TRACING THE IRISH: A GEOGRAPHICAL GUIDE

John Mannion
Department of Geography
Memorial University of Newfoundland

In 1836 the government of Newfoundland produced a census of the island's population and economy exceeding in sophistication anything recorded to that time. More than 400 settlements were listed; 3/4 of them had fewer than 15 houses. Among the several characteristics recorded for each community was total population by religious denomination. There were three groups: Protestant Episcopalians (Anglicans), Protestant Dissenters (Methodists), and Roman Catholics. Since the vast majority of Protestants were of English birth or descent, and the Catholics almost entirely Irish, a detailed map of Newfoundland's population by ethnic origin or ethnoreligious composition can be drawn.(1)

By 1836 settlement had expanded from its historic heartland in the east to encircle the island. The vast majority of Newfoundlanders, however, were still living in an eastern crescent extending from Fortune Bay to Notre Dame Bay. The Irish, who in 1836 composed almost exactly half of the 75,000 inhabitants, were highly concentrated within this long, sinuous shore. More than 70% lived in St. John's and its near hinterland between Renews and Carbonear. There were probably more Catholic Irish crowded into this relatively restricted stretch of coast in 1836 than in any comparable Canadian space. Yet close to 1/2 of the total population of the area was English. They matched the Irish in the large centres at Carbonear and Harbour Grace and were virtually the exclusive group south of there, as far as Brigus, and across Conception Bay, between Kelligrews and Broad Cove. Brigus lay at the northern limit of a distinctive strip of Irish settlement centred at Harbour Main and extending down to Holyrood. Portugal Cove, Bell Island, Pouch Cove, Torbay, Quidi Vidi and Petty Harbour all had substantial English communities but, Pouch Cove apart, the Irish were everywhere in the majority in the district of St. John’s. The main Irish concentration was in the town itself and its immediate hinterland. With 15,000 inhabitants St. John’s was in 1836 one of Canada’s most populous centres. Fully 3/4 of the residents were Irish, the remainder English. Close to 30% of all the Irish recorded in Newfoundland, and 9% of the English, lived in St. John’s.

By 1836 the Irish were virtually the sole occupants of the southern half of the Avalon, from Bay Bulls round to Little Placentia and Long Harbour in Placentia Bay. This ethnically homogeneous zone extended westwards across the bay to encompass Ram’s Island, Red Island, Merasheen, and the settlements around Paradise on the western shore. A more mixed pattern prevailed to the north, in the inner bay, and to the south, between Oderin and Burin. Lamaline effectively marked the southwestern limit of substantial Irish settlement in 1836. Apart from a handful of settlements, Fortune Bay was almost entirely English and their hegemony extended west to Codroy.

Fewer than 15% of all Irish lived north of Carbonear. Settlement was thin and scattered in what was overwhelmingly an English culture area. Small Irish minorities were found in or near large harbours such as Bonavista, Trinity and Fogo. They were more prominent on the north shore of Conception Bay, between Western Bay and Grates Cove, at King’s Cove and its adjacent outports in Bonavista Bay, on Gooseberry Island, at Tilting on Fogo Island, and, far to the north, in the caretaker settlement of Conche on the French Shore.

Newfoundland’s ethnic geography did not change substantially subsequently. The island's population continued to grow. There were 124,000 inhabitants by 1857, 47% of them Irish, and almost a 1/4 of a million by the end of the century. Demographic growth was the result of natural increase, not of immigration from overseas. Ancestral properties were subdivided between heirs, and neighbouring coves were occupied, consolidating and extending existing ethnic patterns. Some intermarriage and intermingling continued to occur, but, more than in the previous century, ethnicity and religion came to characterize the culture of Newfoundland settlements. There was, of course, some movement by both groups to unsettled stretches of shore, notably in northern and western Newfoundland, and in Labrador. Even these settlements tended to be dominated by one of the two basic groups.

Any analysis of Newfoundland's complex ethnic geography must consider first the patterns of transatlantic migration. Beginning around 1575 the English established a base along the east coast, from Trepassey to Bonavista, later to be known as the Old English shore. Beyond these borders, north and south, were the French. For a century or more of English migrations there was no Irish participation in this fishery. Beginning around 1675, and more regularly after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 which ceded Newfoundland's south coast to Britain, the Irish joined the English in the annual migration. From its inception this Irish migration was organized and controlled by merchants, shipowners and shipmasters in the English West Country. Each spring vessels from southwest England, en route to Newfoundland, called in to ports along Ireland's south coast, primarily Waterford, to collect salt provisions for the season. Bristol and ports in the Channel had long-established commercial ties with Waterford through the wool and cattle trades; the Newfoundland and West Indies provisions trade was essentially an extension of this commerce. Irish salt provisions were cheaper and superior to those in England. As early as 1669 "several fishing towns in the West of England" were "victualling their ships with provisions brought from Ireland, to the prejudice of England".(2) A decade later three vessels from Waterford, one from nearby Youghal and one from Dublin were recorded at Newfoundland with supplies. "The trade of the Irish to Newfoundland is all sorts of frizes, London cloath, bandle cloath, glass, shooes, stockens, beefe, porke, bread, butter, cheese and all sorts of small mercht.dises" an English Commodore reported in 1681. "They likewise bring over a great many women passengers whom they sell for servants and a little after their coming marry among the fishermen that live with the planters and, being extremely poor, contract such debts as they are not able to pay ... if course be not speedily taken for the prevention of such passengers coming over the country will be ruined".(3) It is something of a paradox that one of the first references to Irish passengers should be to indentured women since for the next century or more the migration was, overwhelmingly, one of single young men.

The recruitment of male servants went hand in hand with the collecting of supplies each spring. Passengers were considered another commodity, like salt meat and butter, adding to the profits of a transatlantic voyage. Despite the regular traffic in provisions, which increased during and after the Anglo-French war, the number of Irish working in Newfoundland prior to 1720 were probably few.(4) Certainly Irish planters and traders were rare. The detailed nominal lists of boatkeepers between 1675-1681 and in 1708 include a number of surnames popular in southeast Ireland — Aylward, Buckley, Cullen, Dunn, Fortune, Green, Hurley, Kent, Roach, Strange, White — but all were southwest English, an early reminder of the need for caution when using surnames as a guide to ethnicity in Newfoundland, particularly for this period. Much work remains to be done but among the probable Irish planters at this time were James Benger and Denis Loney of St. John's, Thomas Noland in Petty Harbour, Arthur Mahone, Witless Bay, Thomas Hanlon, Harbour Grace and Bartholomew Coyne of Carbonear.(5) These late 17th century lists unfortunately do not record the names of servants but it is unlikely that many were Irish. During the French campaign of 1697 Fr. Beaudoin recorded more than 30 of them in Brigus, Harbour Grace and Carbonear in Conception Bay and at Heart's Content and Old Perlican in nearby Trinity Bay.(6) According to Beaudoin they were harshly treated by their English masters. Some joined the French. Other Irish at St. John's and Ferryland moved to Plaisance.(7) Indeed the temporary loss of St. John's was blamed in part on Irish disloyalty and desertion. Similar charges were repeated by alarmed colonial officials all through the 18" century. Security and livelihood were almost certainly more significant than politics, religion or ethnicity in such moves. Indeed some English absconded with the Irish to Plaisance, apparently became subjects and worked as servants in the French fishery. An Irish stone mason, "master of his trade", worked on the fortifications there. In 1696 he married an English widow from St. John's at Plaisance and established a fishing room at La Petite Grave (modern Jerseyside). (8)

Following the Treaty of Utrecht and the withdrawal of the French from Plaisance to Louisbourg, their traditional fishing grounds between Trepassey and St. Pierre became the focus of an English fishery. It was conducted primarily from ports in the Bristol Channel, basically an extension of West Country operations long established along the shore south of St. John's. (9) For reasons that are too complex to consider here, English ship captains calling in to Irish ports for provisions began to recruit servants there more regularly than before. "There are not above ten French residents in St. Peters, St. Lawrence and Placentia who ...are supplied with craft and servants from England" wrote Commodore Percy in 1720 "but here are brought over every year by the Bristol, Bideford and Barnstable ships great numbers of Irish Roman Catholic servants who all settle to the southwards in our plantations." (10) Five years later the British governor at Placentia maintained that the dramatic increase in cod production since his arrival there in 1719 was "in part owing to the great quantity of Irish papists and non-jurors ... who yearly come out and settle here." (11) Nor were the Irish totally dependent on English ships and all were not servants as commonly believed. Several Irish fishing ships were reported operating at Little Placentia and in other harbours across the bay formerly occupied by the French. "They bring with them a number of Irish servants of whom they leave the winter and by that means stake out the very best of our ancient fishing rooms." (12) An independent Irish fishery is confirmed in a number of separate documents at this time.(13) West Country merchants engaged in the migratory ship fishery complained that Irish boatkeepers had an advantage because of their superior access to cheaper provisions and to servants. More revealing were petitions of Irish servants in Placentia Bay against their Irish masters. The record is not comprehensive but in 1730 at least seven Irish boatkeepers were recorded. An impression of how they organized this pioneering transatlantic fishery and something of its social character, may be gleaned from the servants’ memorials.

Recruitment in Ireland was intensely local. All boatkeepers and servants came from Waterford and its vicinity. At least four of the boatkeepers were named Power, as were a number of their servants. Almost certainly some were kin. The servants shipped at Waterford witnessed contracts formally outlining the terms and conditions of their employment. This followed an age-old European practise of apprenticeship or indenture. Servants were usually paid in bills of exchange which they could cash in at Waterford on their return. In the absence of bills, a share of the catch, particularly cod oil, which could be traded by the servants in Newfoundland, or even sold in Waterford, served as reimbursement.

Wages varied depending on expertise, skill, or length of contract. Most Irish servants were unskilled labourers, performing the most rudimentary tasks. Walter Mullowney and John Bryan were hired in Waterford by Thomas Power, a boatkeeper at Little Placentia, for a single season at £3.10.0 and £5 respectively. They were probably youngsters with little or no expertise. Power provided passage out from Waterford and an advance of 1 0/- for suitable clothing and other necessaries for the voyage. Two other servants secured contracts at Waterford for a year at £14 and £l5 and a third for two years at £12 per year. All were hired by Irish boatkeepers in Little Placentia.

The inshore cod fishery was a labour-intensive industry. Each planter or bye-boatkeeper hired at least five servants; some employed two or three times that number. Thomas Power’s operation equalled in scale that of a large dairy farm in county Waterford in the early 18th century. Labourers’ wages were also higher than in the homeland and remained the principal motivation for this distinctive migration for more than a century. Most servants were young and unmarried. But even as early as 1730 the records reveal some Irish servant families in Placentia Bay. Patrick Hogan, servant to an English planter in Oderin, was head of a large family resident there. We are less certain about the ethnic origins of Paul Neale, a servant in Paradise, but his wife had borne twenty children by 1730. Only nine had survived.

Despite small pockets of Irish in harbours like Little Placentia and Paradise, the Irish were everywhere mixed in with the English. Up until at least 1760 the great majority of Irish servants worked for English planters. "The inhabitants in general employ none but these Irish" a commodore reported in 1729. "They are already so numerous that in many places there remains during the winter nine of these Irish Roman Catholics to one Englishman."(14) Officials blamed ship masters for taking on too many servants in Ireland each spring. "Many ships leave England with sailors only and proceed to Ireland where they load up with provisions and great numbers of passengers."(15) Some Irish in Newfoundland, it was claimed, were "of so indolent a disposition that they do not earn enough in the summer to pay their passage [home] ... some go away to New England, others remain here."

The reasons for overwintering were more complex. Servants were needed in winter to procure timber to repair and construct the wide range of shore installations for the summer fishery. Increasingly from 1720 onwards these winter woods crews were Irish. Contracts signed in Waterford reflected this. They were often for two summers and a winter. An extended contract reduced the complications of annual recruitment and the costs of transatlantic travel. It also improved the expertise of a servant and introduced some stability into what was a highly transient seasonal fishery. Far fewer men were required in winter, however, and competition for places was keen. Thomas Conners, an Irish planter in Little Placentia, could charge one of his summer servants 30/- to join a winter crew in 1730. Many Irish were left stranded at the end of the fishing season, in debt to their employers and without the means to go home. English planters in St. Mary’s had to petition Governor Gledhill, stationed in Placentia, to bring in the troops "to quell the insurrection of some hundreds" of Irish after the summer fleet had left the harbour in the fall of 1724.(16) Complaints about excessive numbers of unemployed or underemployed Irish servants trapped in the severity of a Newfoundland winter persisted through the century. Repressive legislation was passed by a succession of governors. As late as 1764 Palliser ordered that "no papist servant man or woman shall remain at any place where they did not fish or serve during the summer preceeding, and that not more than two papist men shall dwell in one house during the winter except such as have a Protestant master...."(17)

Governors and commodores greatly exaggerated the numbers of Irish participating in the fishery, winter and summer, and regularly impugned their character. They were depicted as ignorant, thievish, drunken, riotous, disloyal, felons "from inland places and gaols ... who rarely became fishermen or seamen." Much of the disparagement was voiced in the early and middle decades of the century before penal laws against Catholics were relaxed. Most English merchants, shipmasters - and planters supported the Irish whose labour was important to the commercial success of the fishery.

Despite the comments of governors and commodores the number of Irish residing in Newfoundland up to 1750 was extremely small. A census records only 342 overwintering there in 1732, less than 13% of the island's population. The vast majority were located in harbours along the shore south of St. John’s and around to Placentia. If the census is correct, even St. John’s was devoid of Irish that winter.(18) Two small pockets were recorded north of there, in Harbour Grace and Bonavista. In the spring over 1,000 Irish passengers arrived to serve in the summer fishery. Virtually all moved to harbours between St. John’s and Placentia, augmenting substantially the small overwintering Irish population of the region. They may have exaggerated their numbers but official observations on the distribution of the early Irish were approximately correct.(19)

Almost all the Irish at this time were young men few of whom remained in Newfoundland for more than a winter or two. No more than a dozen families with houses were recorded in the winter of 1732. There were less than a dozen Irish masters or planters, fourteen wives or mistresses, some of whom possibly were widows or married to Englishmen, and only sixteen Irish children. The latter were all in Placentia, confirming independent accounts of an embryonic Irish community there. No Irish women servants were recorded. Although the census is almost certainly incomplete, the number of Irish families resident in Newfoundland, scattered over 200 miles of coastline, would hardly exceed the population of an average Irish townland and the total summer presence that of an average rural parish in county Waterford.

The next two decades witnessed a transformation in the ratio of English and Irish in Newfoundland. By 1754 there were 3362 Irish overwinterers, ten times more than in 1732. They now accounted for 46% of the island’s winter population. With the arrival of passengers in the spring there were over 5,000 Irish, 48% of the summer total. Winter and summer, these Irish were distributed all along the coast from Placentia Bay to Trinity Bay. Actually more than 2/3 were located between St. John’s and Trinity, a surprising shift in emphasis northwards from the traditional Irish base on the southern Avalon.(20) Even allowing for errors in counting women and children, permanent Irish settlement was still slight. Probably fewer than 1/4 of those recorded in the winter belonged to local families. Particularly in summer, the vast majority of Irish in Newfoundland were unattached single young men whose family and kin resided back in Ireland.

During the interval between the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution, 1764-1776, the volume of male migrants arriving from the British Isles increased substantially. For all but one of these years, 1775, the ethnic origin of the passenger component was recorded. Of the 6,000 or more arriving on average each spring, close to 60% were Irish, 32% English, the rest Jerseymen. The migration from Ulster to America excepted, this annual exodus to Newfoundland was by far the most substantial across the Atlantic from Ireland in the 18" century. Arthur Young, who visited Waterford in 1776, noted that "the number of people who go passengers in the Newfoundland ships is amazing; from sixty to eighty ships and from three thousand to five thousand [passengers) annually."(21) The surge of migration did not result in an increase of Irish settling in Newfoundland, even for a winter. If the censuses are accurate, the number actually declined. (Fig. 1). It was, overwhelmingly, a seasonal migration. Almost all came home. In 1767, for example, 3,800 passengers were recorded arriving from Ireland in the spring; that autumn between 4,000-5,000 were reported back at Waterford alone. (22) The transatlantic seasonal flow equalled and in some years exceeded the number of Irish remaining in Newfoundland over the winter.

The distribution of overwintering English and Irish between 1763-1776 is shown in Figure 1. Conception Bay was the population heartland of Newfoundland, particularly for the English. But there were also more Irish along the west side of this bay than in any other comparable stretch of shore on the island. They were also numerous around Trinity, as in 1754, and had expanded north to Bonavista Bay, Fogo Island, and Conche. There were even some Irish on the coast of Labrador, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far west as the Magdalen Islands. In 1776 a leading Waterford merchant house with considerable experience in the passenger and provisions trades advertized locally for "boat- masters, midshipmen, foreshipmen ... a number of good fishermen and ... a few good salmon fishermen" to go to Chaleur Bay, across the Gulf, for a season. (23) It was pointed out that the inhabitants there were chiefly French Canadians, there was a resident Catholic priest, all religions were tolerated, the climate was wholesome, and an extensive fishery and trade were carried on in the region. We do not know if the venture proceeded, but the reference is an early reminder of links that were forged between Irish migration to Newfoundland and to the mainland.

Compared to Conception Bay, the district of St. John's had a surprisingly modest population between 1763-1776. It was split evenly between English and Irish (Fig. 1). This was to change dramatically subsequently, as the census of 1836 reveals. Along the shore south of St. John’s and around to Placentia the Irish were now in the majority, but not substantially. The English were as numerous in Bay Bulls and Trepassey. This too was to change as the old English planter class and their servants were either assimilated by the Irish, or withdrew. As in 1836, there was a considerable Irish minority around Burin but the rest of the south coast was then, as now, almost entirely English.

The formation of permanent communities in Newfoundland depended on the migration of women from the British Isles, their marriages, and the birth of daughters who in turn married and bore children. Few Irish women resided in Newfoundland in the early part of the century. By 1754, however, they accounted for 1/3 of the total female population, winter and summer. Close to 1/3 of all Irish in winter and only 17% in summer were women, but this sedentary segment of the population was to grow as Irish female migration and family formation expanded in the second half of the century. In 1764 Governor Palliser reported from St. John’s that "great numbers of poor women are frequently brought into this country, and particularly into this port, by vessels arriving from Ireland...." He tried to limit this migration by ordering that such women must have a contract with a master prior to arrival. Somewhat similar concerns were voiced more than a decade later by Governor Montagu. "Vessels coming from Ireland often bring unmarried women and girls who have no friends here and are hired on as indentured servants. Having hired themselves to masters they became pregnant and are an encumbrance to their masters and the inhabitants of the island." (24)

Attempts by the colonial administration to curb female migration failed. Irish family settlement continued to grow, albeit slowly, through the second half of the 18th century. There were 50 English and 65 Irish families in St. John's by 1766.(25) Of some 80 families recorded by Rev. Balfour in Bay Bulls, Witless Bay and Renews in 1759, over 60 were Catholic Irish. Renews, he reported, was almost entirely of that denomination and they dominated elsewhere on this shore. Roughly 40% of the total Irish population in the winter of 1771 were members of Newfoundland families. All but a handful were located between Trinity and Placentia Say. But the 4,500 Irish passengers arriving in spring still outnumbered those remaining in winter. Even as late as 1786 the spring passengers accounted for 40% of the total Irish population.

During the final decade of the 18th century the transatlantic migratory fishery virtually collapsed. The number recorded arriving from the British Isles in spring dropped from 11,000 to 6,000 between 1788- 1 791, and to a mere 2,000 in 1793 with the onset of war. For several years during the war fewer than 1,000 persons arrived annually. What is significant about this movement is that most passengers stayed. Seasonal migration became emigration, with profound consequences for the consolidation and expansion of Irish permanent settlement in Newfoundland. "So few of our servants speak of going home, I'm not inclined to send our ship to Waterford" wrote Pierce Sweetman, a Waterford merchant in Placentia in 1802.(26) Through much of the second half of the 18th century 20-30 vessels arrived in Waterford each fall with the returning passengers; only a handful of vessels were recorded doing so after 1793.

Most contemporary Newfoundlanders claiming Irish ancestry are descended from immigrants who settled after 1790. During the first third of the new century over 35,000 Irish passengers were recorded. In contrast to the 18th century, the vast majority entered through the port of St. John's. The figure underestimates total arrivals, but to what extent we will never know. Only partial returns exist for some years and none at all for others. There were two discernible peaks in the flow of Irish passengers: over 14,000 were recorded between 1810-1815 and again between 1825-1831. Subsequently the volume inbound declined rapidly. Newfoundland received only a trickle of the great mass of poor Irish crossing the Atlantic after 1840. More than 3/4 of all passengers recorded arriving in Newfoundland between 1800-1835 were-Irish. This explains in part their prominence in the census of 1836, particularly in St. John’s and settlements nearby. Emigration of both English and Irish also helps explain the fact that the permanent population of the island quadrupled during this period. In contrast to the almost exclusively male migrations of the previous century, women, and sometimes children, joined this exodus in much greater numbers than before. By the standards of European emigration to the mainland, however, their numbers were still extremely low. Only 8% of those arriving from Ireland in 1807, for example, were women and children. Even as late as 1830 males outnumbered females in Newfoundland by two to one. But the increase in the availability of female spouses through immigration ensured future demographic growth.

From their inception, the Irish migrations to Newfoundland emanated from a small region in the homeland. Figure 2 shows the places of origin for some 7,600 of these immigrants. Although it accounts for no more than 15% of those who settled, the map is the most detailed reconstruction of homeland origins for any comparable Irish immigrant community in North America. No other province in Canada or state in America drew such an overwhelming proportion of their immigrants from so geographically compact an area in Ireland for so prolonged a period of time. Over 85% of the immigrant Irish in Newfoundland came from four counties in the southeast: Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford and Tipperary. A further 7% came from Cork. Emigrants were further concentrated within each of these counties, specifically in southwest Wexford, south Kilkenny, southeast Tipperary, southeast Cork, and Waterford. The only notable pocket of emigration outside the southeast was around Dingle in distant Kerry.

Any explanation of this distinctive emigration basin must consider the distance from the ports of departure. For more than a century Waterford was the primary port of embarkation for Newfoundland and the great majority of migrants and emigrants came from places within a day’s journey of the city. They came primarily from parishes and towns along the main routes of transport and communication, both road and river, converging on Waterford and its harbour. For a millennium or more ships and men have sailed into Waterford’s capacious harbour and proceeded some eight miles upriver, along one of Ireland’s finest waterways, the river Suir, to anchor close to the navigable limits of deep-sea traffic. This route was followed from 1670 onwards by the West Country ships bound for Newfoundland. Waterford was at the hub of an elaborate network of trade routes where produce from its rich farm hinterland was assembled and where passengers also gathered in the spring. The vast majority came from within 30 miles of the port. New Ross and Youghal were secondary centres of embarkation, with smaller hinterlands. Waterford and Ross were themselves the main sources of emigrants, together with the inland port town of Carrick-on-Suir. Other riverine ports like Graiguenamanagh on the Barrow, Thomastown and Inistioge on the Nore, in south Kilkenny, Clonmel on the Suir, Lismore on the Blackwater and Tallow on the Bride, were important sources of migration. So were the rural parishes along these waterways. The complex process of recruitment by English and Irish merchants, their agents and sea captains, and the social origins of the Irish moving to Newfoundland, have been described in some detail elsewhere. (28)

GENEALOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The compact geography of the homeland greatly facilitates the search for Newfoundland-Irish antecedents, be they genealogical or general. Conversely, the historic concentration of the Irish in south-east Newfoundland facilitates the task of tracing descent on these shores. There are probably cases still where all the great-great grandparents of a contemporary Newfoundlander were born within 20 miles of one another in southeast Ireland. Geography apart, pinpointing places of origin is also enhanced by the remarkable range of surnames involved. Close to 1,000 different surnames with parish or county locations in Ireland have been recorded in Newfoundland. These are listed in alphabetical order, in two parts (Tables 1a, b). Table 1a lists names occurring three times or more amongst the immigrants, the other indicates names found once or twice only. It is not a comprehensive list of Irish immigrant surnames in Newfoundland. Names known to be Irish but not yet located by parish or county are excluded. Under B alone one may mention Barnable, Bermingham, Bracken, Bridgeman, Buck and Burgess.

The diversity of surnames in southeast Ireland is partly a consequence of substantial colonization from Britain in medieval and early modern times. Little is known of the Norse contribution to the surnames of the southeast, but that of the Anglo- and Cambro-Norman settlers mainly from southwest Britain in the late middle ages was profound. Over 20% of those names occurring three times or more were probably Norman in origin. From the top of Table 1a we can for example list Aylward, Ball, Bowler, Brennock, Britt, Browne, Burke, and Butler.(29) Further immigration from Britain occurred in the 16th and particularly the 17th century. Most of the surnames associated with this migration belong to the Protestant planter class. They came from different parts of Britain, including the southwest, homeland of the Newfoundland English. These migrations, medieval and early modern, partly explain the substantial number of surnames in Newfoundland common to both southwest England and southeast Ireland. Over half the Irish surnames listed an Table 1a were also found in southwest England. Many were rare in one or other of the two homelands and this was usually reflected across the Atlantic. Surnames that were primarily or as frequently English in Newfoundland - Allen, Anderson, Bailey, Beard, Ball, Bates, Blake, Boyce, Boyle, Brown and Bullen, for example - are noted on Table 1a.(30)

At least 150 immigrant Irish surnames were of early modern planter origins in Ireland. Such names were of course rare in both islands. Most occurred only once or twice amongst the Irish in Newfoundland, e.g. Addis, Allingham, Allison, Anson, Anthony, Atkins, Austin, and Ayers (Table 1b). Not all came from the southeast. Some were Protestant Irish attached initially to the military or the colonial government. Others were merchants or agents or members of the growing professional class in St. John’s. Because of their middle class status, standard of literacy, Protestant background and unique or distinctive surnames they are usually the best documented and most traceable of the Irish. Primarily Anglican, the Anglo-Irish accounted for no more than 5% of the Irish in Newfoundland but occupied an interesting middle ground between the two dominant cultures, Protestant English and Catholic Irish.

Despite the various migrations to the southeast from Britain and the continent, most Irish immigrants in Newfoundland bore Gaelic names. Many actually spoke Gaelic, including those with Norman surnames. Centuries of intermarriage and acculturation meant that the distinction between Gael and Norman had vanished long before the Atlantic migrations and all those with Norman names almost certainly also had Gaelic ancestors.

Irish surnames, amongst the oldest in Europe, were highly concentrated geographically. They were confined largely to territories marked out or allocated in the middle ages by clans and septs whose descendants continued to occupy these ancestral lands up to early modern, indeed, modern times. Many Irish surnames remain spatially concentrated to this day. The majority of Irish immigrants in Newfoundland were born in the late 18th century, before the age of great mobility when people left southeast Ireland for distant places in unprecedented numbers. Even the leading surnames amongst the Newfoundland-Irish were localized in the southeast. There are 275 immigrant Walshes and 255 Powers recorded by parish or county of origin in Newfoundland. Almost all were born between 1770 and 1820. Half of the Walshes came from south Kilkenny and fully 2/3 of all Powers from across the Suir in Co. Waterford. Both names are Norman in origin, and their late 18th century distribution coincided with the territories secured by their forebears and followers some six centuries before. (31) The next two most popular Irish surnames in Newfoundland were Murphy and Ryan, both of Gaelic provenance. Most Murphys came from a cluster of parishes along the Barrow - Nore basin, in southwest Wexford and southeast Kilkenny. One would not expect much localization within the southeast of what was the leading and presumably among the most widely distributed surname in Ireland. The Ryans were concentrated to the west of the Murphys, in southwest Kilkenny, southeast Tipperary, and in north Waterford, again reflecting the clan's ancient patrimony centred in Tipperary. Other prominent names, notably Phelan/Whelan, Brien, and Kelly, were more generally distributed in the southeast.

Less prominent surnames were often intensely local. All but one of the 14 Nevilles were from southwest Wexford; the lone exception came from just across the Barrow in Kilkenny. Nine of the 12 Hanlons originated in the same region whereas all but one of the 9 Halleys were from Waterford. Once one moves down to the relatively rare names - five to three occurrences - they sometimes came from a single parish, town, or even townland, and were probably kin. All the Baileys, for example, came from New Ross, Wexford, the Bambricks from Gowran and the Bruces from Kilmacow, in Kilkenny. That said, one must acknowledge the more frequent cases of rare names, even of two occurrences only, stemming from very different localities in the southeast. It is a reminder that the identification of a surname with a single place does not always hold.

Irish migration and settlement in North America is now the subject of a rich and sophisticated literature. The Irish were probably the leading group in the great European exodus across the Atlantic in the 19th century. Newfoundland holds a pivotal place in any broad examination of Irish migration to North America. It was the first part of the continent to be exploited by them and the island acted as a stepping stone for a considerable movement of Irish to the mainland as early as 1730. Currents of migration from southeast Ireland to southeast Newfoundland extended west to the Maritimes, Quebec, and New England. Genealogists from all over North America are now retracing these migrant paths. Academic research on the great migrations increasingly emphasizes the social origins and cultural antecedents of the emigrants, focusing on families and individual migrants. Genealogy is central to this search. Migration was geographically as well as socially selective. Newfoundland is a classic example of the significance of locality in transatlantic migration. In work such as this, genealogy and geography go hand in hand.

Table 1a Irish Immigrant Surnames in Newfoundland (32)
Surnames not identified by parish, town, or county of origin are excluded.

Total 554
* Primarily or as frequently an English name in Newfoundland.

Table 1b RARE SURNAMES

REFERENCES

1. John Mannion and Gordon Handcock, "The Origins of the Newfoundland Population", Plate 8, Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), R.L. Gentilcore, ed.
2. Colonial Office Records, Public Record Office, Kew, England (hereafter C.O.) 195/2 (1678): 2 "A Complaint unto the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury," Feb. 25, 1669; C.O. 1/43 (1679): 202, 216; John Mannion, "Victualling a Fishery : Newfoundland Diet and the Origins of the Irish – Newfoundland Provisions Trade, 1675-1700," International Journal of Maritime History XII : I (2000), 1-55.
3. C.O. 1/47 (1681): 115.
4. C.O. 1941/1 (1697): 107, /5(1712): 53, /5(1714): 194, /5 (1715): 389.
5. C.O. 1/35 (1675)/38 (1676), /41 (1677), /47 (1681), /55 (1684), C.O. 194/4 (1708): 253-256.
6. A. Gosselin, Les Normands au Canada (Evreux: 1900): 54-63.
7. C.O. 194/3 (1703): Oct. 10; /3 (1705): 306, 424/4(1709):399.
8. G1/467 (1698) "Recensement général des habitants de Plaisence en l’Isle de Terre-Neuve en 1698." There were at least three English planters in Plaisance at this time.
9. Gordon Handcock, Soe longe as there comes noe women: Origins of English Settlement in Newfoundland (St. John's: Breakwater Books, 1989): 56-59.
10. C.O. 194/7 (1720): 48.
11. C.O. 194/8 (1725): 52.
12. C.O. 194/9 (1732): 212.
13. C.O. 194/8 (1728), 203-06; /9 (1730): 26,32; 19 (1732): 222-24.
14. C.O. 194/8 (1729): 264; /9 (1730): 48.
15. C.O. 194/9 (1731): 151.
16. C.O. 194/8 (1725): 52.
17. GN 2/1/A/2 (1764): 272-73.
18. C.O. 194/9 (1732): 222-24.
19. C.O. 194/7 (1720): 48; /8 (1725): 52; /9 (1731): 104; /9 (1732): 222-24.
20. C.O. 194/13 (1754): 152. As with most 18th century Newfoundland censuses, there are gaps and inconsistencies in 1754. No figures are recorded for Burin, St. Mary’s, Bay de Verde (the north shore of Conception Bay) or Perlican (the eastern shore of Trinity Bay). And despite evidence elsewhere of family settlement, no Irish children were reported in the southern Avalon, Trepassey excepted, and far fewer Irish women than in the north. From the comments of governors and commodores, one would expect the reverse.
21. A. Young, A Tour in Ireland 1776-1779 (Shannon, 1970): 406-407.
22. Finn’s Leinster Journal, Nov. 28, Dec. 1 5, 1767.
23. The Waterford Chronicle, Feb. 23, 1776.
24. GN 2/7 (1777): 35-36.
25. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to Foreign Parts, Report of Rev. Edward Langman, St. John's, Letter 167, Nov. 8, 1766.
26. John Mannion, "Irish Merchants Abroad: The Newfoundland Experience, 1750-1850" Newfoundland Studies 2: 2 (1986): 127-90.
27. Graphs of Irish passenger traffic 1800-1850, and population growth 1800-1835, are in Plate 8, Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. 2.
28. John Mannion, The Peopling of Newfoundland: Essays in Historical Geography (St. John’s: ISER, 1977): 6-10; "Patrick Morris and Newfoundland Irish Immigration" in Talamh an Eisc: Canadian and Irish Essays. C. J. Byrne and M. Harry, eds. (Halifax: Nimbus, 1986): 180-202; "Old World Antecedents, New World Adaptations: Inistioge Immigrants in Newfoundland", Newfoundland Studies 5: 2 (1989): 103-175; "Vessels, Masters and Seafaring: Patterns of Voyages in Waterford Commerce 1766-1 771" in Waterford: History and Society, W. Nolan and T.P. Power, eds. (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1992): 373-402.
29. Edward MacLysaght, The Surnames of Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1980). There are only 13 surnames in Table 2a not listed by MacLysaght, but over 60 in Table 2b.
30. E.R. Seary, Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland (St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1976). There are 40 Irish immigrant surnames in Table 2a not listed in Seary (presumably not surviving to 1955), and 190 in Table 2b.
31. Surname geography is still in its infancy in Ireland. For a pioneering effort to map and interpret the surname Power see Jack Burtchaell, "A Typology of Settlement and Society in County Waterford c. 1850" in Nolan and Power, eds., Waterford pp. 541-78.
32. This list contains only names recorded three or more times by county or parish in Ireland. Where spellings differ substantially or radically, variant forms are placed in brackets and are cross-listed where appropriate, e.g. Ahearn (Hearn), Archbold (Aspell). Spellings either follow the most popular form at the time, or, in the case of several variations, are modernized.
33. Dr. John J. Mannion, a native of Co. Galway, Ireland, received degrees from University College, Dublin, and the University of Toronto. He has been a member of the Geography Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland since 1969. He published in 1974 Irish Settlements in Eastern Canada, and in 1977 edited The Peopling of Newfoundland. Essays in Historical Geography, the latter a study of the spread of settlement in the nineteenth century.