In Canada today there are thousands of Irish men and women who came between the years of 1940 and 1999 for a better life, a different life. Some knew they would never return to Ireland, some believed they would only stay a few years. Yet those who stayed comprise a dynamic and vital part of the Canadian mosaic.This book collects the stories of 130 emigrants in order to preserve them for future generations, to know and understand what the life of an immigrant was and is in Canada, what it meant for an Irish person to leave the island and travel across the Atlantic Ocean to start a new life.Many went to Canada with only a few dollars and the name of a 'friend of a friend' as a contact. This book tells their stories...

Photographs by: William C. Smith