The last anglophone to Ireland

Photo Agence QMI, Yves Charlebois
Donald Stewart poses at the entrance to the village of Ireland, the british stronghold, where he is now the only English-speaking.

Dominique Scali

Sunday, 18 February 2018 19:29

UPDATE
Sunday, 18 February 2018 19:29

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The small municipality in Ireland has already brought in its name, but even today, it remains a single anglophone in this county of some 960 souls.

“My friends from youth have all left the region or died,” says Donald Stewart, 80 years old.

It has almost more opportunities to speak English. Except sometimes to his four children, who are all adults, and bilingual.

Founded there over 200 years ago by a former american soldier to 20 miles from Thetford Mines, Ireland had a dozen English-speaking families, when Mr. Stewart was young.

Several English-speaking communities have undergone significant decline over the past 20 years, even if overall, the number of anglophones in Quebec is growing each year, according to figures provided by the Secretariat for the relations with English-speaking Quebecers.

“Interact” in French

Mr. Stewart has worked for three decades in an asbestos mine in Thetford Mines. He married a francophone, who passed away in the 1990s.

“It doesn’t bother me really to be the last English-speaking. I don’t speak French very well, but people understand me “, said the man who spontaneously responded in French to all questions in the Journal.

It remains to be miss the days where there was no internet, and where people ” voisinaient more “, no matter in what language. “Today, everyone is so busy. “

Almost every day, Mr. Stewart went to Black Lake, now part of Thetford Mines. He will dine at the restaurant and discuss with the other customers, who are almost all French-speaking.

For the rest, he takes care of his four cats and blows the snow to the entrance of his field. It also looks at the television, in English as in French. Especially in French.