St Veronica’s Parish was founded on January 17th, 1958.
Construction of the church began in the year 1962 at 1300 Carson Avenue, and opened for services in 1963. Before the church was built, mass was celebrated at what is now known as the ’ Gentilly Elementary School'.
The first mass was celebrated on May 4th, 1963 by Rev. Norm Griffin and the church was blessed on Sunday September 8th, 1963 by Cardinal Paul Emile Leger, the official completion date.
The 25th Anniversary Mass was celebrated on May 1st, 1983 by Archbishop Paul Gregoire.
The 50th Anniversary Mass was celebrated on September 14th, 2008 by Cardinal Jean Claude Turcotte.
In the city of Montreal.
Address: 124 rue du Couvent.
This parish was founded for English-speaking Catholics. The parish registers opened in 1908, and a parish priest resides there since this last year.
Canonical erection: June 18, 1908. The territory of this parish is circumscribed as follows: on the east by Atwater Street, on the west by the limits of the city, on the north by the Canadian Pacific Railway and on the south by the Lachine Canal. Pop. 3,000.
The parish closed in 1990.
St. Ann’s Church was the heart of Griffintown’s Irish Catholic community.
Built in 1854, it was Montreal’s second English Catholic church after St. Patrick’s (1847). Whereas the “lace-curtain” Irish around St. Patrick’s consisted of merchants, skilled workers and professionals, St. Ann’s parishioners were known as “shanty Irish” -- unskilled labourers employed in factories, in construction or on the docks.
The population of Griffintown began declining after World War II and, in the early 1960s, the municipality decided that Griffintown no longer had a future as a place for people to live. It was rezoned as industrial commercial in 1963 and, in 1967, approximately a third of the neighbourhood was demolished to make way for the Bonaventure Expressway.
Having lost most of its parishioners, St. Ann’s Church was torn down in 1970. A few years ago the City of Montreal ‘restored’ the foundations of the church and today the site is a park with benches instead of pews.
Following the authorization of the Récollets to settle outside Quebec , with the appointment of Mgr. Jean-Baptiste de La Croix Chevrieres of Saint-Vallier in 1688, the order moved to Montreal and undertook the construction of a church to be opened in 1693. It would be the work of brother Didace Pelletier who also led the work of the convent of Trois-Rivières . It is located on the quadrilateral of Notre-Dame , Sainte-Hélène , Récollets and Saint-Pierre streets .
A monastery is added to the church in 1705. The master builder of the site is a man named Pierre Couturier. New works were undertaken in 1713 for the façade of the church with the sculptor Jean Jacquié dit Leblond. A fence is built in 1722.
In 1760, after the capitulation of the colony , the church was ceded to the British occupier. It serves as a barracks until 1792, while the goods of the Récollets are sequestrated around 1810.
In 1818, the expansion of Montreal, with the construction of St. Helena Street, led to the demolition of the west wing.
The Sulpicians also settled in the old church in 1831. They enlarged and embellished it by adding a portal taken from the old Notre-Dame church demolished in 1829. The church was then used to worship Catholics Irish who use it until 1847. Become a school, the site is finally destroyed in 1867.
The interior décor including the church altar was preserved and moved to the church of Notre-Dame des Anges on Lagauchetière Street.
The latter building later became the church of the Chinese community; it still exists to this day.
The Verdun, Côte St. Paul district has been
another bastion of the Irish community since the 1870’s.
Located next to “The Point”,the region catered to the mid-income dwellers, among them the immigrants from
various European nations including the Irish, Scots and the British.
Montreal. Address: 1558 Avenue of the Church.
The registers of this parish opened in the year 1874, date of the arrival of the first resident parish priest.
Canonical Erection: December 10, 1875. Civil Erection: December 24, 1875.
The territory of this parish has been detached from the parishes of Saint-Henri-des-Tanneries , Saint-Pierre River and Côte Saint-Paul.
The parish was put under the patronage of St. Paul probably because of its neighborhood with the parish of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs-de-Verdun , formerly known as "Village of the Saint-Pierre River".
