There is a buzz in town created by Nine Ships, the 200-year commemoration of the arrival in 1825, of 2,200 men, women and children from Ireland.

Our area was settled by a vibrant Irish community, one that is reflected today by associations, parades, music, plays, churches and culture.

That settlement will be marked by 10 days of commemoration in early August. I look forward to taking in some of it for the sake of my father’s legacy, though his forebears didn’t come to the Ottawa Valley until the 1840s, during the Irish potato famine.

There is another anniversary that is being marked across Canada in June. One hundred years ago, the United Church of Canada was created in Toronto.

At Mutual Street Arena, a merger of four mainstream Protestant denominations formally took place.

They were the Methodist Church, the Congregational Church, two thirds of the Presbyterian churches, and a movement called the Association of Local Union Churches, which existed largely in the three western........

© Peterborough Examiner