To use cliches, it was a no-holds-barred battle to the finish between Irish Catholic and Protestant labourers when work was beginning on the railway in Hants County midway through the 1800s.

Writing about the incident in the history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, Marguerite Woodworth mentions the “railway riots of 1856,” hinting there may have been a religious element – Protestants versus Catholics.

To get the real story about why the riots occurred, however, you have to turn to the historian, L. S. Loomer. In his book on Windsor, Loomer suggests that jobs and wages, not religion, likely was the cause of the riots.

The trouble started when men recruited by Joseph Howe to fight in the Crimean War arrived in Windsor and found there was work on the railway. As Loomer writes, “The Irish recruits decided they would rather work on the railway for five shillings a day than go off to Crimea to be shot at for one shilling.” They were highly resented by the people already on the job, Loomer writes, and clashes resulted. When the rioting persisted, the militia had to be called to restore the peace.

Loomer has at least 25 entries on the Irish in Hants County. In one survey he mentions, conducted in Windsor in 1767, the Irish outnumbered the English by six to one. Adding to the Irish population was the arrival of the Ulster Scots in 1771, so we can see that there was a strong Gaelic element in Hants County.

For the most part, Irish people settling in Kings County were less troublesome than the Irish railway labourers. However, they were often ostracized and shut out of Kings County social circles. An example of this comes from Kentville historian Louis Comeau: One of his Irish ancestors changed his name from Malone to Lyons when he arrived here, understanding that Irish Catholics weren’t welcome in Kings County.

As I wrote in a column in 2011, most of the Kings County Irish, the farmers especially, had to homestead in poor agricultural areas. This explains why many people with Irish surnames are listed as living on the North Mountain in the Ambrose Church map of 1872, on the fringes of prime farmland, in other words.

In the column, I wrote that the Kings County Irish were overlooked by chroniclers and shunted aside. Eaton’s history of Kings County barely recognized the Irish population, devoting most of his writing to the Planters, the Acadians – and to the Mi’kmaq who got more coverage in his history than the Irish. This may be explained by the fact that most of the Irish arriving in Kings County came as common men of the soil, with a reputation of being rum rowdy and spoiling for trouble.

But it wasn’t entirely bad for the Kings County Irish. Some eventually obtained arable land and some became prominent businessmen. Henry McGee is one example. Fleeing the American Revolution as a Loyalist, Magee wound up opening a mill and the first general store in Kentville, a combination hardware, grocery, and whatever-you-need enterprise. According to family lore, MaGee first opened a grist mill in Windsor before settling in Kentville.

James Lyons (Malone), still hiding his Catholic/Irish origin, established himself in Kentville, buying a prominent hostelry, the Stage Coach Inn. One Hants County Irish family, the Reddens, moved to Kings County and their patriarch, A. P. Redden, opened a long-standing lumber mill in Kentville.

In closing, a salute to the Irish who followed the Planters to Hants and Kings Counties and persevered – the Murphys, Magees and McGees, the Colemans, McGarrys, Tyrells, O’Neils, Doyles, Brennans, Donnels, O’Reilly’s, Bradys, and all those people with Irish names and origins. Some of these Irish arrived late, some early, but they persevered by making their way solely on endurance, a bit of luck, and with a lot of Gaelic pluck.

At one time there were Irish settlements scattered around Hants and Kings Counties: these were mini settlements that are now gone and forgotten, except for a few road names that marked where they once were. They deserve a history of their own, but it has never been written and likely never will be.