Hamilton, Halton, Niagara and area news from CHCH - Hamilton, Halton, and Niagara news..
Here in Hamilton, it was a great day to be Irish and to celebrate Irish culture. People were lined up this morning to take part in St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
It’s also a chance to look at the obstacles the Irish had to overcome when they first came to places like Hamilton as immigrants in the 1800s.
At the Corktown Irish Pub in central Hamilton. People were dancing and celebrating shoulder to shoulder, all in honor of Ireland’s patron saint.
Celebrations occurred in the Hamilton area that was previously called Corktown after the Irish from places like County Cork settled here in the mid-1800s.
But it wasn’t party time back then as starvation wiped out about a million people in Ireland and forced others to escape to a place where they weren’t wanted.
“It was tough for them because they coming out of Ireland because there was a famine and they were starving to death. They came to North America and Hamilton and spread all over North America but what happened was there was prejudice because they were Catholic, mostly Catholic in Protestant society at the time,” says Historian Robin McKee.
A study of Corktown history says the Irish were met with “sectarian strife” as “Anglo-Canadian nativism” on the part of the British already here, led to “system political and economic repression.”
The study says the Irish were forced to maintain “a notably subordinate position in society” to thrive, but thrive they did.
READ MORE: City of Hamilton, police gear up for St. Patrick’s Day festivities
The post St. Patrick’s Day celebrations take place around Hamilton appeared first on CHCH.
