Irish Politics on Parade: The Clergy, National Societies, and St. Patrick’s Day Processions in Nineteenth-century Montreal and Toronto

Comparative methods allow us to explore how the experiences of nineteenth-century Irish communities varied across Canada. Examination of St. Patrick’s Day processions in Montreal and Toronto reveals that those organizing the processions in Montreal were generally more successful at achieving the appearance of community consensus than their counterparts in Toronto. In both cities the parades acted as a catalyst for discussions concerning the balance between lay initiative and clerical authority, the question of loyalty to Canada versus loyalty to Ireland, and the relationship between Protestants and Catholics. Only by exploring the complex interactions of local, national, and international politics in each of the two communities, however, can we understand these different outcomes.Les méthodes comparatives nous permettent de considérer comment les expériences des communautés irlandaises du XIXe siècle ont varié à travers le Canada. Une analyse des défilés de la Saint-Patrick à Montréal et à Toronto indique que ceux qui organisaient les défilés à Montréal ont généralement mieux réussi à créer l’apparence d’un consensus communautaire que leurs homologues à Toronto. Dans les deux villes, les défilés ont servi à déclencher de multiples débats au sujet de l’équilibre entre l’initiative laïque et l’autorité du clergé, du conflit entre la fidélité envers le Canada et l’attachement à l’Irlande et des rapports entre protestants et catholiques. Seule l’étude des interactions complexes de la politique locale, nationale et internationale dans chacune des deux communautés nous permet de comprendre ces différents résultats

Protestant Restructuring in the Canadian City: Church and Mission in the Industrial Working-Class District of Griffintown, Montreal

Increasing social and spatial segregation along class lines in nineteenth-century Montreal brought about a restructuring of the city's Protestant churches. This paper compares the strategies adopted by Anglicans and Presbyterians as they attempted to reorganize and improve their provision of church accommodation in the industrial working-class suburb of Griffintown between 1860 and the turn of the century. It demonstrates that while denominational responses to the changes taking place were strikingly similar in many respects, class differences within the working classes nevertheless resulted in a complex array of churches and missions, each catering to a slightly different niche within the community. It is argued Griffintown's places of worship not only came to reflect the transformation of class relations that emerged with industrialization but also created opportunities for the negotiation of these new relations within the religious sphere.La croissance de la ségrégation sociale et géographique à Montréal au XIXe siècle a forcé les églises protestantes à se réorganiser pour mieux servir les besoins de la population. Cet article compare les stratégies adoptées par les communautés anglicanes et presbytériennes pour améliorer l’approvisionnement des églises dans la banlieue industrielle de Griffintown, entre 1860 et la fin du XIXe siècle. Même si les stratégies adoptées par les anglicans et les presbytériens étaient semblables à bien des égards, les distinctions sociales entre différents éléments de la classe ouvrière ont néanmoins mené à la création d’une grande variété d’églises et de missions, chacune servant un groupe particulier de la population. Ainsi, les édifices consacrés au culte à Griffintown étaient non seulement un reflet des nouvelles relations entre les classes sociales produites par l’industrialisation, mais jouaient également un rôle important dans la négociation de ses nouveaux rapports sociaux

The role of the parish in fostering Irish-Catholic identity in nineteenth-century Montreal /

This work focuses on the efforts of Montreal's Irish Catholics to maintain a cohesive ethnic community throughout the nineteenth century, and on the vital role that the national parish played in this process. The early community directed its attention towards institution building centred around Saint Patrick's church, which had been built for the use of Irish Catholics in the 1840s. Following the dismemberment of the extensive parish of Notre-Dame and the erection of smaller Irish national parishes in the early 1870s, greater emphasis was placed on the creation of a wide variety of parish societies. By discouraging participation in Irish national societies that refused to submit to clerical authority, and by effectively fusing religious and national identification, the clergy ensured the success of parish-based organisation. Broader associations embracing the various Irish-Catholic parish societies were established, and participation in the Saint Patrick's day procession inscribed these affiliations in space. It will be demonstrated that the territorial and social evolution of parishes were intimately connected

God's mobile mansions : Protestant church relocation and extension in Montreal, 1850-1914

Extensive church building programmes and the relocation of existing churches were important features of Protestant congregational life in industrializing cities across Britain and North America. In Montreal, building booms in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s led many congregations to abandon their old churches in the centre of the city and rebuild on a grander scale 'uptown', closer to the residential neighbourhoods to which their wealthier members were moving. In the early twentieth century, when a new phase of growth engulfed the city, many of the same congregations again faced the dilemma of whether or not to move. Whereas the earlier period was characterized by a strong evangelical consensus, the subsequent period was associated with wider-ranging theological and social debates: the context of decision-making had changed.For each period, I explore the impact of building decisions on 'domestic' ministries to church members and on the 'public' ministries that congregations carried out in the environs of their churches and in working-class neighbourhoods. In doing so, I draw on a variety of methodological approaches and on local sources that have not previously been synthesized. A database containing temporal and spatial information for every Protestant church built in Montreal between 1760 and 1914 was also constructed for this project. Case studies of six 'uptown' congregations, and of a downtown neighbourhood that was a popular mission field, are carried out. Investigation of documentary sources such as church minute books and correspondence is complemented by cartographic and sociological analyses of church membership using city directories, tax rolls, censuses, and the recently completed Montreal l'Avenir du Passe historical geo-database. A systematic sampling of local newspapers and denominational records brings to life the many congregational controversies and dilemmas that spilled over into the public sphere during a time of dramatic urban, social, and theological change.A range of external factors, both material and spiritual, affected the choices that were made. I show how investment in religious edifices during the original phase of church moves, as well as the heightened social exclusivity that these moves generated, made it more challenging for the next generation to adapt their religious institutions to the needs of the twentieth-century city. Congregations simultaneously had to deal with a number of ongoing tensions: the logic of institutional maintenance versus the logic of mission, competition versus cooperation amongst Protestant institutions, and the dynamic between capitalist materialism and Christianity. Unless these tensions were skilfully negotiated by church leaders, they threatened to destroy either the viability or the integrity of religious institutions