Conditions in the New Found Land

What was life like for a new Irish immigrant in Newfoundland? First the person had to be admitted. Sometimes immigrants were not allowed in. Immigrants were only welcome if they were young, healthy and had enough money. Sometimes immigrants made the long trip across the Atlantic only to be turned back.

Once the immigrant had been admitted into Newfoundland, life was far from easy. Many suffered from loneliness. The work was hard and long. Like Ireland, Newfoundland was ruled by the English. Irish immigrants were sometimes treated worse in Newfoundland than they were in Ireland. In particular, Irish Catholic immigrants often faced religious discrimination:

An Irish priest, Timothy Lynch, was a missionary at the fort [Louisbourg in Nova Scotia] during the 1740s, and in the next decade a number of Catholics from the Nova Scotia mainland and Newfoundland sought refuge there from discrimination. Newfoundlanders also sailed to the fortress to have their children baptized or their marriages regularized.¹³

In spite of these problems the Irish continued to come to Newfoundland. By the middle of the 18th century so many Irish were living in Newfoundland that the English began to worry. They knew they were not liked by the Irish. The English took steps to reduce the number of Irish living in Newfoundland. They tried to make sure that workers in the migratory fishery did not winter in Newfoundland. In addition to religious discrimination, the English also passed other rules that made life difficult for the Irish:

They refused to allow Roman Catholics to operate public houses; they limited the number of Irish allowed to live in any one household. They discouraged the practice of bringing out Irish women to get work. One excuse given by Governor Palliser was that these "young girls who are destitute of friends" were often found to be pregnant shortly after their arrival in Newfoundland, and therefore became a charge on the inhabitants.¹⁴

Between 1780 and 1830 most of these rules were dropped. But this poor treatment led many Irish to leave Newfoundland for Upper Canada, New England, Cape Breton and the Miramichi region of New Brunswick.