BIS offering tours around Charlottetown's rich tapestry of Irish history this summer
Guided walking tour part of Benevolent Irish Society's 200th anniversary celebrations
CBC's Island Morning is presenting a weekly summer feature, speaking to different tour guides around Prince Edward Island about the tours they give and why you should take them. This piece was prepared for the fourth week of the series.
There was a time in the late 1800s when nearly half of the people who lived in Charlottetown were of Irish ancestry.
This summer, Prince Edward Islanders and visitors alike are invited to explore the rich Irish history of P.E.I.'s capital city first-hand, through a guided walking tour of the historic downtown.
The tour is being offered by P.E.I.'s Benevolent Irish Society (BIS), which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year.
"It's interesting to think how Irish Charlottetown was when we started to do our research for this walking tour," volunteer Paula Kenny told CBC's Island Morning.
"It was fascinating to see how many spots there were around, especially [in] older Charlottetown, that were related to the Irish-born… immigrants or people who had Irish descent."
Though the arrival of Irish descendants in Charlottetown pre-dates the society's 1825 formation by roughly a century, the BIS is focused on preserving all of that history in modern times.
Today the society's goal is to maintain connections to Ireland and support various cultural activities on the Island.
Initially a charitable organization, these days the BIS is on a mission to make sure those first Irish settlers aren't lost to the annals of time.
A focus on people
There is a lot of history to preserve.
Kenny said the society had a tough time deciding what to include in the walking tours to keep them to a manageable 90 minutes to two hours in the heat of August.
It came down to a focus on people, rather than historical structures.
"Although we're looking at buildings, we're more concentrating on what the people who either built the buildings or lived in the buildings did in the early days of Charlottetown," Kenny said.
"There are some… stories of the everyday, and then there are other more remarkable… people like Owen Connolly."
Connolly is one of the more notable figures in the history of early Charlottetown.
He arrived on the Island penniless in 1839 at the age of 19, escaping "poverty, overpopulation, and the inequitable land system" in Ireland, according to his biography.
He eventually went on to great business success after establishing a liquor and grocery store in downtown Charlottetown.
By the 1870s, Connolly's influence stretched across the Island, with locations in several communities, large stores and warehouses in Souris and Montague, and numerous other real estate holdings.
Many of Connolly's buildings are still standing in Charlottetown, and they'll feature prominently in the Benevolent Irish Society's walking tours.
After this 200th anniversary year, the society hopes the walking tours will continue as a self-guided program. A booklet has been printed that Islanders and visitors can use if they want to take the tour themselves next summer.
Those interested in booking a tour this month can do so online at the Benevolent Irish Society's website, or through locarius.io.
Guided tours take place Aug. 3-6 and 11-13, and begin at the Irish settlers memorial on the Charlottetown waterfront.
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With files from Island Morning