Happy St Patrick's Day to all who are Irish or wish they were. They say it was great thing for the saint to drive the snakes out of Ireland. I hold that it would have been a greater thing for the Irish if he had driven the English out of England.
And now, an announcement: Back in October I did a trial run of hosting my own Historical Walk through downtown Toronto. It was about the history of Catholics in Toronto, and it was- befitting for this day- Irish heavy, for the simple reason that for most of the 19th century, virtually all the Catholics in Toronto were Irish. That first walk was a modest success of sorts, for something ill advertised and which I pretty much made up as I went along. I realized I tried to cover too many things too quickly, my stories were too far apart both geographically and historically (but my hands are rather tied. History happens where it happens and when it happens) and I ended in the wrong place. It is also possible I started in the wrong place: history is not entirely clear where my first incident occurred. At any rate, I will soon be doing Dry Run, part Two, in the latter half of April. Also, a couple of churches have agreed to allow me to post the little walk in their bulletins. The trip is still free (though someone will owe me a peameal bacon sandwich when we pass St Lawrence Market), but anyone coming should bring their transit card, as we will be getting on and off the Street cars at least twice.
If my modifications work, I will then get to work on a second walk, which a few people requested, regarding tracing the Jubilee Riots. This is actually something of a real headache, because there were two riots, and the week in between was where much of the real action happened. And if I can get that done, I may add a third walk, which would probably be more of a church crawl.
At any rate, watch this space for future announcements.
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