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
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
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
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
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
News of the sudden death of Susan Ryan AO came as a shock to many Australians, including myself. Just a few days before, she had participated in a zoom meeting of the Aisling Society of Sydney, of which I am the honorary secretary. She was hail and hearty as ever. Tributes soon began to flow, focusing on her political career and her contribution to the rights of women and to the aged.… Read the rest
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
The Australian Irish community in Sydney celebrated the St Brigid’s Day Festival in 2020 with readings, music performances and poetry showcasing the historical and cultural contribution of Irish-Australian women in shaping modern Australia.
As part of the celebrations the Aisling Society of Sydney, an Irish-Australian cultural organisation founded in 1955 (http://aislingsociety.org.au) hosted the Aisling 20/20 Vision colloquium at the State Library of New South Wales under the auspices of the Consulate-General of Ireland.… Read the rest
The Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society (Vol. 40 2019, pp. 173–175) has published a review I wrote on Maureen McKeown’s The Extraordinary Case of Sr Liguori, Leo Press, Downpatrick, 2017. You can read the review here.… Read the rest
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