The Great Famine in Ireland (1845-1851) triggered a mass exodus, with hundreds of thousands fleeing starvation and poverty. The potato harvest that millions depended on was struck by a blight in 1845. Colonialism turned this natural disaster into a deadly crisis as absentee landlords continued to send crops to England even as the Irish starved: “While farms continued to produce enough food for the population, the British government allowed much of it to be exported” (Rockne Corrigan, David. “Remembering the Great Famine—and the Irish Refugees Who Came to Ontario.” TVO Today, 15 May 2019). Many refugees journeyed to Canada on overcrowded, disease-ridden vessels that became known as “coffin ships.” Upon arrival, immigrants faced quarantine stations like Grosse Île in Quebec, which were quickly overwhelmed. In the summer of 1847, a destructive typhus epidemic swept through immigrant populations. Kingston, Ontario, became a major center of the crisis as thousands of sick refugees arrived on river barges. Makeshift “fever sheds” were erected along the waterfront, but the city’s resources were stretched to the breaking point. Approximately “1,400 Irish refugees died in Kingston” and were buried in a mass grave on the grounds of the Kingston General Hospital (Rockne Corrigan). The Golden Boy incorporates this historical trauma as the origin story for the Hopkins family. The novel recounts how the family’s ancestors, the Mallorys, arrived on a coffin ship. While the daughter Fianna survived the fever sheds, her brother Curran perished and was thrown into the mass grave. This ancestral memory of loss, displacement, and injustice informs the novel’s themes of morality and grief.