Celtique

One of my favourite Canadian paintings. A Meeting of the School Trustees, 1885, by Canadian painter Robert Harris (1849-1919,) part of the National Gallery of Canada collection. The tension between the teacher and the trustees in a rural Prince Edward Island school room is palpable. She is trying to persuade them, while they look intimidated by this confident young woman. Perhaps the trustees themselves aren't entirely literate, so feel a little sheepish telling the teacher how to run the school? Her composure in front of the older male bosses makes her a kind of early Canadian feminist icon. #CanadianArt #CanadianSublime

Literature is humanity’s longest conversation with itself about what it means to be alive. It has been going on for thousands of years. You are not late, you are not unqualified, you are not too much or too little or too broken. Pull up a chair. This conversation was always about you.

The ‘banal brutality’ of the Magdalene Laundries @Louise_Brangan’s The Fallen, a forensic history of Ireland’s Catholic-run workhouses, shows why we are always closer to history than we think, writes Seán O’Hagan bit.ly/4erR8Ah

One of the most astonishing stories of Canadian history is the arrival of over 100,000 Irish Famine migrants in 1847, about 10% to the population of Upper and Lower Canada at that time. Hundreds of thousands more followed in the years to come. Quebec City, Montreal, and Toronto were overwhelmed by the Irish, most of whom were severely malnourished, and many of whom were infected with typhus and other diseases. In some places they were greeted by hostility and fear. But everywhere there were acts of heroic charity, like those of the Grey Nuns recounted below. Toronto's first Catholic Bishop, Michael Power, was one of those who died from typhus that he contracted while helping to care for the dying in the fever sheds erected at the corner of John and King Streets in Toronto. The largest mass graves in Canada are filled with the remains of thousands of Irish emigres who didn't survive their first months here. An estimated 6,000 people (perhaps one of them my g-g-grandmother) are buried in mass graves at both Grosse Île and Montreal. In a country that remembered and valued its history, the story of the Famine Irish in Canada would be a powerful part of popular culture, memorialized in great films, literature, and art. But like so much of our brilliant history, it has been almost entirely forgotten.

This analysis finds that Ireland's population crash (from the Great Famine) to 1961 was the second largest in human history anywhere in the world over the past 2,000 years. Post-Columbian contact Peru to 1600 was slightly larger.

It’s rare that the publication of Census material would created such interest and dare I say excitement as the release of the 1926 Census yesterday. I love social history and that oozes out of this, with an incredible interest in a sense of place and those who occupied it before us. When you dig deeper this is so rich. Congratulations to everyone involved @NARIreland @CSOIreland @DeptArtsCulture.

Hat tip to the redoubtable police historian Jim Herlihy for this one. This is the 1926 Irish census form for Canadian prime minister @MarkJCarney's great grandparents Patrick and Bridget Carney from Aughagower, Co Mayo. At that time Mark Carney's grandfather Robert, who was one of the first gardaí, had already emigrated to Canada to take up a position in Vancouver. He eventually joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In the right hand side of the census Patrick Carney writes the word three for the number of children he and his wife have had as only two are listed in the census.

Feel free to dangle your modifiers! nytimes.com/2026/04/16/opi… via @NYTOpinion

Rip Leonard cohen u would have loved today

People driving through Yorkville to see the hippies in 1968. credit: nfb

"A writer's canonization is a slow slaughter of the real, the wax of the replica hardening until all that shows is mask or mascot." Elisa Gonzalez on Seamus Heaney. yalereview.org/article/elisa-…

cf Robert Graves: “He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits: This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid. Till in the end he could not change the tragic habits This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.”

Terrible news from Tehran: I just heard that the Iranian authorities today arrested the great human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. It's not known where she has been taken. Nasrin has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for her unflinching courage and moral leadership. I hope thought leaders worldwide will call on the Iranian authorities to release this brave woman who represents the best of Iran. Her husband, Reza Khandan, is already in prison serving a sentence for advocating for women's rights. Iran should release them -- and all political prisoners. It was wrong for the Shah to imprison people for peaceful expression of political views, and it's wrong for the Islamic Republic to do so today.

As March ends, and April begins... • Philip Larkin •

RIP Glen Baxter. It was a pleasure to share your Universe.

*L’Irlande est membre observateur de l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) depuis 2018. The Embassy of Ireland in Canada would like to wish a happy Journée internationale de la Francophonie 2026! Ireland has been an observer member of the OIF since 2018.

Saleh Mohammadi, 19, a wrestler on Iran’s national youth team and a 2024 international medalist, was executed today by hanging under the qisas (retribution) law. He participated in anti-regime protests in Qom on January 8, 2026. Supporters and human rights groups say his confession was obtained under torture, that he was denied access to an independent lawyer and proper evidence review, and that he had an alibi.

@twitandrewking @Grok was Wallbridge’s report factual? Any evidence?

No one talks about that here in Canada, Prince Edward County, in 1860 Wallbridge discovered an ancient mound with a limestone box made up of flat stones, where skeletons were found sitting in an upright position with folded arms…one of them had beside them a “magician’s bag” “Whatever be the origin of these remains, it is clear that the Massassaga Indians were not the builders of the works which they are entombed, since this tribe, it is well known, buried their dead in wrapped birch bark, and laid them at full length a few inches beneath the surface of the soil,” Wallbridge is perplexed at the whole series of mounds, and insists “the skeletons found in the sitting posture belong to some other and far earlier race.”

The Embassy of Ireland, Ottawa is seeking to fill a full-time Administration Officer position. Please see application form at the link below on how to apply. ireland.ie/en/canada/otta…

St. Gertrude of Nivelles shares her feast day with St. Patrick. She is the patron saint of cats, gardeners and travellers; the original 'Cat Lady'. #StGertrudesDay😺 #FairytaleTuesday