Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario

Smiths Falls, Ontario

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A Story of Emigration: Southwest Wicklow to Ontario

By Anne Burgess and Joseph Kenny

 

In his book, Surplus People, Jim Rees has described the program of assisted

emigration that Lord Fitzwilliam initiated in the late 1840s to reduce the

number of tenants on his estate in southwest Wicklow. Most of these emigrants

sailed from New Ross, County Wexford, to Quebec City, but few of them stayed in Quebec, where

the population was for the most part French-speaking. Instead, they continued

on up the St. Lawrence River to the province of Ontario (then called Upper Canada)

and became part of Irish communities there. The following details the chain

migration that drew them to two such communities.

 

Eastern Ontario

 

The British government’s creation of the Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario

(1826-1832) was accomplished with the labour (and in some cases, the lives)

of many Irish workers from the Fitzwilliam estate in southwest County Wicklow.

 

We know at least some of their names, recorded in an 1829 petition (the McCabe List)[i]

to have family members join them: John Byrnes, ML# 142 of Ballynultagh (family at

Knockatomcoyle); James Byrnes (family at Muskeagh); William Hopkins, ML# 233 (Coolkenna);

Thomas Hawkins (Kiltegan); Charles Dowgard (?) (Tinahely); Daniel Murphy

(Coolbeg (Killabeg?); Lancelot Jackson, ML# 662 (Tullow, Aghowle); Matthew Dunn

(Ballintemple).

 

The Canal, intended to provide a navigable link between the Ottawa River and the

town of Kingston, Ontario to the west, provided wage work for the labourers. It

also provided them with an opportunity, at the time of the Canal’s completion,

to acquire grants of land along the route.

 

Thus, in the 1840s when Lord Fitzwilliam’s tenants began arriving in Canada, the

Rideau Canal labourers from southwest Wicklow, now settlers, were the source of

new Canadian homes for many of the emigrés.

 

The 1851, 1861, and 1881 Canadian censuses document [ii]

the presence of these new immigrants and their families, from Ottawa to Smiths Falls to Brockville to the Kingston area.

Hours of Operation

The Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario is now closed for the 2021 season!
We look forward to welcoming you again, soon.

 

Location

90 William St. W.
PO Box 962
Smiths Falls, ON K7A 5A5
613-283-5696
info@rmeo.org

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