From its roots as a chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Quebec at the catholic and choleric burial grounds on Grande Allée, Saint Patrick parish was created in 1856. By 1858, the new Saint Patrick parish had purchased the old Catholic Burial Ground ("Saint-Louis cemetery") and the Cholera Burial Ground at the corner of de-Salabery and Grande Allée. This would become the city block now bordered by Grande Allée, de-Salabery, Maissoneuve, and Louis-St-Laurent streets. Around this time the city was moving inhumations outside the city proper, for public health reasons. Notre-Dame-de-Québec parish thus opened Notre-Dame-de-Belmont cemetery (Cemetery ID 1961401). The new Saint Patrick parish purchased Woodfield from the estate of James Gibbs, on December 30, 1877. The site was consecrated in 1879 by Archbishop Taschereau as the Saint Patrick Cemetery. Days later, the superior court allowed exhumations at the old catholic burial grounds for relocation to the new Saint Patrick Cemetery in Sillery. Exhumations, estimated to number around 5,000, were re-interred at the new Saint Patrick Cemetery in a mass grave behind the chapel, the former stable of the Gibbs Estate. Notably, many of the city's Irish-immigrant and Irish-Canadian community have made this peaceful bluff overlooking the Saint Lawrence River (fleuve St-Laurent) their final resting place. May their souls rest in peace.

Over the years, hundreds of people were buried in the Saint-Patrick cemetery: police officers, firefighters, merchants, port employees, lawyers or deputies. We find there about forty Irish people who died on September 19, 1889 in the landslide of rue du Petit-Champlain. There are also Patriots, like Michael Connoly, arrested in 1837 for his revolutionary sympathies, and notables, including Charles Alleyn and Owen Murphy, who were mayors of Quebec. There are also victims of the Empress of Ireland, which sank near Rimouski on May 29, 1914. The famous and fiery Patrick "Paddy" Moran, star goalkeeper of the Bulldogs, was buried there in 1966, near the remains of his two sons who died before the age of six. The scientist Larkin Kerwin is also buried there in 2004. He was president of the Canadian Space Agency and first lay rector of Laval University. Everyone, young and old, tells the story of the Irish of Quebec.