On 4 July, President and Sabina Higgins received the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Justin Trudeau.
The links between Canada and Ireland began in the 16th century, and 400,000 Irish people had settled in Canada before the Famine in the 1840s. Close to 90,000 people travelled from Ireland to Canada in the year 1847 alone, of whom over 15,000 died. Today, an estimated 4.5m Canadian residents, or 14% of the country's total population, report an Irish ethnic connection.
