Toronto, the Belfast of Canada: The Orange Order and the Shaping of Municipal Culture

by William J. Smyth

Overview

In late nineteenth-century Toronto, municipal politics were so dominated by the Irish Protestants of the Orange Order that the city was known as the “Belfast of Canada.” For almost a century, virtually every mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman and the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne was a civic holiday. Toronto, the Belfast of Canada explores the intolerant origins of today’s cosmopolitan city.

Using lodge membership lists, census data, and municipal records, William J. Smyth details the Orange Order’s role in creating Toronto’s municipal culture of militant Protestantism, loyalism, and monarchism. One of Canada’s foremost experts on the Orange Order, Smyth analyses the Orange Order’s influence between 1850 and 1950, the city’s frequent public displays of sectarian tensions, and its occasional bouts of rioting and mayhem.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442666764
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	05/07/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	328
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

William J. Smyth is the president emeritus of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and a past president of the Geographical Society of Ireland and the Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Canada and Ireland: Toronto and Belfast. The Imperial Context

2. A Tale of Two Cities: Belfast and Toronto

3. Toronto Orangeism: The Nature and Structure of The Orange Order

4. Power, Patronage and Public Employment within the Protestant City, 1850–1920

5. The Emergence of a New Order: Toronto's Orangemen at the Close of The Nineteenth Century

6. The Climax and Onset of Decline of the Orange Order, 1900–1940

7. The Faded Sash: Toronto and Orangeism, 1940–c.1950

8. Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Brian Osborne

“Toronto, the Belfast of Canada is grounded in a rich analysis of documentary, statistical, journalistic, and institutional sources. It provides a great deal of insight into the realpolitic of Toronto and the complex ethnic underpinnings of an evolving cultural identity.”

Editorial Reviews

Toronto, the Belfast of Canada locates Orangeism in a wider imperial frame, and deftly handles the comparisons with other territories – not least Belfast, where Smyth’s cross-analysis is detailed. He correctly correlates Canadian Orangeism with the Order in Ulster. … Smyth is able to show that, in a comparative emigrant context, Orangeism in Canada was unique, and at the heart of it was Toronto.

Times Higher Education, August 13, 2015 - Donald Macraild

'It is one of the few studies exploring Order's interface with public power structures and contributes significantly to the growing literature of diasporic global Orangeism.'

Journal of Historical Geography vol 30:1-2:2015 - Deborah Butcher

"This is a well-written and impressively researched study of the role and impact of the Orange Order fraternity in the shaping of a civic culture in Toronto between 1850 and 1950."

Canadian Historical Review vol 97:02:2016 - William Jenkins

'Smyth's book is an enlightening, well-written, and rigorous exploration through the hierarchical patronage system and ethno-religious moralism of the Orange Order as it manifested in Toronto and paralleled Belfast's history from 1850-1950.'

American Review of Canadian Studies vol 47:02:2017 - Tristan Sturm

'Smyth's exploration of Toronto's Orange culture is fascinating and illuminating... This is a rich and important contribution to the studies of the Irish diaspora on both a local and a transnational level.'

Canadian Journal of Irish Studies vol 40:2017 - Jane G.V. McGaughey

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