Historic Irish Walking Tour

The Benevolent Irish Society of PEI is celebrating its 200th anniversary. One of the oldest organizations on the Island, it was formed on April 18, 1825, at the Wellington Hotel in Charlottetown to support the many Irish immigrants arriving by ship in hope of a new life in Canada. To mark this milestone, the Society has planned a series of unique events across PEI, running through August.

The Historic Irish Walking Tour of Charlottetown is one such event, designed to highlight features and sites in Charlottetown connected to Irish heritage. According to the 2021 Census, over 41,000 of the 154,000 Islanders claimed Irish ancestry.

The tour begins at the gazebo at the West end of Sydney Street (behind the Culinary Institute of Canada) and follows the boardwalk to the Irish Settlers Memorial. It then continues to the Bourke’s House, the dock where the Island’s only “famine ship,” The Lady Constable, arrived, the Connolly Warehouse, and 17 more historic sites associated with the Irish in Charlottetown. The tour takes between one and a half to two hours at a leisurely pace and includes a souvenir tour booklet.

This is one of four tours created for the celebration, each with its own brochure: the Historic Irish Charlottetown Walking Tour, the St. Patrick’s Ancestral Church Cemetery Tour, the Self-Driving Historical Irish Tour of Eastern PEI, and the Self-Driving Historical Irish Tour of Western PEI.

The Charlottetown Irish Walking Tour and the St. Patrick’s Ancestral Church Cemetery Tour were piloted in 2024 to very enthusiastic audiences. Multiple tour dates are available in 2025, and tickets can be purchased online at locarius.io/organizations/56.

Organizers are confident that participants will enjoy the tours and be intrigued by the historical facts shared along the way.