Celtic, Canadian and Concordian

The program had made its way past all the right committees to the minister’s desk. Finally, in early January 2013, word came through: thumbs up. As a result, the university will be able to offer a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Irish Studies, another milestone in a Concordia success story. “It’s wonderful news for us and validates what we do,” Kenneally says. “We now can offer a major, minor and certificate in Canadian Irish Studies, a complete package.”

Behind the school’s steady growth are three elements: enthusiastic Loyola College alumni support, canny programming and brilliant fundraising. The school is the product of a dynamic partnership between Kenneally, who conceived the program and steered it through the academic shoals, and Loyola alumnus Brian O’Neill Gallery, BA 57, who helped build a $7-million endowment to finance it. Yes, seven million dollars — during a global recession and the taming of the Celtic Tiger abroad.

“It shows the power of alumni,” Kenneally says. “Our support comes from the Irish community right across Canada. It’s an amazing achievement for what was originally an abstract plan.” Donors to the school’s scholarship fund give for the pleasure of helping a student and honouring the thousands of nameless, 19th-century Irish immigrants who built the Victoria Bridge or scrabbled a hard living in the streets of the Point in Montreal.

While a handful of other Canadian and American universities offer Irish studies, Concordia’s is the only program that closely links the examination of contemporary Ireland with its historical importance to Montreal, Quebec and Canada.

The great waves of Irish immigration to Canada took place in the mid-1800s and the Irish who once filled Griffintown and Verdun — now Montreal neighbourhoods — and small towns have long since blended into the multicultural stew of Quebec. Yet Irish roots emerge in unlikely places. Kenneally recalls with wonder an incident that occurred when the former Irish president Mary Robinson spoke in the late 1990s at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. A French-speaking security guard was moved by her speech. When asked why, the security guard said, “Why not? She’s my president, too.”

Maclean’s magazine once expressed surprise that Montreal would have a thriving school of Irish studies because “only a tenth of Canada’s 4.4 million Canadians of Irish ancestry call Quebec home.” Yet it’s a country with strangely subversive appeal. As Kenneally points out, “Irish history involves cultural nationalism, colonialism, post-imperial identities, rebellion and independence, partition and decolonization, language preservation and literary expression.” These issues resonate in Quebec and around the world.

Resourcefulness

Literary origins

The roots of the school go back to 1991, when Kenneally was teaching in Concordia’s Department of English. The cluster of courses he developed grew into the Centre of Canadian Irish Studies.

In 1996, Brian Gallery, a former publisher and mayor of Westmount with friends across Canada, became involved in the newly created Canadian Irish Studies Foundation, headed up by Peter O’Brien until 2002, when Gallery took over. Irish-Canadians, especially Loyola graduates, responded with enthusiasm and raised $2 million in the foundation’s first capital campaign. Kenneally credits much of the success to Gallery. “The man’s charm is almost irresistible,” Kenneally contends. “He just loves fundraising.”

The philanthropist and the professor set out across Canada to beat the drum. At first Kenneally was inclined to rhapsodize about Irish writers he admired, yet he soon realized that the names he was dropping were met with blank stares. After a talk in Calgary, a man in the audience asked bluntly, “What’s this got to do with me?” Lesson learned. At his next stop, in British Columbia, Kenneally armed himself with a list of towns named after Irish railroad men, and quizzed his audience to see how many they knew. That did the trick: they were entertained and intrigued.

In 2009, when the centre became an independent academic unit, the new school was launched at a gala event. Gallery was on stage, in his element. Toasts were drunk, dancers kicked up their heels and all the guests, including then-Quebec-premier Jean Charest and former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, raised the rafters with “Danny Boy.”

Clearly Gallery’s heart was behind the school. “A man came up to me recently and said, ‘I was going to give to the scholarship fund, but now that I’ve heard you speak, I’m going to give double,’ ” he says. “That was wonderful to hear.”

Wonderful, too, was the support he raised from the Irish, Canadian and Quebec governments — including $2 million from the province to establish the Johnson Chair, named after three former premiers: Daniel Senior, Daniel Junior and Pierre-Marc Johnson. Other sources included proceeds from fundraising evenings, substantial donations from several Canadian corporations, foundations and, appropriately, the St. Patrick’s Society of Montreal and Montreal St. Patrick’s Foundation.

After 16 years, Gallery recently retired, replaced as chair by ophthalmologist John M. Little, BA 57. “I already miss it, but there’s not much more I can do,” Gallery admits.

Recruiting goes on. Part of the challenge is explaining to prospective students what types of careers a degree in Canadian Irish Studies can lead to. “It equips students for a wide range of jobs that require sharp critical and analytical skills, clarity in oral expression, effectiveness in written communication, and an awareness of the broad issues shaping contemporary life,” Kenneally explains.

The good news is that the pool of potential students is substantial. As luck would have it, several major Irish dancing competitions have been scheduled for Montreal. The school had a booth in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel last fall at the Eastern Canada Regional Finals, which had more than 800 participants. Now Kenneally has his eye on the 3,500 to 4,000 dancers who will come to the North American Nationals in July 2014 and the 5,000 at the World Championships in 2015.

Given a chance to see what the school has to offer and exposure to the enthusiasm and charm of its promoters, many of those young Riverdance aficionados might become Concordia students.

— Barbara Black is the former editor of the Concordia Journal newspaper.