Ogle Gowan was an Orangeman, a politician, a journalist, a rabble-rouser, and the illegitimate son of one of Co. Wexford’s most notorious anti-Catholics. His use of violence to achieve political ends in Upper Canada made him a hero to some, and a villain to others – even members of his own family. This episode explores Ogle Gowan’s life and career, and also investigates some very passionate love letters written by his wife…to his cousin.

The Orange Order – an Irish Protestant fraternal association founded in the 1790s – was hugely popular in English-speaking Canada in the nineteenth century, although it’s mostly forgotten today. How did Orangemen become so successful, both politically and culturally? Why did they take root so firmly in parts of Upper Canada? And what did this success in Canada have to do with the 1798 Irish Rising?

Epidemic, pandemic, quarantine – these are words we’re very used to now, in a way that we arguably haven’t been in nearly 200 years. In 1832, Irish immigrants flooded into the Canadas, fleeing for their lives as cholera, a highly contagious and deadly disease, ravaged Europe, Britain, and Ireland. They didn’t receive the warmest of welcomes.