Irish in Toronto Pa Sheehan

Today, I’ll be chatting with Alan McConnell. Born in Larne, County Antrim, Alan moved to Vancouver as a young boy in 1973, admittedly with little interest in Irish affairs at the time. Following his teenage years in British Columbia and his studies in both Québec and Ontario, Alan became more politically aware which led him to where he is today, a lawyer in Toronto and the President of the Friends of Sinn Féin (Canada). I would still encourage people to download the episodes and to...

Today, I’ll be chatting with Michael Barton who is a Regional Director at Invest Northern Ireland where he promotes Northern Ireland Trade and Investment opportunities here in Canada. Born in Antrim but reared in Greystones, County Wicklow, Michael and his then partner-now wife moved to Toronto in 2012 and haven’t looked back since. Michael speaks about their willingness to seek adventure in Canada as well as the difficulties getting settled in. They are raising their three year ol...

We have a more unusual episode for you today. I’ll be chatting with Poppy Keogh from Wicklow who has been living in Canada for the past five years, spending her first two years in St. John’s, Newfoundland and the past three years in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Poppy and myself arrived in St. John’s in the same month, August 2019. However she remained a fictional character to me. Our mutual friend, Axelle, from France, did her best to introduce us but it was not to be as Poppy had other ideas about ...

Today, I’ll be chatting with William Jenkins, Associate Professor in the Department of History at York University here in Toronto. I got to know William through his immense work with the Canadian Association of Irish Studies who have enabled me to present my own research at previous conferences and will do so again this June in Galway. In this chat, we discuss how William came from Clondalkin to Toronto, touring North America to scope out the most suitable PhD in 1995, ending up at the U...

Today, I’ll be chatting with Emer Maguire. Emer is my colleague here in the Celtic Studies Program at the University of St. Michael’s College, having received an award from the Ireland Canada University Foundation to teach Irish in Toronto. Emer has been here since September 2023 and will be going back to Ireland before the beginning of the summer. I wanted to get Emer on the podcast to chat as in contrast to most of my other guests so far, she has a definite end date on her time here i...

Today, I’ll be speaking with Bill Jermyn. Bill came to Toronto forty years ago having grown up in West Cork and studying at Trinity College Dublin. We speak about a number of topics in our chat including the decision to move him and his family to Toronto, being a Protestant in the Republic of Ireland and the Wider Horizon programme with which Bill worked over the years, helping disadvantaged youths from the Falls Road, Shankill and Tallaght to settle in Canada. To hear more about Bill’s pursu...