The Early Irish Settlers of Calgary & Southern Alberta

 

March 12, 2025

A White Star Dominion Line (1923) poster advertising transit for immigrants from Belfast to Canada. Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1990-560-2.

The very first recorded European settlers in Calgary were Irish, and the impact and influence of Irish settlers and their descendants survives to this day across Calgary’s diverse heritage. With 181,950 respondents to the 2021 Canadian Census identifying Irish origins, it is the third-highest ethnocultural origin in the city (Statistics Canada). Historic sites, personalities, cultural societies, and the yearly public celebration of St. Patrick’s Day all reflect the Irish identity of some of Calgary’s earliest settlers.

While the name “Calgary” comes from the Scottish Gaelic language (a daughter language descended from Old Irish), Indigenous peoples have names for this area that have been in use long before Scottish settlers arrived. In the Blackfoot language it is called Moh’kins’tsis; the Îethka Nakoda Wîcastabi refer to the area as Wîchîspa Oyade and the people of the Tsuut’ina nation call this area Guts’ists’i. The Métis call the area Otos-kwunee.

Irish Immigration during the 1800s

The economic conditions of late nineteenth-century Ireland were often harsh. Dramatic social and economic changes, combined with crop failure and the mass evictions of the 1880s, resulted in large-scale emigration from Ireland in the decades after the Great Famine (1845-52).

From 1870 through the early 1900s, the Dominion of Canada government expanded its promotional efforts in Ireland to attract immigrants for settlement and labour. Allan Rowe, Historic Places Research Officer with the Government of Alberta, writes in Prairie Shamrock: Irish Settlement and Identity in Western Canada, 1870s - 1930s that “Canadian agents in Ireland were instructed to focus their recruitment efforts on those classes for which demand was greatest in western Canada: experienced farmers, preferably those with investment capital, as well as domestic servants and agricultural labourers.” (Rowe 43). Rowe’s dissertation on Irish settlement in western Canda will be frequently cited in this article.

Attempts to attract Irish settlement to Canada were less successful than the government had hoped, with many Irish choosing to emigrate to the United States instead. While Canada's links to Great Britain attracted Irish Protestants, Irish Roman Catholics initially were less inclined to immigrate to a destination within the British Empire.

The majority of Irish who settled in the Prairies during in this period came as migrants from central and eastern Canada, especially Ontario where land shortages and a weak agricultural economy were driving people to seek new opportunities in the West.

Growth was greatest in the decade prior to World War I as migrants were drawn to the region by the economic prosperity of the wheat boom (Rowe 25). The Prairie Irish population grew again in the 1920s with a sharp increase in immigration, with many fleeing the economic and political uncertainty of postwar Ireland.

Irish Settlement in Southern Alberta

The government's hope of drawing Irish agriculturalists with investment capital to the West came to fruition in the Macleod district in southwestern Alberta.

Irish settlement near Fort Macleod represented a core presence of emigrant gentleman farmers, clergymen, and the sons of gentry. Many of these people were well-resourced and some were university graduates. They were also linked to the North-West Mounted Police; Irish men were among the dozens of recruits who had travelled west with the force in the 1870s and settled in the MacLeod district in the late nineteenth century after their discharge.

"Harry Maunsell, Fort Macleod, Alberta.", [ca. 1913-1919], (CU1114658) by Unknown. The Maunsell family came from county of Limerick, Ireland. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

Many of these men took up ranching and became the core of what evolved into a very strong Irish immigrant presence in Alberta’s ranching industry in the 1880s. These early arrivals possessed or established links that drew other Irish to the district. Kinship and acquaintance connections were a crucial factor behind Irish population growth in Macleod in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

John Glenn and Adelaide Belcourt

The first documented European to settle in Calgary, Alberta was John Glenn in 1873. John was born in County Mayo, Ireland in 1833. At 16 years of age, Glenn is said to have emigrated from Ireland to New York City. After serving in the US civil war, he moved throughout western North America to trade and prospect for gold.

"John Glenn, the first farmer in Calgary area, Alberta.", [ca. 1880s], (CU1129331) by Unknown. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

On September 1, 1873 he married Adelaide Belcourt, a Métis woman born on June 3, 1852 in Lac Ste. Anne, at the local mission. John and Adelaide moved south to find suitable farming land and, in the winter of 1873, they built a small log cabin with sod roof, stone fireplace and chimney near the confluence of Fish Creek and the Bow River. Their homestead was located in today’s Fish Creek Provincial Park, on the site now known as Bow Valley Ranch House.

This made John Glenn (along with fellow Irishman Sam Livingstone in 1876) the first permanent settlers and farmers of European descent in the Calgary area. John Glenn and Sam Livingston would later help found the Alberta Settler Rights Association.

In 1879 John sold his homestead to the Federal Government for use as Supply Farm #24 to use as an instructional farm for Indigenous people in the area. The property would later be purchased by rancher and businessman William Roper Hull, who built the Bow Valley Ranch House when the original log house built by Glenn burned down. In 1902 Patrick Burns, another well-known Calgary Irish rancher, purchased the property. The Burns family owned the Bow Valley Ranch for four generations spanning seven decades until it was finally sold to the Alberta government for Fish Creek Provincial Park.

John Glenn Building Plaque near the location of his former homestead in Fish Creek Provincial Park. Photo by Kevin Stecyk, 2009 via Flickr.

"Mrs. John Glenn (nee Adelaide Belcourt), Fish Creek, Alberta.", 1884, (CU1174800) by Unknown. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

 John and Adelaide moved upstream and built their third and final home in the area. Here they raised a family of 8 children (2 of whom died in infancy), farmed and built the first irrigation system in western Canada. Adelaide was a well-known midwife in the Calgary area, which earned her the nickname of “The Grandmother of Midnapore”.

"The John Glenn Ranch, near Calgary, Alberta.", [ca. 1884-1885], (CU1129267) by Unknown. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

Sam Livingston and Jane Howse

Born in Avoca, Ireland in 1831, Sam Livingston came to Canada via the United States after a failed endeavour with the California gold rush in 1849. He would settle first at Jumping Pound in 1873, opening a trading post in the area, but came to Calgary soon after, settling with his Métis wife Jane Howse where the Glenmore Reservoir stands today in 1876.

"Portrait of Sam Livingston, Calgary, Alberta.", [ca. early or mid 1890s], (CU188583) by Unknown. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

The Livingston farm prospered. Becoming an example of the region’s agricultural potential, it was shown to visiting notables such as the Marquess of Lorne and Alexander Mackenzie, and was used in publicity to attract prospective settlers. Livingston was a founding director of the Calgary District Agricultural Society in 1884 and accompanied the society’s exhibit of grain and vegetables to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. He was striking figure with his untamed beard and long, grizzled fair hair, his fringed buckskin jacket, wide-brimmed hat, and bright handkerchief.

Jane Howse. "Mrs. Sam Livingston.", [ca. 1898-1899], (CU182849) by Unknown. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.

Sam and Jane were important to Calgary’s history, giving the Glenmore Reservoir its name. They started a school on the land, calling it The Glenmore School, after a village in Ireland that was close to his birthplace in County Wicklow. When the Glenmore Dam was built and the area flooded, the Livingston Home and Barn was relocated to Heritage Park, where you can visit it today.

Sam Livingston died in 1897 shortly after the birth of his 14th child. His funeral procession was 40 carriages long. A forceful and colourful personality, he was a legend during his lifetime and is regarded as one of Calgary’s most remarkable pioneers.

 
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