Unpacking the discursive Irish woman immigrant in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Newfoundland

Abstract

From the late 1600s to the early 1800s, Irish migrants journeyed to Newfoundland to take advantage of opportunities in the lucrative Newfoundland cod fishery. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this essay explores constructions of Irish-Newfoundland womanhood as articulated by local British officials, the Catholic Church, and male-centred family history narratives. These discourses located women at the margins of early settlement experiences or rendered them invisible altogether. Yet Irish-Newfoundland women were able to negotiate their own subjectivities within this discursive terrain, finding spaces for identity construction in the disjuncture between rhetoric and lived experiences. Some resided more immediately under the hegemonic gaze and struggled to break free from dominant narratives. But most became essential workers in household fishing production outside the capital of St John's, and their vital contribution as shore crews gave them considerable power and authority both in their households and in the broader community. Performing demanding physical work on stages and flakes (elevated wooden structures) or in gardens and fields, carrying out various economic activities in their own right, they were hardly the unproductive, unruly bodies of British official discourse or the passive flowers of civilisation narrated from Catholic pulpits. And far from being absent from the migration story, they were central players in community formation and the economic life of the island. In this historical context, proximity to/distance from hegemonic knowledge production created variations in identity construction within a group often represented in the literature as homogeneous and powerless.

Keywords:

• Irish-Newfoundland women
• immigration
• gender
• discourse
• identity construction
• experience
• oral history

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ellen McWilliams and Bronwen Walter for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. I also wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Memorial University, which enabled my research.

Notes

 1. Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience’, 773.

 2. See, for example, Kruks, Retrieving Experience; Sangster, ‘Invoking Experience’; and Stone-Mediatore, ‘Chandra Mohanty’.

 3. Downs, ‘Reply to Joan Scott’, 449.

 4. Proceedings of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, St John's, 8 October 1754, with related orders, 170–84, vol. 2, GN 2/1/A, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (PANL); and fols. 424–5, vol. 3, CO 194, PRO. See also Greenwood and Boissery, ‘The Eleanor Power Story’; Matthews, ‘Keen, William’; McCarthy, ‘The Irish in Early Newfoundland’; and O'Neill, ‘Jezebels and the Just’.

 5. Bannister, The Rule of the Admirals.

 6. ‘Hearings at Fort William, 9–12 March 1702’, Letterbook of Captain Michael Richards, Commander at Fort William, 1700–1703, fols. 134–55, MF-105, Maritime History Archive (MHA), Memorial University, Newfoundland.

 7. ‘Remarks of Naval Officer Cummins in relation to Newfoundland’, 1705? (n.d., but received at the Colonial Office via the House of Commons 25 February 1706), fols. 424–5, vol. 3, CO 194, PRO.

 8. Van Brugh to Commissioners for Trade, 6 November 1738, file 25-B-2-1, sub-series 04-056/01, box 9, coll. 24, Keith Matthews Collection, 04/058, MHA (transcribed from fol. 93, vol. 10, CO 194, PRO).

 9. Drake, ‘Answers to the Queries Contained in His Majesty's Instructions’, 22 November 1751, fol. 110, vol. 25, CO 194, PRO.

10. Williams, ‘An Account of the Island of Newfoundland’, 8–10, emphasis in original.

11. Dorrill, proclamation, 22 September 1755, 2/236/1755, GN 2/1/A, PANL.

12. Palliser, order, 31 October 1764, 3/272–3/1764, GN 2/1/A, PANL; and Palliser, Annual Return, 1765, fol. 188, vol. 16, CO 194, PRO.

13. See, for example, Governor Richard Keats to Colonial Office, 1 October 1815, fols. 63–70, vol. 56, CO 194, PRO; Thomas Coote, Chief Magistrate at St John's, to Governor Pickmore, 28 April 1817, 27/408–10/1817, GN 2/1/A, PANL; reports of various medical officers to the magistrates of St John's, 1–3 August 1827, 2/256–76/1827, GN 2/2, PANL; various correspondence and reports, August and September 1831, 38/163–4, 174, 177–8, and 196/1831, GN 2/1/A, PANL; Customs Officer, St John's, to Colonial Secretary, 25 April 1833, 13/199–202/1833, GN 2/2, PANL.

14. Wheler, qtd in Handcock, ‘Soe longe as there comes noe women’, 32 (citing fol. 241, vol. 55, CO 1, PRO).

15. Story, ‘An account of what fishing ships, Sack Ships, Planters & boat keepers from Trepasse to Bonavist & from thence to faire Island the Northward part of Newfoundland’, 1 September 1681, 16-D-1-006, Keith Matthews Collection, MHA (citing fols. 113–21, vol. 47, CO 1, PRO).

16. ‘Request to y^e. Commodore Leake’, 20 September1702, fols. 215–7, Captain Richards Letterbook, MF-105, MHA.

17. Palliser, order, 2 July 1764, 3/232/1764, GN 2/1/A, PANL.

18. Palliser, order in the matter of Thomas Pendergrass v. Jonathan Blakener, 2 October 1766, 4/23/1766, GN 2/1/A, PANL.

19. Montagu, order, 10 October 1777, 7/35–6/1777, GN 2/1/A, PANL.

20. Gower to the Magistrates of St John's, 18 September 1805, 18/307–8/1805, GN 2/1/A, PANL; and Holloway to the Magistrates of St John's, 29 August 1808, 20/47/1808, GN 2/1/A, PANL.

21. As in Ireland and Britain, Catholics in Newfoundland did not achieve full emancipation until 1829.

22. References to Irish-Newfoundland women's spiritual activities appear in both early missionaries' correspondence and the oral tradition. For a more extensive discussion, see Keough, ‘The “Old Hag”’.

23. Ewer to Archbishop Troy, Dublin, 30 November 1789, in Byrne, Gentlemen-Bishops, 77–9, emphasis added.

24. It is difficult to calibrate the extent of such relationships, given the lack of recording in this early period. However, the 1800 nominal census of 166 family groupings in Ferryland district suggests the existence of up to thirty-three such relationships (20% of the total), either at the time of the census or in the recent past, and references to informal arrangements also appeared in court hearings and governors' correspondence. See Robert Carter, ‘Register of Families’, Ferryland district, August 1800, Papers of Governor Charles Morice Pole, MG 205, PANL. See also the discussion in Keough, The Slender Thread, chapter 8 and Appendix D.

25. O'Donel to Leonardo Antonelli, Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda Fide, c. December 1875, in Byrne, Gentlemen-Bishops, 55.

26. Fleming, Pastoral Letter, 10 May 1835, cited in McCarthy, The Irish in Newfoundland, 157–8.

27. For more on this episode, see various correspondence, fols. 1–24, vol. 94, CO 194, PRO; Slade, Elson & Company v. Rev. James Duffy et al., 29 October and 3 November 1835, fols. 80–1, box 1, GN 5/4/C/1, Ferryland, PANL; and Bishop Michael Fleming, reports and letters cited in Howley, Ecclesiastical History, 323–8.

28. Fleming, ‘Letter on the State of Religion’, 18.

29. Information from the oral tradition comes from oral interviews in the period from 1999 to 2005 with forty-two residents or former residents, men and women, of the southern Avalon Peninsula and Conception Bay. Unless otherwise signified, all quotations in this section come from oral informants.

30. Downs, ‘Reply to Joan Scott’, 449.

31. See, for example, Governors' Annual Returns of the Fisheries and Inhabitants at Newfoundland, 1735–1825, CO 194, PRO; Newfoundland Population Returns, 1836, 1845, and 1857; and numerous bankruptcy cases in the court records of the period, GN 5, PANL.

32. See, for example, Allan Goodridge and Son Collection, 1839 and 1841 ledgers, MG 473, PANL; Alan Goodridge and Sons Limited fonds, 1840 ledger, MHA and Sweetman Collection, 1756–1848, boxes 2 and 3, MG 49, PANL.

33. In some of the towns of Conception Bay, the economy diversified and working men became increasingly involved in the waged labour of lumber mills, railways, mines, and municipal services. As the workplace separated from the home and became increasingly masculinised, women became more economically dependent on men's wages, and there was a shift in gender relations that reflected this change. However, in families or communities for whom the inshore fishery remained the main or a significant source of livelihood, more equitable gender relations remained.

34. J.W. Saunders Esqr v. Thomas Berrigan, issued 25 September for return 1 November 1836, action in ejectment, writ no. 8, GN 5/2/C/4, PANL; John W. Saunders v. Thomas Berrigan, 3 and 5 November 1836, 62 and 64–5, 1835–47 journal, GN 5/2/C/3, PANL; John W. Saunders v. Thomas Berrigan, 3 and 5 November 1836, 74 and 76–7, GN 5/2/C/8, PANL; Regina v. Anastatia Berrigan et al., 3 and 20 September 1838, box 1, GN 5/4/C/1, Ferryland, PANL; Regina v. William Berrigan, Anastatia Berrigan, Bridget Berrigan, and Alice Berrigan, 31 December 1842, and 31 January and 23 February 1843, box 2, GN 5/4/C/1, Ferryland, PANL; Regina v. James Gearing, Sr, Benjamin Wilcox, Edward Berrigan, Anastatia Berrigan, Thomas Berrigan, Sr, and Thomas Berrigan, Jr, 13, 14, 20, and 27 June 1843, box 2, GN 5/4/C/1, Ferryland, PANL; and Regina v. Thomas Berrigan Jr, 5 February 1844, box 2, GN 5/4/C/1, Ferryland, PANL.

35. Mary Dwyer v. Mary Connors, 4 July 1865, file 23, box 7, GN 5/3/B/19, Magistrates' Court, Harbour Grace, PANL.

36. O'Mara to Attorney General, 21 May 1883, box 1, GN 5/3/C/6, Ferryland, PANL.

37. For more extensive discussions, see Keough, ‘“Now You Vagabond [W]hore”’; and Keough, The Slender Thread, chapters 5 and 8.