This work focuses on the efforts of Montreal's Irish Catholics to maintain a cohesive ethnic community throughout the nineteenth century, and on the vital role that the national parish played in this process. The early community directed its attention towards institution building centred around Saint Patrick's church, which had been built for the use of Irish Catholics in the 1840s. Following the dismemberment of the extensive parish of Notre-Dame and the erection of smaller Irish national parishes in the early 1870s, greater emphasis was placed on the creation of a wide variety of parish societies. By discouraging participation in Irish national societies that refused to submit to clerical authority, and by effectively fusing religious and national identification, the clergy ensured the success of parish-based organisation. Broader associations embracing the various Irish-Catholic parish societies were established, and participation in the Saint Patrick's day procession inscribed these affiliations in space. It will be demonstrated that the territorial and social evolution of parishes were intimately connected.

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