Searching for the Irish and Irish Studies in Australia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2019-8867Abstract
The Irish-Australian story is different in important respects from the Irish story in other parts of the diaspora. Therefore, before embarking upon any discussion of the writing or teaching of Irish Studies, it is important for readers to appreciate some of the main characteristics of the Irish experience in Australia.
Between 1800 and 2000, many more people left Ireland for the United States or Britain than for Australia. Unlike these older nations, Australia was a new settler society on the far side of the world. Its attractions were limited and travel there was expensive. Six British colonies had been established across the continent between the 1780s and the 1850s and, in 1901, these joined together in a federation to form the Commonwealth of Australia, a British dominion, which in that year had a white population of only 3.8 million. It has been estimated that Irish immigrants and their Australian-born offspring constituted around one-quarter of this population. In other words, the Irish formed a larger proportion of the general population in Australia than in probably any other diaspora country. They were a substantial ethnic minority, second only in numbers to those of English birth and descent (Price).
References
Arthure, Susan. “An Irish Dig Down Under”. Archaeology Ireland 32. 1 (2018): 21-25.
Bashford, Alison and Stuart Macintyre, eds. The Cambridge History of Australia. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Blainey, Geoffrey. A History of Victoria. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Breen, Fidelma. “Emigration in the Age of Electronic Media: Personal Perspectives of Irish Migrants to Australia, 1969–2013”. Ireland in the World: Comparative, Transnational and Personal Perspectives. Ed. Angela McCarthy. New York: Routledge, 2015. 198-233.
Buckley, Vincent. Memory Ireland: Insights into the Contemporary Irish Condition. Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1985.
Bull, Philip. Land, Politics and Nationalism: A Study of the Irish Land Question. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1996.
Campbell, Malcolm. Ireland’s New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics and Society in the United States and Australia. Madison, WN: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Damousi, Joy. Depraved and Disorderly: Female Convicts, Sexuality and Gender in Colonial Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Davis, Richard P. Revolutionary Imperialist: William Smith O’Brien, 1803-64. Sydney: Crossing Press, 1998.
Dixson, Miriam. The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the Present. Sydney: University of NSW Press, 1999.
Donnelly Jr, J.S. “The Construction of the Memory of the Famine in Ireland and the Irish Diaspora, 1850–1900”. Eire-Ireland 31. 1-2 (1996): 26–61.
Dunne, Tom, ed. Looking Back: Living and Writing History. Oliver MacDonagh, 1924-2002. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2008.
Finnane, Mark. “The Easter Rising in Australian History and Memory”. Australasian Journal of Irish Studies 16 (2016): 30-46.
Fitzpatrick, David. Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia. Cork: Cork University Press, 1994.
Gleeson, Sinead. “Peter Carey: Secrets in the Information Age”. The Irish Times. 15 November 2014. https://www.irishtimes.com
Hage, Ghassan. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.
Hall, Dianne. “‘Now him white man’: Images of the Irish in Colonial Australia”. History Australia 11. 2 (2014): 167-195.
——— and Elizabeth Elizabeth. “Diaspora, Gender and the Irish”. Australasian Journal of Irish Studies 8 (2008/9): 3-29.
Jones, Ian. Ned Kelly: A Short Life. New ed. Melbourne: Lothian Books, 2003.
Keneally, Thomas. The Great Shame: A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New. Sydney: Random House, 1998.
Kiernan, T.J. Irish Exiles in Australia. Melbourne: Burns and Oates, 1954.
Kildea, Jeff. Tearing the Fabric: Sectarianism in Australia, 1910–25. Sydney: Citadel Books, 2002.
McClaughlin, Trevor. Barefoot and Pregnant? Irish Famine Orphans in Australia. 2 vols. Melbourne: Genealogical Society of Victoria, 2002 (1991).
McConville, Chris. Croppies, Celts and Catholics: The Irish in Australia. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1987.
McGrath, Ann. “Shamrock Aborigines: The Irish, the Aboriginal Australians and their Children”. Aboriginal History 34 (2010): 55-84.
Malcolm, Elizabeth. “10,000 Miles Away: Irish Studies Down Under”. Ireland Beyond Boundaries: Mapping Irish Studies in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Liam Harte and Yvonne Whelan. London: Pluto Press, 2007. 39-47.
———. “After O’Farrell: Writing a New History of the Irish in Australia”. Tinteán: The Australian Irish Heritage Network. 6 August 2017. https://tintean.org.au
———. “Obituary: Patrick O’Farrell, 1933-2003”. History Australia 1. 2 (2004): 321-324.
——— and Philip Bull. “Irish Studies in Australia, 1980-2012”. Australasian Journal of Irish Studies 13 (2013): 29-44.
——— and Diane Hall. “Catholic Irish Australia and the Labor Movement: Race in Australia and Nationalism in Ireland, 1880s-1920s”. Frontiers of Labor: Comparative Histories of the United States and Australia. Eds. Greg Patmore and Shelton Stromquist. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield, Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2018. 149-167.
———. A New History of the Irish in Australia. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2018.
O’Farrell, Patrick. The Catholic Church and Community in Australia: A History. Melbourne: Nelson, 1977.
———. “Imagination’s Stain: Historical Reflections on Sectarian Australia”. Ed. Clare O’Farrell. 2002. http://www.patrickofarrell.com
———. “The Irish and Australian History”. Quadrant 22. 12 (1978): 17-21.
———. The Irish in Australia. Sydney: University of NSW Press, 1986.
Price, C.A. “The Ethnic Character of the Australian Population”. The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins. Ed. James Jupp. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 78-85.
Proudfoot, Lindsay and Dianne Hall. Imperial Spaces: Placing the Irish and Scots in Colonial Australia. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.
Reece, Bob. The Origins of Irish Convict Transportation to New South Wales. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001.
Reid, Richard. Farewell My Children: Irish Assisted Emigration to Australia, 1848-70. Sydney: Anchor Books Australia, 2011.
———. “‘There is no person starving here’: Australia and the Great Famine”. The Famine Irish: Emigration and the Great Hunger. Ed. Ciarán Reilly. Dublin: The History Press Ireland, 2016. 168-180.
Richards, Eric. Destination Australia: Migration to Australia since 1901. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.
Rushen, Liz. Colonial Duchesses: The Migration of Irish Women to New South Wales before the Great Famine. Sydney: Anchor Books Australia, 2014.
Santamaria, B.A. Daniel Mannix: The Quality of Leadership. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1984.
Warhurst, John. “Catholics in Australian Politics since 1950”. The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia. Ed. James Jupp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 261-266.
Wooding, Jonathan M. “‘A native style springing from a people possessed of original power and mind’: The Irish Round Tower in Australian Architecture”. Australasian Journal of Irish Studies 17 (2017): 59-79.
Websites Cited
ADB: Australian Dictionary of Biography: <adb.anu.edu.au>
Anchor Books Australia: <anchorbooksaustralia.com.au>
Bloomsday in Melbourne: <bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au>
“Not Just Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia”, National Museum of Australia, Canberra: <nma.gov.au>
Irish Famine Memorial, Sydney: <irishfaminememorial.org>
Irish Language Association of Australia: <gaeilgesanastrail.com>
Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand: <isaanz.org>
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Elizabeth Malcolm
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
