The immigration of young men and families to (what is now) Canada has been a major a feature in the history of Ulster dating back to the 18 th Century. Such was the Ulster-influence on Canada, that in the 1920s the rate of membership of the Orange Order in Newfoundland was almost double that in Northern Ireland! There were of course many reasons for the movement of so many people across the Atlantic, though mainly those were religious and/or economic. As a British Dominion, Canada was of course fertile ground for football as it established itself as the UK’s favourite sport. Indeed, in 1859 one of the earliest reported games there saw a team of Irishmen take on members of the St. George’s Society in Toronto – two decades before football had been formally organised back on the Auld Sod . Due to the vastness of Canada, the organisation of football was on a regional/provincial/territorial basis. Teams that toured to the British Isles in 1888 and 1891 , though dubbed Canada, were selec...