Toronto, the Belfast of Canada : The Orange Order and the Shaping of Municipal Culture

__Toronto, the Belfast of Canada__ explores the intolerant origins of today’s cosmopolitan city.

In late nineteenth-century Toronto, municipal politics were so dominated by the Irish Protestants of the Orange Order that the city was known as the “Belfast of Canada.” For almost a century, virtually every mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman and the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne was a civic holiday. Toronto, the Belfast of Canada explores the intolerant origins of today’s cosmopolitan city.

Using lodge membership lists, census data, and municipal records, William J. Smyth details the Orange Order’s role in creating Toronto’s municipal culture of militant Protestantism, loyalism, and monarchism. One of Canada’s foremost experts on the Orange Order, Smyth analyses the Orange Order’s influence between 1850 and 1950, the city’s frequent public displays of sectarian tensions, and its occasional bouts of rioting and mayhem.

Contents 7 Figures and Tables 9 Acknowledgments 13 TORONTO, THE BELFAST OF CANADA. The Orange Order and the Shaping of Municipal Culture 17 Introduction 19 1. Canada and Ireland: The Imperial Context 27 2. A Tale of Two Cities: Belfast and Toronto 49 3. Toronto Orangeism: The Nature and Structure of the Orange Order 91 4. Power, Patronage, and Public Employment within the Protestant City, 1850–1920 133 5. The Emergence of a New Order: Toronto’s Orangemen at the Close of the Nineteenth Century 170 6. The Climax and Onset of Decline of the Orange Order, 1900–1940 211 7. The Faded Sash: Toronto and Orangeism, 1940–c. 1950 255 Conclusion 288 Notes 295 Index 319