Professor S. Karly Kehoe
Visiting Research Fellow, September - October 2025
Home institution: Saint Mary's University
S. Karly Kehoe is Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Communities at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. Her research considers the relationship between religious minority migration, settler colonialism and how religious minority migrants acquired and exercised colonial privilege in the north Atlantic world. She is the convenor of the Scottish Historical Review Trust and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She co-edits the Histories of the Scottish Atlantic book series with Edinburgh University Press and is the board chairperson and academic lead of the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies. Her recent monograph, Empire and Emancipation: Scottish and Irish Catholics at the Atlantic Fringe, was received the Peter M. Toner Research Publication Award.
Project title: Activating Colonial Privilege: The Imperial Strategies of Highland Catholics, 1750-1820
This project considers the colonization strategies of Scottish Highland Catholics between the early 1750s and 1820. To do this, it explores the activities of three sections of the Clanranald Macdonalds – Glenaladale, Glenfinnan and Borrodale – from the Western Highlands. These families played critical roles in the survival of Catholicism in post-Reformation Scotland and were pioneer settlers in the Maritime colonies of Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia. The long-standing discrimination endured by this religious minority was a major catalyst in precipitating successive waves of large-scale transatlantic emigrations and the intensification of settler colonialism. In the Maritime colonial space, they emerged as community leaders and stewards of a distinctively Highland transplanted Catholic culture. Understanding how Highland Catholic families understood and exploited their colonial privilege to secure religious freedom and Highland Catholic cultural hegemony expands awareness of religious minority participation in the context of empire building.