Language, monuments, and the politics of memory in Quebec and Ireland

Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies, Spring-Summer, 2003 by Kathleen O'Brien

   Sacred to the memory of thousands of Irish emigrants who, to
   preserve the faith, suffered hunger and exile in 1847-48 and
   stricken with fever ended here their sorrowful pilgrimage.
   Erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America and
   dedicated Feast of the Assumption 1909. God bless them.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

In block capitals the French text on the monument reads:

   A la pieuse memoire de milliers d'Irlandais qui pour garder la foi
   souffrirent la faim et l'exil et, victimes du typhus, finirent ici
   leur douloureux pelerinage, consoles et fortifies par le pretre
   canadien. "Ceux qui sement dans les larmes moissonneront dans la
   joie." PS. XXV.5.

which can be literally translated, "To the pious memory of thousands of Irish who, to keep the faith, suffered hunger and exile and, victims of typhus, ended here their painful pilgrimage consoled and strengthened by the [French] Canadian priest. Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. Psalms 25:5."

The English inscription is notable in several respects. The monument's dedication on the Catholic Feast of the Assumption (August 15) was pragmatic because it was a popular late summer holiday in the Quebec countryside, thus ensuring a large attendance. At the same time this date coincided with Wolfe Tone Day, the largest celebration of the 1798 Rising in Ireland during the centennial year. Thus, this choice of date links the monument through Catholic ideology to the nationalist sentiments expressed by Fenian spokesmen eleven years earlier at the festivities in Dublin and Belfast (Owens 1994:14). Notably absent from all the Grosse Ile inscriptions, however, is any residual sentiment of Protestant overtures made to Catholics by Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen.

References on the English and French panels to "pilgrimage" ("pelerinage") and "the faith" ("la foi") also allude to a shared sense of Catholic identity while the term "exile" reverberates with political overtones, albeit vastly different ones for Irish and French Canadian readers. The French panel mentions "le pretre canadien," signifying the local clergy, mostly Catholic and French-speaking, who attended the island's patients during the famine crisis; the English panel makes no similar reference. Another difference in the French panel is the biblical citation of Psalms 25:5. The French text, which actually seems to refer to Psalms 126:5 rather than Psalms 25:5, invokes the famine dead but also evokes the rural farming background of many Irish immigrants and many French Canadians as well. By 1909, however, many of the Irish communities in Quebec were situated in industrial areas, where English-speaking entrepreneurs controlled expanding commerce. Does the French-only allusion to sowing and reaping pay tribute to the French rural community or does the absence of this quotation in English suggest a move away from that rural life--and the language(s) associated with it--for the Irish immigrant communities?

The French and English inscriptions are also eloquent in what they do not say. Although Catholicism offered common ground for Irish immigrants and French Canadians, by 1909 relations among French and Irish priests had grown ever more divisive over local administrative issues. Irish priests had established English as the primary language for religious and social services in Irish communities. In 1909 the French panel of the Grosse Ile monument would nonetheless have been a visual reminder that throughout Quebec many French-speaking farming families of the region had taken in Irish orphans, intermarried with Irish newcomers, and formed other cultural bonds with them. In photographs taken at the 1909 ceremony, the Quebec flag over the crowd is a visible emblem of popular local support for the tribute. Daniel O'Connell's popularity among French Canadians enthusiastic about his Catholic emancipation efforts would still have been remembered by some of the 9,000 people at the monument's dedication. Indeed, a full-page picture of the O'Connell monument in Dublin is reprinted in a commemorative souvenir of the Grosse Ile occasion (Jordan 1909:68). Reminiscent of O'Connell's preference for the English language despite his own fluent Irish, religious and political leaders in Quebec's Irish community offered little support for the Irish language in the years between the famine and the erection of the Grosse Ile monument. Influential writers, politicians, and most publishers in the Irish community in Quebec were committed by political allegiance to the English-language power structure. The question remains as to how much O'Connell's preference for English in Ireland may have influenced the linguistic orientation of Irish priests in Quebec parishes.