It is a common misconception that Irish transatlantic emigration began with the Famine. In reality, while it did increase hugely during the years of the Great Hunger, the Irish had begun to migrate to British North America – of which Canada was part of – much earlier. By 1846, almost 450,000 Irish had arrived in Canada, creating a large Irish community there.
As the fastest growing city in Upper Canada, as it was known until 1841, Toronto saw many Irish arrive on its shores. By the end of the 19th century almost one-third of Toronto’s population was born in Ireland, a greater percentage at that stage than New York or Boston. In the summer of 1847 alone, 40,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Toronto, more than twice the population of the city at that time.
While the United States saw an influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Canada proved to be a more attractive destination for Protestants. Seen as a place of loyalism and defiance since the war of 1812, Toronto soon began to earn a reputation as the “Belfast of North America”. Irish Protestant dominance was so profound that from the mid to late 19th century, and well into the 20th century, the local branch of the Orange Order in Toronto dominated many of the city’s institutions.
The mayor’s office, fire department and police department were all controlled by Protestant majorities, making it very difficult for Irish Catholics to find work and any sort of upward social mobility. By the late 19th century it was clear that the most ancient of Irish phenomena, sectarianism, was alive and well in Canada’s largest growing city. With sectarian tension building, the city was like a tinderbox and the proverbial match was soon struck over 7,000km away in Rome.
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On December 24th, 1874, Pope Pius IX issued the Papal Encyclical Gravibus Ecclesiae which designated 1875 as a jubilee year. Citing the “corruption of sound doctrine and the spreading of impiety, widespread scandals, the spreading corruption of morals”, Pius IX offered special indulgence to any Catholics who paraded from church to church within a city.
Catholic pilgrims advertised for such a march to take from the Bishops Palace to St Michael’s Cathedral in the Irish Canadian newspaper. Almost immediately a petition was sent to Mayor Francis Medcalf to have the procession banned. Mr Medcalf allowed the march to take place on the condition that Catholics would march peacefully. However, it wasn’t long before stone-throwing between pilgrims and protesters broke out on Spadina Avenue and Queen Street. It soon spread to neighbouring streets. Toronto police formed a human chain to shield Catholic pilgrims from missiles. Shots were fired on nearby Simcoe Street before the rioters were eventually dispersed by a police baton charge.
A second attempt to hold the procession took place on October 3rd and led to much more severe rioting. Stone-throwing began at McGill Square before eventually spreading to other areas of the city. Full pitched battles between Catholic pilgrims and Protestants demonstrators began to engulf the city. The violence was eventually ended when the mayor ordered in the cavalry to protect Catholic pilgrims.
Parades continued to be flashpoints between Catholics and Protestants in Toronto and both the St Patrick’s Day and Twelfth of July parades were occasionally banned in the city in the decades that followed due to the civil disturbances that broke out.
In the aftermath of the “Jubilee Riots”, as they became known, the celebration of St Patrick’s Day fell out of favour with Catholic Torontonians. It is often believed that the parade was banned from the 1870s until the first contemporary parade in 1988. However, in reality the practise was simply replaced by luncheons, concerts and theatrical productions organised by the Irish expatriate community in the city.
The first modern-day parade in 1988 was a much different affair from the “Jubilee Riots”, with 1,000 participants in 88 marching groups, bands and floats taking part in the city’s first such celebration in more than a century. According to the Toronto Star, the city’s paper of record: “It was a grand day for the Irish and a proud one for Toronto, the Orange marched along with the Green, amid flutes and pipes, drums and fiddles, harps, laughter, floats, leprechauns and the massed flags of the 32 counties of the Emerald Isle.”
As festivities wound down a local Irish businessman remarked to a news reporter that the city had “finally laid its ugly ghost to rest”.
