Episode 2 - Irish Nellie

03/09/23 • 19 min

Ellen Cashman was born during the era of the Great Irish Famine in Co. Cork. As a young woman, she left with her family for Boston and then the Wild West. A businesswoman, prospector, philanthropist, and literal trailblazer, “Irish Nellie” was a notable female figure in an extremely masculine world. Join us as we explore the exploits of this singular Irish woman who found fame (if not fortune) in British Columbia and the Canadian north as “The Angel of the Cassiar.”

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Episode 1 - Captain Crozier

The Franklin Expedition looms large in Canadian myths and legends, in large part because of what happened to the doomed crews of the HMS Erebus and Terror... or what we think happened. But at the heart of this story of the Canadian north is an Irishman from Co. Down who lived through the worst that the unforgiving winters had to offer, and then led the survivors as they abandoned the ships and wandered off into the ice. But who was Francis Crozier, and what do we know about the man at the heart of the mystery?

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Episode 3 - Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan

The 1837 Lower Canadian Rebellion was as close as the Canadian colonies ever came to revolution. Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan – doctor, politician, and notable newspaper editor in Montreal – was Louis-Joseph Papineau’s right-hand man in the tense years leading to the battles between les patriotes and the British Army. As the editor of The Vindicator, O’Callaghan became the most powerful Irishman in Montreal, trying to create a Canadian republic through the power of his printing press.