TRANSPLANTED IRISH INSTITUTIONS - University of Canterbury

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The ideology of anti-Catholicism was also expressed in the other two major areas
of Irish migration- America and Canada. It was expressed in these countries in nativist
terms. John Higham described nativism "as intense opposition to an internal minority on
the ground of its foreign (i.e., "un-American") connections. "7 It would be simplistic to view
nativism and anti-Catholicism as synonymous, although anti-Catholicism contributed to the
nativist tradition. Nativist movements upheld American nationalism and the rights of the
individual. The Catholic Church was seen by the Protestant nativists as authoritarian and
this meant that they viewed "American liberty and European popery as irreconcilable".8
Higham links anti-Catholicism with nationalism and lists many anti-Catholic societies that
were established in the 1880s, most notably the American Protective Association formed in
1887. Members took an oath to never vote for a Catholic or employ one if a Protestant was
available. This was a reflection of a fear that the Catholic Church was gaining power in
local politics and labourY
Canada had a different anti-Catholic tradition than the United States.
French
Catholicism had dominated Canadian settlement but from 1830 onwards there was a change
in the pattern of immigration.
Canada moved from having a Catholic majority to the
Protestants gaining ascendancy. There was little friction between the French Catholics and
English Protestants until the Irish came to Canada. Thousands of new settlers transferred
from Ulster. These Irish Protestants brought with them their centuries old warfare between
Catholics and Protestants and the Loyal Orange Institution. I 0
The Protestant Protective Association (P.P.A.), a secret, oath-bound and anti-
Catholic organization made its way via the United States into Canada in the 1890s. Once
7John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism. 1860-1925, New York, Atheum,
p. 4.
8Ibid., p. 6.
9Ibid., p. 62.
I Owelf H. Heick (cd.), History and Myth: Arthur Lower and the Making of Canadian Nationalism,
University of British Columbia, 1975, pp. 82-86. For the development of Orangeism in Canada see
Cecil 1. Houston and William J. Smyth, The Sash Canada Wore. A Historical Geography of the Orange
Order in Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980.