Of all the ethnic groups to migrate to British North America, the
             Irish are perhaps the most neglected and ignored in Atlantic Canadian
             history, the reasons for which are varied and complex.[1]
             The Scottish settlers are widely acknowledge, after all Nova Scotia
             means New Scotland, and the French identity is strong from when the area
             was united under the title of Acadia.[2] The English have a long Maritimes
             history basing most of the colonial war with the French, and the Aboriginal
             Canadians existed in the area at least one thousand years before any of the
             others.[3] However, since European colonization began, the Irish have
             always been present, with the largest concentration in Saint John, New
             Brunswick, a primary immigration port in the New World, and a city with
             stronger connections to Ireland than Boston, Massachusetts.[4] In fact
             Saint John was the destination for more than thirty thousand Irish fleeing
             the Potato Famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1854, with roughly sixteen
             thousand of them arriving during 1847, called Black 47 due to the fact that
             it was the worst year of the famine.[5] Moreover, a large number of Irish
             moved to Miramichi to work in the lumber camps.[6] Miramichi and the rest
             of northern New Brunswick was Roman Catholic, while the southwestern areas,
             except for Saint John which was mainly Catholic, were predominantly Irish
             Protestant.[7] The Irish made up more than one third of the entire
             population and were the single largest ethnic group, more numerous than the
             French, at one time in New Brunswick, in fact one of the original names
             proposed for the province was "New Ireland."[8] Although, the Irish
             population has dwindled through the years due to inter-marriages, even
             today most New Brunswickers can trace their ancestry back to Ireland.[9]
             Most of the Irish in Nova Scotia lived in Halifax, however, large
             numbers of Irish could be found in Pictou, and on Sydney...