St. Patrick's Hall, Montreal

John Francis Maguire
1868
CHAPTER V (7) start of chapter

St. Patrick's Hall—of which I only saw the broad foundations—is creditable alike to the enterprise and public spirit of the Irish of Montreal. The Hall itself will be as spacious as a cathedral—134 feet long, by 94 feet wide, within the walls, and 46 feet high. The national sentiment is gratified in the architecture of the building, which is 'purely Irish, copied from Cormack's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel.' The design is really grand and imposing; and when fully realised in cut limestone, St. Patrick's Hall will form one of the most striking architectural ornaments of the city. With a front of 144 feet on Victoria Square, and 100 feet on Craig Street, it is in the very centre of the business portion of Montreal; and the fine shops which are to form the ground fiat, and the show rooms on the second flat, together with sundry rents derived from the great concert-room and other portions of the building, will render St. Patrick's Hall not only pleasing as a monument grateful to national sentiment, but satisfactory as a speculation.

The Irish in America, first published in 1868, provides an invaluable account of the extreme difficulties that 19th Century Irish immigrants faced in their new homeland and the progress which they had nonetheless made in the years since arriving on a foreign shore. A new edition, including additional notes and an index, has been published by Books Ulster/LibraryIreland:

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