News/Canada

{mosimage}MONTREAL - When I learned of a new exhibit — The Irish O’Quebec — at Montreal’s prestigious McCord Museum , I knew I had to see it. The reasons were obvious: my maiden name was O’Donnell (the Irish part of me). My great-grandfather John Patrick O’Donnell had immigrated to Quebec in the 1860s so stories like his would be represented somewhere in this exhibit. My mother’s maiden name was La Branche (the French Canadian part of me). I had the perfect dual heritage. To top it off, I learned the guest curator of this exhibit was historian  Dr. Lorraine O’Donnell.

The exhibit is mounted with the usual creativity found in Quebec museums. McCord Museum, originally one of Montreal’s grand old mansions now added on to and owned by McGill University, has a strong link with Montreal’s past. Any museum exhibit has to have a rationale and the one behind this one is obvious: how did two distinct cultures — the French Canadian settlers and Irish immigrants — manage to blend so seamlessly in French Quebec? This exhibit provides the answers, as we move through the 17th century onward learning of both famous and ordinary folk of this mixed culture.