Event: Exploring Histories Of Irish And Indigenous Australia
Where: Bldg. G, Rm. G467, Footscray Park Campus, Victoria University
When: Tuesday 14 August 2018 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Further information: RSVP: email: teah.farrugia@vu.edu.au
Presenter: Dr Dianne Hall
Chair: Professor Robert Pascoe
In this paper, I present findings from a chapter of my forthcoming book A New History of the Irish in Australia where my co-author, Elizabeth Malcolm, and I explore aspects of the history of the Irish in Australia neglected or overlooked in previous studies. One of these is the history of the interactions between Irish and Indigenous Australians. It is often thought that because the Irish suffered violent colonisation by the British in Ireland, this meant that their attitudes towards Indigenous people were less oppressive than other European settlers. However these suppositions have not been tested with systematic historical research. This paper, and the chapter on which it is based, seeks to make a start towards such research by giving an overview of what is known, demonstrating that Irish Australians varied enormously in their attitudes towards Indigneous Australians from friendship to violent dispossession.
Dr Dianne Hall
Tinteán 