ABSTRACT
Robert Walsh is the Irish Famine orphan 'Who momentarily lost the power of speech through fright or starvation' after the death of his parents on Grosse Isle, alluded to but not named by John Francis Maguire in The Irish in America above. The first traces of him can be found in the 'Emigration Agent Returns of Emigrant Orphans, 1847' as well as the register of orphans, 1847-1848, compiled by of La Société charitable des Dames catholiques de Québec. 1 His family had most likely sailed on the Avon from Cork, and Reverends Bernard O'Reilly and John Harper escorted Robert Walsh and his surviving sisters Mary and Anne from Grosse Isle on 14 July, 1847 2 to Ste. Grégoire, Quebec, where they were adopted. Robert Walsh was given a good education and entered into the seminary of nearby Nicolet. After he was ordained. Walsh learned English at St. Michael's College in Toronto.
