of 1879?

And, as you can see from this image from the Kingston Penitentiary records, the mystery still has several loose ends. What happened to Susan Kennedy after she was sent to Kingston Pen? The official record is blank...

Want to know more? Listen to one of our most popular episodes from Season 1: "The Ghost of Griffintown"
https://theirishincanadapodcast.ca/episode-9-the-ghost-of-griffintown/

01/05/2024

Jane is researching in the nation's capital today with a view over the Ottawa River, so this episode feels like an obvious choice from our archives: "The Shiners."

What, you didn't know that Ottawa used to be more dangerous than the Wild West? That, for years, it lived in fear of a gang of violent, murderous, Irish Catholic lumberjacks 🍀🌲🪓, who loved nothing better than attacking French Canadian rivals (Joseph Montferrand, FTW! 😍), burning down competing logging camps 🔥, drinking at all hours 🥃, brawling in the streets, tormenting the locals, terrorising children at night, stripping women naked in public, maiming horses, and—if you believe the newspaper reports—trying to roast people on spits?!? Back in the 1830s, what happened in Bytown, stayed in Bytown! 👀

Join us, as we look back at the mostly-forgotten Irish menace along the Canadian frontier: The Shiners.

In another country, the dark legends about The Shiners might never have been forgotten. But in Canada? How many people today are aware that one of the most dangerous cities in North America used to…

30/04/2024

Today, we're calling back to our 'rabbit hole' episode, focusing on a topic that can become an obsession for those who love a good, historical, cold-case kind of mystery: The Franklin Expedition. More to the point, this is an episode all about Captain Francis Crozier, the doomed captain of The Terror from Co. Down, who led the surviving men off into the frozen Canadian tundra, never to be seen again... 🥶

But what *did* happen to the crews of the Erebus and Terror? And how many Irish links are there to the story? 🍀

Find out more with Episode #1 from Season 2: Captain Crozier
https://theirishincanadapodcast.ca/season-2-episode-1-captain-crozier/

29/04/2024

To celebrate the ending of the series last week, we thought we'd take a look back at some of our -- and YOUR -- favourite episodes. First up, the story of perhaps the most famous Irish woman in Canadian history. But, of course, she's famous for being infamous ⚖️⛓, which was something of a running theme for women remembered as part of the Irish diaspora... and women remembered in official histories, period! 📖

Join us for the addictive mystery of the real Grace Marks! 🪓🍀🍁

In late July 1843, the colony of Upper Canada was stunned with the news of a bloody double-murder. Thomas Kinnear had been shot and Nancy Montgomery – his housekeeper and pregnant mistress – had be…

25/04/2024

The last episode of 🍀🍁 The Irish in Canada Podcast 🍀🍁 dropped earlier today. Special shout-outs to Patrick, Marion, Matina, Oswaldo, and all the students from The Irish in Canada classes at the School of Irish Studies at Concordia for their help and inspiration. Merci beaucoup! 🥹💚

24/04/2024

A small shout-out to the Mary Boyd story -- our most popular episode over the past three seasons -- as we say goodbye...

22/04/2024

This week, we're standing back and trying to get a sense of what we've covered over the last three seasons, and what some of the takeaways might be.

Join us this Thursday for the final episode of The Irish in Canada: "Parting Shots". 🍀🍁

18/04/2024

Our Emily Murphy podcast is now available. Murphy created waves in the 1910s and 1920s through her advocacy for women's legal rights, from the Dower Act to the Persons' Case. She also advocated for anti-immigration policies, the criminalization of narcotics, and eugenics. During recent protests in the past ten years, her statues were among those targeted. So, how should she be remembered? Is she still 'historically significant'?

Listen here: https://theirishincanadapodcast.ca/season-3-episode-7-controversial-woman-part-3-emily-murphy/

17/04/2024

Is there an implicit belief in the air around us that women in history should somehow be 'good' or 'nice' in order to be remembered as having been 'significant'? Because, Emily Murphy wouldn't necessarily fit that bill all of time. Should she have to? 🤔 A brief clip from tomorrow's episode... 🍀🍁

16/04/2024

What do you think of these statues??? Anything set your teeth on edge?

More to the point, why is it that a woman apparently couldn't do *anything* in the 1910s or 1920s without a fashionable hat or an effing cup of tea?!?!?

Tune in this Thursday to our Emily Murphy episode to hear about everything she was able to accomplish in Canada -- the good, the bad, and the controversial -- with or without a cup of Darjeeling in her hand. ☕