What is "griffintown"

Griffintown is the name given to the southwestern downtown part of Montreal, Quebec, which mainly existed from the 1820s until the 1960s and was mainly populated by Irish immigrants and their descendants.

One can identify Griffintown as the portion of the ward of St. Ann located north of the Lachine Canal; the part south of the canal is now part of Pointe-Saint-Charles. This part of the ward was delimited by Notre-Dame Street to the North, the Bonaventure Expressway to the east, and a short segment of the city limit between Notre-Dame Street and the canal west of the St. Gabriel Locks to the west. It was the earliest and largest faubourg annexed to Old Montreal before the introduction of the tram car in the 1840s.