Abstract

This thesis considers the construction of Canadian national identity and the political and economic forces that shaped it through the focused lens of the Irish Protestant community, a changing immigrant milieu in post-Confederation Montreal. The Protestant Irish community was divided by class, and their different reactions to certain social events and identities meant that the boundaries of their community were constantly being pushed and pulled in different directions, as actors tried to impose their own narratives on the changing meta-narrative of the city. Montreal was a contact zone and immigrant centre where cross-cultural exchange occurred on a daily basis and where ethnic and religious communities were both formed and transformed. This research draws on print media to explore the complex process of identity creation in the popular press and in the popular literature of the day. By examining this quest for new national narratives between the time of Confederation and the First World War, this thesis examines the modalities through which old identities were superseded and transformed for the sake of cultural accommodation and economic expediency.