Book Review: Bytown 1847 Élisabeth Bruyère & the Irish Famine Refugees

Book Review: Bytown 1847

Élisabeth Bruyère & the Irish Famine Refugees

Michael McBane

2022

Using newspaper articles of the time, personal journals, correspondence, and official government documentation, author and historian Michael McBane expertly delves into the lead-up and tragedies of a year that has since become known as ‘Black 47’.

Bytown 1847  is primarily about Bytown, now Ottawa, and the arrival that year of over 3,000 Irish refugees, many of whom were sick with typhus. And it is the story of 26-year-old Sister Élisabeth Bruyère who, along with her small team of Grey Nuns and volunteers, provided tireless care as “the only ones who dared touch [them].”

McBane’s writing is well-constructed and engaging, and among the book’s many strengths is the manner in which it effectively conveys the multiple aspects of a brief, albeit complex history. Through the words of the people themselves, the reader is drawn into a world of intersecting stories, where acts of selfless heroism mesh with shameless profiteering and overt prejudice, all of which can be aptly summarized by the title of Sergio Leone’s classic western film: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good

McBane incorporates several excerpts from the writings of  Bruyère herself, who in 1847 was in her final year as head of Bytown’s Grey Nuns convent, and anxious to return home to Montreal.

We learn of Bruyère’s efforts to secure land and bring the town’s first hospital into being during her three-year assignment, a modern version of which still stands in the same location and now bears her name.

First-hand accounts describe the large numbers of sick who are treated as famine victims begin to arrive, and the ceaseless work involved in removing “platefuls of lice”. Patients receive their first bath since departing Ireland, along with a bed with clean sheets — treatment which is generally regarded as helping break the chain of transmission and saving the vast majority of the nearly 600 who receive care.

Those who do succumb are given a proper burial, and their names, ages and dates, hand-written in the original church records, are also included in McBane’s book. 

Excerpts from Bruyère’s personal journal describe a team, buoyed by faith, whose few hours of free time are spent mainly in prayer and inspecting one another for lice. The book describes the sickness they themselves fall victim to, and how at one point only five of the twenty-seven members are well enough to provide care. And of Bruyère, herself falling victim to typhus, for a time bedridden and near death.

Other heroes also emerge. We read the correspondence of Chief Immigration Agent A.B. Hawke, whose harsh criticisms regarding overcrowded boats and barges go unheeded, and of his taking matters into his own hands to secure a contract for adequate funding for patient care.

There is also Thomas Alwin, member of the opposition Reform party, who accurately forewarns of the “crush” of bodies soon to be arriving in Bytown in letters that go ignored by the Secretary of the Province. 

Lastly, we are introduced to Henry Friel, editor of the Bytown Packet, who regularly reports on the Irish famine, and then, in 1847, focuses his editorials on the plight of Bytown’s refugees and the tireless efforts of Bruyère and her team.

The Bad

But McBane’s objective lens also offers a deep dive into the more nefarious activities of the time, including the unregulated practice of “shifting human cargo.” Of companies profiting from the crush of bodies crammed below decks where disease, particularly typhus, runs rampant and factors heavily into the deaths of roughly one in twenty of the more than 100,000 who set out.

And there are the “fever” sheds, where victims wait to be transported further; windowless barns with straw-covered floors hastily constructed in Grosse Île, Montreal’s Pointe-Claire, and even at the Bytown end of the Rideau Canal. Buildings described by Dr. Woldred Nelson as containing “misery enough to make one shudder.”

The state of refugees arriving at Bytown is further described by witnesses as “shovelled out cargos of paupers” after five days spent packed into open barges, fully exposed to the elements. It is a practice that continues until late August, when the canal is finally closed in response to a worsening health crisis.

The fever sheds have long since vanished from the banks of the canal where the National Arts Centre now stands. Though the reader can’t help but be left with a certain sadness and reverence for what is now an elegant public space. 

The Ugly

But perhaps most disconcerting is the manner in which the book captures the underlying prejudice of the time, the lack of proactive measures despite advanced warnings, and even institutional blindness with regard to the suffering of so many. McBane’s well-chosen extracts convey the haughty indifference on the part of government officials on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The Irish have a native tendency towards sloth and apathy.” 

These words, penned by A.C. Buchanen, Head of Britain’s Emigrant Department, no doubt helped inform the actions, or, more accurately, the level of inaction during this time. It is a philosophy that is further reflected in his letter to Governor General Earl Grey in July 1847, which states that “any support, if not rigidly guarded, may have the effect of inducing the emigrants to relax their exertions.” That it is “far better to do too little than too much.”

Sadly, Buchanen is not alone in his thinking. The reader is also introduced to editorials, published in the London Times, stating “For our part we regard the potato blight as a blessing.”

The book also offers a deep dive into the hubris of a newly formed Bytown Board of Health, and its unsuccessful efforts to block pre-approved hospital funding whilst attempting to take over control based on unfounded assertions that the hospital favours Catholic patients.

Conclusion

Bytown 1847 offers an insightful portrayal of a complex, albeit little-known period in Ottawa’s history. And it leaves the reader with a far greater appreciation for the significance of those involved, and the places like the Bruyère Hospital, or the canal itself where the fever sheds once stood. And of Ottawa’s Macdonald Park, where many of the dead were ultimately laid to rest.

Reviewer’s Note: Subsequent to the book’s publishing, a monument to the famine victims, along with a pathway entitled “Global Irish Famine Way”, was dedicated in Macdonald Park. The names of those who lie there still, although known, are not mentioned.