“A landmark study, in which Michele Holmgren offers authoritative and compelling insight into the extensive literary and political links between Canada and Ireland in the nineteenth century. This important book combines meticulous research with richly-contextualized close readings, opening up exciting new fields for critics and scholars, while its accessible and fluent style will appeal to all readers with an interest in Canadian and Irish history.” Sinéad Sturgeon, lecturer in Irish Writing, Queen's University Belfast
“With exemplary scholarship, [Michele Holmgren] provides a highly informed analysis of the kinds of engaging materials that the likes of Thomas D’Arcy McGee recommended to Canadian writers as the fittest subjects for the inspiration of Canadian readers. After reading Holmgren’s extensive survey and study of our Irish-Canadian heritage, one would not be amiss in viewing Canada articulating its nascent national self in the titular terms of Norman Levine’s memoir: [Ireland] Made Me. This reviewer is convinced of Holmgren’s thesis by the evidence marshalled and by her painstaking argument.” Gerald Lynch, University of Toronto Quarterly