"Out of Ireland": Towards a history of the Irish in pre-confederation Canadian literature

Abstract

This thesis examines the works of five Irish-born writers who came to Canada between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Donnchadh Ruadh MacConmara, Isaac Weld Junior, Thomas Moore, Anna Brownell Jameson, and Adam Kidd. Collectively, these writers helped formulate, establish, and solidify impressions of the eventual Dominion. In turn, they played an invaluable role in encouraging immigration to Canada by providing would-be emigrants with valuable insight and information that would aid in their impending decision about where to seek a new home once they crossed the Atlantic: America or Canada. Essential to their respective experiences was the discovery that Canada could offer not only respite from the instability sweeping the British Isles but also that it was superior to the American Republic. To illustrate this point, the Dantean concepts of inferno, purgatorio, and paradiso, first suggested in Weld's work, are equated with America, Canada, and the Old World respectively. This paradigm is used both to conceptualize and assess the New World in relation to the Old, to compare Canada and America invidiously, as well as to encourage immigration to the former and divertit from the latter. In addition to providing a survey of the heretofore unrecognized contribution of five foundational Irish writers to the beginnings of Canadian literature, the thesis also exposes and challenges the early and present-day critical reception of their respective works in reviews and criticism that frequently propagate unfavourable stereotypes of the Irish. Its aim is partly to counter these falsely imposed myths and harmful stereotypes by drawing attention to the unsound practices of many biographers and critics.