Quarantining the Past: Commemorating the Great Irish Famine on Grosse-Ile

Grosse-Île, Canada’s main quarantine station from 1832 to 1937, was a required stopover for immigrants on their voyage up the St. Lawrence to the Port of Quebec and beyond. Though most immigrants passed through the inspection process with little delay, during the spring and summer of 1847, the deadliest year of the Great Irish Famine, 100,000 predominantly Irish Catholics landed on the tiny island or were delayed onboard ships at its entrance. Because of their already weakened state due to the famine and unsanitary conditions of the ships in which they crossed the Atlantic, typhus was rampant among the Irish immigrants. Over 5,000 Irish died and were buried that summer in mass graves on the island. Thousands more died on their journey up-river. In commemorations organized on the island at the beginning and end of the twentieth century, Irish Canadians have memorialized this Irish episode in Grosse-Île’s history. In 1909, eight thousand commemorators witnessed the unveiling of the Celtic Cross on the island. Almost ninety years later, amid controversy and debate over the extent to which the island’s “Irishness” would be emphasized, Parks Canada renamed the national historic site, “Grosse-Île and the Irish Memorial.” The author examines the commemorative discourses of these two eras and how Canadian society chose to approach the past in the public sphere.

Master's Thesis

Concordia University

Montreal

2001

v-108p.

en