If you are not a member of the Genealogy à la carte group on Facebook or have not visited the group lately, you missed out on a couple of interesting posts about the Canadian Irish and the Great War. Here they are.
The Montreal Irish and the Great War
Robin B. Burns of Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec wrote a paper on the Montreal Irish and the Great War, examining the response of the city’s Irish to the Easter uprising in Ireland in 1916 and their support of WWI.
By an “extraordinary coincidence,” the Irish Canadian Rangers had begun their campaign to fill ranks on April 24, Easter Monday, 1916, the very day of the Dublin uprising. Did the rebellion and the executions which followed adversely affect the attitude of the Irish community of Montreal to King and country? How did the Montreal Irish react to the introduction of compulsory military service?
Dr. Burns was a professor of history at Bishop’s from 1976 to 1997 and the founder of the Eastern Townships Research Centre. He was one of Canada’s foremost experts on the life of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, the subject of his doctoral thesis.
Irish-Canadian Recruitment Posters
The Irish Canadian Rangers, a unit of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, used colourful posters to entice Irishmen in Canada to join them. The regiment wanted to draw on the large Irish community in Montreal. Here is a blog post from Fado Fado: Irish Memory about the unit and its posters.
WWI recruitment poster
Thanks to Joyce Young for posting this on Facebook.
