St. Patrick Street Irish: The Whelans at 332

By Nancy Miller Chenier

A magnificent, repurposed church, St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, home of the National Irish Canadian Cultural Centre, and the ruins of Our Lady’s, a former Roman Catholic school, now serve as monuments to the Irish Catholic settlers of Lowertown. Along the south side of St. Patrick Street between Cumberland and King Edward, some grey painted buildings still stand as reminders of the Irish Catholics who survived early Bytown dangers – hazardous work, diseases, childbirth, Protestant hostility, distrust from French Canadian Catholic neighbours, and more. Associated with names like Whelan, Kinsella, O’Meara, Minehan, O’Grady, Killeen, and Murphy, this stretch of the street could be called “Irish Row.”

In 1847, Lawrence Whelan and his new wife Anne Fitzpatrick joined several thousand Irish Famine refugees in Bytown. They somehow survived the typhus outbreak that killed so many of their fellow travellers and settled initially in a small log house at the foot of what was known then as Lewis Hill (Laurier and Bronson). By 1861, census records document the family on St. Patrick Street with Lawrence aged 44 years, Anne 35 years, Mary 14 years, Mathew eight years, and Sarah five years. Lawrence was now owner of a two-storey frame house, presumably the same modest but substantial building currently addressed as 332 – 332 1/2 St Patrick.

Lawrence was enterprising and had already begun work as a clerk for the Gilmour Lumber Company that had recently opened a local office. By the mid-1870s, he had progressed to shanty foreman, work that required significant reliability as well as knowledge and skills in a variety of jobs. By 1882, his financial situation was such that he could build another two-storey house – perhaps using Gilmour lumber – as an investment next door at 328-330 St. Patrick Street. 

According to his 1895 obituary in the Ottawa Citizen, Lawrence worked for the Gilmour company until he retired in 1888. The obituary refers to him as a plucky pioneer who laid the foundations of the city. He became one of the legendary rivermen, known as an honest man with strong moral principles and recognized in the lumber industry from the Upper Ottawa to Québec.

With Lawrence absent for months at a time, Anne was busy with family and church activities. Education was important and Mary and Sarah studied with the Sisters of Charity. Mathew eventually graduated to classical studies at St Joseph’s College. Religion played a major role, mainly with a connection to the nearby Notre Dame and then St. Brigid’s parishes. As well, Anne continued the family links to the St. Patrick parish that was their first church and to particular efforts for the St. Patrick Orphanage and Asylum, founded in 1865 as a place of refuge for Irish poor. The Whelan children were influenced by this educational and religious background. Mary became a nun with the Sisters of Charity, Sarah a dedicated worker for Catholic organizations, and Mathew a priest serving at St. Patrick’s parish from 1881 until his death in 1922.

The family’s time on St. Patrick Street was a period of tension between the Irish Catholics and the French Catholics in Lowertown. By the 1870s, the community’s Irish population represented slightly more than a third of the residents. Differences in language and in religious views led to the establishment of St. Brigid’s/St. Bridget’s parish in 1889 by Archbishop Duhamel bringing together more than 400 families to form their own associations and schools. 

Rev. Father Mathew J. Whelan became one of the leading Irish Catholic clergymen who advocated for improved English language education in Ontario’s Catholic-based schools. Viewed as a complex person, he was renowned as the church administrator who lifted St. Patrick’s parish out of debt and was revered as the spiritual leader of multiple Catholic organizations. But he was also reproached by Ottawa Archbishops Duhamel and Gauthier for his outspoken criticism of the existing Ottawa Catholic school system and was reviled by his French-Canadian neighbours during their fight against Regulation 17, for his passionate advocacy for expanded education in English.

The Whelan family left no direct descendants in Ottawa but did leave a legacy in these humble vernacular buildings along St. Patrick Street and in their contributions to the nearby institutions that served Lowertown’s Irish community. These structures – houses built for local people to occupy as well as schools and churches designed for local people to attend – stand as monuments that tell a story about the resilience of the Whelans and other early families of Lowertown.