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The Hijacking of Archbishop Daniel Mannix

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On 29 April 2021 I gave a talk to the National Maritime Museum of Ireland entitled ‘A Victory Comparable to Jutland: the Royal Navy’s Hijacking of Archbishop Daniel Mannix in 1920’. The talk was recorded and is available for viewing at the museum’s website or directly through YouTube

Here is the description of the talk: On 8 August 1920 the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Cork-born Daniel Mannix, was travelling from New York to Queenstown aboard the SS Baltic when he was arrested off the coast of Ireland by the Royal Navy and transferred to a destroyer, HMS Wivern, which landed him at Penzance in England.… Read the rest

Northern Ireland deja vu: They’re burning buses again

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Since Easter, our newspapers and television screens have been showing us images from Northern Ireland we thought were a thing of the past: a bus being burned, children pelting police with rocks, young men in balaclavas hurling Molotov cocktails. A few years ago we would have taken no notice. But now these images seem incongruous – what’s going on?… Read the rest

Remembering the Easter Rising and the Partition of Ireland

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On Easter Sunday 2021 I was given the honour of addressing the Irish National Association’s annual gathering at the 1798 monument in Waverley Cemetery. For more than 90 years members, supporters, and friends of the INA have assembled at the monument to commemorate the men and women of 1916. This year marks the 105th anniversary of the Easter Rising, but it is also marks the centenary of the partition of Ireland, that unwanted outcome of the revolution begun in 1916.… Read the rest

Expulsion of Hugh Mahon from the Australian Parliament 1920

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For Australians, 11 November is a date that resonates in our nation’s history. On that date in 1880 Ned Kelly was hanged, in 1918 it saw the end of the fighting on the Western Front, and in 1975 it was the day on which Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the prime minister, Gough Whitlam. This year marks the centenary of another momentous 11 November, a day unique in the annals of Australian political history.… Read the rest

Foregrounding Irish Women: ISAANZ Conference

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The theme of the 24th ISAANZ Conference in Adelaide in December 2019 was ‘Foregrounding Irish Women’, which provided me with an opportunity to write about three Irish-Australian women whom I had often come across while researching the anti-conscription movement: Agnes Macready, Agnes Murphy and Bella Guerin. What my paper ‘More than Mannix: Irish-Australian women who helped defeat conscription in WW1‘ shows is that each is remarkable, not only because of her contribution to the anti-conscription movement but also because of her talents and the amazing life she lived.… Read the rest

Sectarianism: Did Western Australia avoid the worst of it?

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Having written books and articles dealing with sectarianism in early twentieth-century Australia, I have been intrigued by the fact that Western Australia seems to have escaped its worst excesses. A conference in Perth under the auspices of the Archdiocesan Archives Office gave me an opportunity to explore whether that was true and, if so, why.

The conference was held on Holy Thursday 18 April 2019 in collaboration with the Centre for Faith Enrichment to celebrate World Heritage Day.… Read the rest

Researching the Irish in WW1 in Germany

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On my recent visit to Ireland to attend the centenary commemorations of the sinking of RMS Leinster (discussed in the post below), I took the opportunity to travel through Germany to research a couple of aspects of the Irish involvement in the First World War. In doing so, I visited the Deutsches U-Boot Museum and archive at Cuxhaven on the North Sea coast to obtain information on the German submarine UB-123 that sank the Leinster and to view the U-Boat memorial at Möltenort near Heikendorf and the naval memorial at Laboe, both on the eastern shore of the Kiel inlet.… Read the rest

RMS Leinster Centenary Commemorations

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On 10 October 1918 RMS Leinster, the mailboat from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) to Holyhead in Wales, was sunk by a German submarine UB-123 with the loss of 564 lives, the greatest loss of life in a single event in the Irish Sea. At the time the mail boat was carrying 803 persons – 75 crew, 22 postal sorters, 200 civilians and 506 military personnel.… Read the rest

2018 Knox Lecture: What price loyalty? Australian Catholics in the First World War

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On Wednesday 16 May 2018 I had the privilege of giving the 2018 Knox Lecture under the auspices of the Catholic Theological College, Melbourne. The lecture is held each year in honour of James Robert Cardinal Knox, fifth Archbishop of Melbourne. With 2018 marking the centenary of the end of the First World War I was requested to reflect on the way the Catholic Church in Australia related to and was affected by that war.… Read the rest

Celebrating the Centenary of the Warwick Egg Incident

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Saturday, 18 November 2017 saw a long day of celebrations at Warwick, Queensland to commemorate the centenary of the Warwick Egg Incident (WEGGI), when a couple of local lads egged the Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes. While it might be a little known incident today, 100 years ago it excited the nation.

The egging occurred on 29 November 1917 when Hughes, on his way back from Brisbane to Sydney by train, stopped at Warwick to deliver a pro-conscription address at the railway station.… Read the rest