Forgotten Irish a 1981 documentary on the Irish in Newfoundland [Video]

It could be a scene in West Clare, Kerry, or Waterford as families with surnames such as Roche, Mooney, and Hennessey gather for some Irish dancing set to traditional Irish music. 

However, none of these people or their parents or grandparents have ever been to Ireland, spending their lives more than 2,000 miles away in Newfoundland, Canada. 

Their fascinating story was told in the 1981 documentary “The Forgotten Irish”, which details how a distinctly Irish community ended up in Canada’s most eastern province. 

The documentary studies how Irish people began crossing the Atlantic in the 1600s as part of European seasonal migration to harvest cod from the waters surrounding Newfoundland, which boasted the “richest fishing grounds in the world”. 

Boasting a jagged coastline of almost 6,000 miles, Newfoundland is roughly one-and-a-half times the size of the island of Ireland. 

Many of the Irish who settled in Newfoundland came from small …