In 2019 the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand held a conference in Adelaide on ‘Foregrounding Irish Women: the Antipodes and beyond’. The organisers of the conference have just published a book Irish Women in the Antipodes Foregrounded which includes several of the papers presented at the conference. One of the chapters is my paper entitled ‘More than Mannix: Irish-Australian women who helped defeat conscription in WW1’.… Read the rest
Category Archives: History
‘The Missing Magdalens’: Phony Story Retold
Earlier this year, ABC Radio National broadcast in its ‘The History Listen’ series a program called ‘The Missing Magdalens’ about Australia’s Magdalen laundries. The program focussed on St Magdalen’s Retreat, Tempe, which the Sisters of the Good Samaritan ran from 1888 to 1980. In describing life at St Magdalen’s in the early twentieth century, the program relied on an article in the Watchman newspaper.… Read the rest
2023 International Famine Commemoration
On 21 July 2023 the annual international commemoration of the Great Irish Famine was held in Sydney at the monument to the Great Irish Famine at Hyde Park Barracks. I had the privilege of giving the address to the assembled crowd, which included Irish Minister of State, Thomas Byrne, the Irish ambassador to Australia, Tim Mawe, and the Irish consul general in Sydney, Rosie Keane.… Read the rest
Sectarianism Revisited: SMH on Sister Liguori
Recently a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald claimed to have solved the mystery of why Sr Liguori fled her convent in Wagga Wagga one frosty evening in July 1920. In its day the Liguori affair was one of the most sensational episodes in Australia’s sectarian history. In the Herald’s print edition of 3 April 2023, the article carried the salacious headline: ‘Pregnant to a priest, nun on run defied church over child’.… Read the rest
Anzacs and Ireland
On 24 March 2022 I gave a talk to the online history site Trasna na Tíre entitled ‘Anzacs and Ireland: Exploring the relationship between Ireland and Australia during World War I’. The talk is available on YouTube.
Here is the description of my talk: The people of Ireland and Australia have much in common based on genealogy and a shared heritage.… Read the rest
The Hijacking of Archbishop Daniel Mannix
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
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
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
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
Irish Elections 2020
On 8 February 2020 the Irish people went to the polls to elect Dáil Éireann, the 160-seat lower house of the Irish parliament. The result was remarkable for two main reasons. Firstly, Sinn Féin, traditionally a fringe-dweller of politics in the Republic of Ireland, had received the highest number of first-preference votes, and with 37 seats was the second largest party.… Read the rest