At Home and Abroad

Eamonn McKee & Mark McGowan - 50 Irish Lives in Canada As the biographies in this collection attest, Irish-born Canadians and their descendants have made significant contributions to all aspects of Canadian life. Today 4.4 million (12%) of Canadians can claim Irish birth or descent. They stand on the shoulders of giants who have made enormous contributions to Canadian society and the country’s reputation globally. The prominent Irish could only achieve their pre-eminence from within the communities of ordinary Irish whose own lives as immigrants were extraordinary in themselves. Without those generations, neither the Canada of today nor the Irish community of Canada would have been possible. The Fifty Irish Lives in Canada project is a modest but important beginning, bringing some of these Irish Canadian stories to light. Mark McGowan: Specialist in the religious, social, and communications history of Canada and Ireland. Author of the award-winning books Catholics at the Gathering Place: Historical Essays on the Archdiocese of Toronto (1992) and The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922 (McGill-Queen’s 1999); Michael Power: The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier (McGill-Queen’s, 2005); he has recently completed a revisionist work on the Irish Famine migration to Canada (for the CHA Canadian Ethnic Groups Series) and a short award-winning book for the Ireland Park Foundation: Death or Canada: The Irish Famine Migration to Toronto, 1847 and Toronto. He is currently researching the evolution of religious broadcasting in Canada and writing a book on Canada’s Irish Catholics during the Great War. A recipient of four University Teaching Awards, he served as Principal of St. Michael’s College from 2002 to 2011, and as Acting Vice-Provost, Students, for the University of Toronto for part of 2013. Eamonn McKee graduated from University College Dublin with a degree in History and Economics in 1982, followed by a Ph.D. from the National University of Ireland in 1987. He joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1986, working on the Northern Ireland Peace Process, Overseas Development Assistance, the UN, Conflict Resolution, Trade, and Expo Dubai. His previous postings have included to the Embassy in Washington DC (1990-96), to the Consulate General New York (1999-2001), as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (2009-2013), and as Ambassador to Israel (2013-15). He was appointed as Ambassador to Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas in 2020.