Mayo is a municipality in the

Papineau Regional County Municipality Papineau () is a regional county municipality in the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. The seat is Papineauville. Subdivisions There are 25 subdivisions within the RCM: Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics ...

of western Quebec, located northeast of the city of Gatineau (Buckingham sector). Mayo is south of the hamlet of Mulgrave-et-Derry.

History

The area which would become the municipality of Mayo in 1864, just north of the township of

Lochaber Lochaber ( ; ) is a name applied to a part of the Scottish Highlands. Historically, it was a provincial lordship consisting of the parishes of Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig. Lochaber once extended from the Northern shore of Loch Leven, a distric ...

, began to be settled in the nineteenth century mainly by Irish and German immigrants as well as French Canadians.MRC Papineau
Les Municipalités, ''Mayo'' (2006), Retrieved on September 21, 2007. The Irish settlers arrived in Mayo between 1820-1830, pre-famine immigrants. They would have arrived in Montreal and traveled along the Ottawa River and then along the Blanche River. The settlers would have found great comfort in their new surroundings, the hilly terrain resembling that of Ireland, and subsequently their new home was named Mayo after

County Mayo County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The main industries which drive the economics of the municipality were, and still are, farming and forestry as well as the manufacturing of

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

Demographics

Mother tongue: * English as first language: 24.1% * French as first language: 68.1% * English and French as first language: 5% * Other as first language: 2.1%

Our Lady of Knock Shrine

The people of Mayo had a strong connection with their Irish roots. The parish of St. Malachy in Mayo was very important in the municipality's connection with

. In County Mayo, Ireland there is a town called Knock where, in 1879, there were reports of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John. The story of this miracle was brought to Canada as early as 1882, and in 1949 the then pastor of St. Malachy, Father Braceland, was inspired to construct a replica of the Our Lady of Knock Shrine in Mayo.

La Blanche Forest

The La Blanche forest, located on the eastern shores of La Blanche Lake in Mayo and Mulgrave-et-Derry, contains rare

old-growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

and many endangered plant species such as

ginseng Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as South China ginseng (''Panax notoginseng, P. notoginseng''), Korean ginseng (''Panax ginseng, P. ginseng''), and American ginseng (''American ginseng, P. quinquefol ...

. The forest is protected in the Forêt-la-Blanche Ecological Reserve, a area of preservation for this forest which has been sheltered from disturbance for centuries. The forest is also home to many species of rare birds such as the blue heron and the

cerulean warbler The cerulean warbler (''Setophaga cerulea'') is a small songbird in the family Parulidae. It is a long-distance migrant, breeding in eastern North American hardwood forests. In the non-breeding season, it winters on the eastern slope of the Ande ...

. The La Blanche forest was designated a permanent protected area in October 2003 giving it the legal distinction of an ecological reserve, the highest protection possible in Quebec., ''CPAWS Ottawa Valley Chapter'' (2004), Retrieved on September 24, 2007.

References

External links

{{authority control Municipalities in Quebec Incorporated places in Outaouais