Irishmen in Paris

On a vu une nation entière chassée de son pays, traverser les mers pour s'établir en France n'emportant avec elle pour parer aux nécessités de la vie qu'un redoutable talent pour la dispute

- Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) on France's Irish immigrants

Blazon over Irish College entrance

Let us start by being honest. Despite the recent refurbishment of the Irish College in Paris and its transformation into a cultural centre, the Irish today have only a small place on the Paris scene, and the impact of the Parisian Irish on affairs back home is even smaller. But it was not always so. Up to the 19th century, Anglo-French rivalry meant that Paris was an obvious haven for political refugees from British rule and for the Catholic élite prevented from completing their education at home.

The O'Callaghan crypt

But the anti-clericalism of French revolutionaries dealt a first blow to Franco-Irish links. France's steady decline in the world pecking order was another. Catholic Emancipation and the opening of Catholic universities in Ireland were another reason for a weakening of bonds. Last but not least, the spread of the English language in Ireland and the wider world meant that Irish exiles were more inclined to emigrate to the U.S., Australia and Canada, as well as Britain, rather than to France.

And yet, the story did not end there. Throughout the 19th and 20th century, a steady trickle of colourful figures continued to be drawn to the French capital. Some ended up there by chance, and others found themselves staying longer than they first envisaged.

Irish priests' grave in Cachan

This site has a very precise aim (or narrow focus if you like): to retrace the footsteps of a selection of some well-known and less-well-known Irish people across Paris. The site is by no means complete. There is scope for more research into the lives of strange and wonderful characters not featured here, like: the Abbé MacMahon (chaplin of the Bastille when it was stormed in July 1789); the Irish priests buried in Cachan cemetery just beyond the Paris city limits; the Young Irelander, John Mitchel; the author, James Stephens; the O'Callaghan family, whose crypt in the Père Lachaise cemetery is beside that of the better-known William Lawless; Arthur O'Connor, a United Irishman who ended up marrying the daughter of the noted French philosopher and mathematician, the Marquis de Condorcet; John Malone, Pierre O'Malone and Thomas Ward, all forgotten victims of the French Revolution whose bodies were dumped in the Picpus cemetery in eastern Paris; and the recently deceased Margaret Kelly, founder of the famous Bluebell Girls dance troupe. Ach sin scéalta eile!

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