Abstract

This study examines how members of Montreal’s Irish community learned to be Irish. The questions that animate this oral history project are: How did my narrators develop a meaningful connection with their ancestral Irish roots? How, in turn, did their lived experiences shape their understanding of Irish-ness? And just how did my interview partners lay claim to their Irish heritage? This thesis seeks to explore the layered history and complexity of Irish identity, culture, and personal memory as they have been passed down through generations, though not necessarily in storytelling acts, as reflected in the eleven oral history interviews completed for this project. It examines themes of memory and connection with familial and communal pasts and asks how these connections have been maintained—or, in some cases, been lost—within families and the larger community. It is particularly interested in the role of class in shaping the types of connections that the eleven narrators forged to their Irish identity. Ultimately this study argues that Irish identity was not simply inherited from one generation to the next. Rather, it was actively performed and maintained in various ways—particularly through connections with Irish history, the Montreal Irish community, and personal or familial memories and stories.