[7] In the early eighteenth century, many Irish Catholics arrived from New England seeking to practice their religion more freely.

During the Seven Years' War, French authorities also encouraged desertion among the Irish serving in the British army in North America.

Overpopulation and the enclosure movement in Ireland along with established commercial shipping routes between Quebec City and ports in Dublin and Liverpool encouraged large waves of Irish emigration to Lower Canada starting in 1815.

The Montreal population was more transient, attracted to labor in large construction projects such as the Lachine Canal before moving on to Upper Canada and the United States.

Irish Catholics in formed distinctive neighbourhoods in the western portion of the city and later in Griffintown near the Lachine Canal works.

[5] Irish Catholic settlers also opened up new agricultural areas in the recently surveyed Eastern Townships, the Ottawa valley, and Gatineau and Pontiac counties.

[11] The Saint Patrick's Society of Montréal was founded in 1834 as an Irish patriotic organization with a political motive to counter the republican sentiments, with both Catholic and Protestant members sharing values of loyalty to the British Crown.

The Irish would go on to settle permanently in the close-knit working-class neighbourhoods of Pointe-Saint-Charles and Griffintown, working in the nearby flour mills, factories, and sugar refineries.

The Fenian Brotherhood in the United States organized raids across the border into Canada in an attempt to seize control of the British colony.

Irish Protestants used the Orange Order to assert British rule in Ireland and Canada, and espoused anti-Catholic views.

D'Arcy McGee, an Irish Montrealer serving as a Cabinet Minister in the Great Coalition Government, strongly opposed both the Orange Order and Fenians.

He worked as a Cabinet Minister within the Great Coalition government to ensure that the rights of Catholics were protected in the new Confederation of provinces in British North America in 1867.

On March 17, 2008, on the 175th anniversary of Montreal's St. Patrick Society, Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced the creation of the Johnson chair of Irish studies at Concordia University.