The Big News….A Phoenix arises
The Queensland Irish Association is back. After going into liquidation in 2015 and having to sell its magnificent premises, Tara House, at 175 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, the Association has been resurrected. A new board of directors took office on 27 July 2017, with former Judge, Jeff Spender, who guided the resurrection of the organisation, as President. Since then, the QIA has run a number of successful functions including the traditional St Patrick’s Eve Dinner on Friday 16 March 2018 at the Pullman Brisbane Hotel, King George Square, which celebrated the 120th Anniversary of the Association’s foundation in 1898. Distinguished guests included His Excellency, Breandon O’Caollai, the Ambassador of Ireland, and his wife, Carmel Callon and Justice Martin Daubney of the Supreme Court of Queensland, representing the Chief Justice of Queensland, and his wife, Rosie Daubney. The President, the Ambassador, and Judge Daubney gave particularly well-received speeches. The QIA’s next function is a members’ card collection night, with music and dancing, at Figs on Sylvan, Wests Bulldogs Rugby Club, Toowong. Membership Forms are available.
St Patrick’s Day in Brisbane
The Royal Historical Society of Queensland marked St Patrick’s Day with a well-attended presentation by Rodney and Robin Sullivan at the Commissariat Store, 115 William Street, Brisbane on 14 March, 2018. Their topic was ‘Memorialising Irish Australians in Southeast Queensland, 1872-2017’. Their address is available on the RHSQ website.
A Pioneering Irish Family on the Darling Downs
Pauline Peel’s The Family from Elagh Hill documents the lives and fortunes of two very big Catholic families, the Booths and the Keenans from Tyrone, and many offshoots of those families including the Campbells and Devlins, who settled near Warwick at Swan Creek. These were families that kept close ties with their past, and made good lives on the rich black soil plains of the Condamine. The family photos feature many priests and nuns, and the book has an intriguing final chapter about Fr William Booth of Auchnacloy who died at 92 after a lifetime of trying to heal sectarian divisions in his community, and church-building. Copies of the book can be had by emailing the author at paulinepeel1@gmail.com It’s a well-researched book which many families will want for reference
Tinteán 