Adam Prudhomme
Editor
As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, many in Southwestern Ontario will proudly tout their Irish roots-even if most aren’t sure from where exactly those roots sprung.
That’s where Kevin Lee and Tom Jenkins come in, authors of Shoeboxes: From Irish Roots to Canadian Branches. They’re currently embarking on a Canadian media tour across the region, making stops in communities steeped in Irish history and populated by descendants of emigrants from Coollattin Estate in County Wicklow. The tour will be in the area on March 22 with an appearance at the Kingston Frontenac Public Library at 10:30 a.m. and then later that afternoon at Belleville’s Glanmore House at 1:30 p.m.
Set against the history of Coollattin Estate in County Wicklow, Ireland, Shoeboxes: From Irish Roots to Canadian Branches tells the stories of 50 Irish families who emigrated to Canada following the Great Potato Famine. The term ‘shoeboxes’ references the common practice of families storing important documents-birth certificates, records of baptisms, photographs, wedding certificates, etc.-in tiny boxes.
The idea for the book was born when Jenkins, who grew up in Canada, wanted to trace his Irish heritage. He got in contact with Lee, who lives in County Wicklow, Ireland, and showed up at his doorstep where he was introduced to a treasure trove of detailed family records.
As it turned out, Jenkins wasn’t the first Canadian to seek out Lee and his knowledge of Irish immigrants who landed in Canada during the height of the potato famine some 200 years ago.
“I started asking, have other Canadians come over?,” said Jenkins. “It turns out a whole bunch had come over. Then it turned out that the group that had come over, over 30 years, was actually a fraction of those that had left this town in Ireland. In fact by the time we were done, we started the book three years ago as a COVID project, we thought we were going to have 20, maybe 25 families. We ended up with 50. As we talked I said just ‘how many are there Kevin?’ It turned out that 500 families left during the window of the potato famine, from this little place called County Wicklow in Ireland and they’d all come to Canada.”
Lee and his wife Eleanor spoke to the Beaver via Zoom from Dublin, Ireland, where they were waiting to catch their flight to Canada to take part in the book tour, which kicked off March 9 through 22.
“We are blessed here in County Wicklow, the people that went to Canada had their fare paid by an English landlord, a guy called Earl Fitzwilliam,” said Lee. “Fitzwilliam was meticulous in the records that he kept and the people who immigrated. We have their names, we have their date of birth, we have a map showing exactly where they came from.”
Those documents have proved to be invaluable, particularly over the last 30 years, as numerous Canadians have made the trek to Ireland to learn about their family’s origins. The record keeping at the time was a stark contrast to those of other countries-Canada included. Most Canadian records would indicate what country in which an immigrant was born but would have no details as to what part of the country.
Eleanor noted they often correspond with Canadians via email for several months before they show up in Ireland in search of the birthplace of their great-great-great relatives.
“One fine day when they do come back to Ireland and when they do we facilitate their journey to their homesteads,” said Eleanor. “With Kevin’s maps we can pinpoint the exact site of their homestead. It’s very spiritual.”
In compiling the book, they spoke with 50 families who were direct descendants from County Wicklow, a small sample size of the estimated 500 families that actually came from that region to various parts of Canada in response to the massive crop failure.
“I said to Kevin, why don’t we put that in a book, bring it to Canada and maybe we’ll find the other 450 families,” said Jenkins. “Believe it or not, that’s exactly what’s happening. We have almost 1,000 people coming to this book tour and we’ve identified at least another 50 families already.”
By their estimates, there’s easily 200,000 to 400,000 Canadians today who can trace their roots back to County Wicklow. For context, there are about four million Irish-Canadians living in Canada today-there’s about five million people in Ireland total.
For so many Canadians with Irish roots, much of that family history has been lost over the years. Part of the goal of the tour is to help build connections and encourage people to research their history. The book contains a list of surnames known to have originated from County Wicklow-odds are pretty good if anyone has that name anywhere on their family tree, they can follow their roots back to Ireland.
“In many ways the Irish were told to stop being Irish and just fit in,” said Jenkins. “In a way the Irish then defined Canada because there was so many of them.”
The authors encourage Canadians who have Irish heritage to visit the website www.shoeboxesbook.com and scroll the list of family names and invite them to visit one of the stops on the tour to learn more. From that site they can also register to attend one of the stops on the book tour, which still includes Peterborough, Tweed, Ottawa, Kingston and Belleville.
Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to Canada Ireland Foundation, which is focused on maintaining the history of Irish immigrants in Canada.