Foregrounding Irish Women: ISAANZ Conference

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?

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

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

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

Battle of Saintfield Remembered

On 9 June 1798, during the rebellion in Ireland, a force of about 1000 rebels ambushed and defeated 300 government soldiers under the command of Colonel Granville Stapylton near the town of Saintfield, County Down. To mark the 220th anniversary of the battle the ABC’s Nightlife program devoted its This Week in History segment to the 1798 Rebellion with a discussion between host Sarah Macdonald and myself about the rising and its ‘sequel’ in Australia with the Castle Hill rebellion of 1804.… Read the rest

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

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

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

18th Annual Gathering at the Great Irish Famine Monument

On 27 August 2017 I had the honour of giving an address at the 18th Annual Gathering at the Great Irish Famine Monument at Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks. The monument commemorates the more than 4000 girls and young women who between 1848 and 1850 were recruited from workhouses run by the local Poor Law Unions in famine-ravaged Ireland and sent to Australia under a scheme attributed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies Earl Grey.… Read the rest

Battle of Messines: False Dawn for Soldiers Anzac and Irish

June 7 marks the centenary of the Battle of Messines, a battle in which Anzacs and Irishmen fought alongside each other.

Messines was a battle that promised hope on many levels: it was a battle well planned and well executed, one designed to minimise casualties, and a battle which had a successful outcome, up to then a rare occurrence for the Allies after 1914.… Read the rest