The Irish find affinity with the Quebecois and the Native people. The Quebecois form a tightly-knit society that includes other Catholics. The Natives, at ease in the wilderness, quietly accept the Irish, who feel oppressed by the country's roughness. An Irishwoman who moved to Canada when she got married, Tanguay tends to favour her Irish characters and sympathize with their discomfort in the New World. The countryside that became Ontario holds its own beauty.
English villains abound.
Big bullies who rape the land and exploit the poor, they like to hang out with each other. And the United Empire Loyalists have the best farmland in Upper Canada. Maybe when they moved in they thought about growing food, not saving prime property for the Irish immigrants who would come in the next century. When Tanguay describes Irish-English fights, her writing doesn't work. No writer should use the passive voice to describe a fight.