Conclusion

The conclusion of this book re-examines the thematic interplay between gender, violence, and loyalty in shaping evaluations of Irish manliness and constructions of Irish masculinities in Upper and Lower Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century. It questions why Canadian examples of a gendered Irish Diaspora have not gained as much traction as those from colonial Australia or nineteenth century America. The chapter reasserts how the book as a whole has added to various historiographic and gendered debates and emphasises that using a gendered paradigm in concert with cultural analyses of violence and loyalty can weaken predominant local, national, and imperial myths. It closes by asserting that violent Irishmen very much existed in the Canadas. While they did not represent a majority of their countrymen in the colonies, they did represent important aspects of Irish Canadian masculinities that have been underplayed or ignored in national and diasporic histories.