Matthew Barlow

I recently published my first book, Griffintown: History & Memory in an Irish Diaspora Neighbourhood.  It was published in June 2017 by University of British Columbia Press. It is available in all the usual formats.  Griffintown won the 2018 Canadian Historical Association’s CLIO Award for Best Book in Québec History.

This book is the culmination of a long-standing relationship with Griffintown.  It was a defunct, vacant neighbourhood when I first encountered it at the start of the 21st century.  It had been depopulated through the processes of deindustrialization and the infrastructural onslaught of Montreal’s grand projects of the mid-20th century, most notably Expo ’67.  All that was left was some light industry, empty  lots, huge holes in the ground, and King’s Transfer, a moving company, and the Benedict Labré House, a Catholic lay shelter for homeless men.  And some shady activity.  Now, it is the site of a massive redevelopment and has become, to borrow from the playwright James Fennario, Condoville.

This book tells the story of the history & memory of Griff over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, from roughly 1900-2009.  I am excited for the book to be published.

You can order it from Amazon, Amazon in Canada, Amazon in the UK & Ireland, Indigo, or direct from UBC Press.