I was expressing an interest in uilleann pipes and complained that the pipes are not well known and appreciated in Australia. They certainly are much admired in this house now. Continue reading
Posted in March 2021 …
A New President for the Celtic Club of Melbourne
‘We must craft a vision and model for the present and the future which ensures that the club can reinvent itself, flourish and grow.’ Continue reading
Learning about Australia from John O’Brien
For many in Ireland, ‘Around the Boree Log’ was our introduction to Australia. Continue reading
The Report on the Mother and Child Homes
In the culture of the time, the father, considered the boss of the household in a patriarchal society, felt compelled to do his duty by barring his umarried pregnant daughter from living with the family. Considerations of familial love wilted when faced with the condemnation of neighbors, community and church. Continue reading
Sounds Irish: One Hundred Years of Around the Boree Log
Around the Boree Log is more than a source of nostalgia for parlour poetry. It is also a source that provides an insight into the language of Irish Australia in the early twentieth century. Continue reading
BrigidFest 2021
BrigidFest speaker, the Hon. Gabrielle Williams, provided much graphic evidence of women’s involvement in the IRA, and in particular their roles as prisoners, and wives, lovers and mothers, and in the no-wash protests and hunger strikes in Armagh Women’s Prison. Continue reading
From the Papers
Snippets from the Irish press by Frank O’Shea Continue reading
Women and the Irish Revolution
If ever there was a case of a favourite chapter in this book, I would choose chapter 2, Lucy McDiarmid’s ‘Comradeship’ on the imprisonment in Holloway prison of Kathleen Clarke and her two ‘tall’ comrades, Constance Markievicz and Maud Gonne, who at times tended to dispute ‘as to which of them had the highest social status’. Continue reading
Jonathan Swift: On the Road to Ireland
Clive Probyn reads the Holyhead journal of 1727 as a turning point in his life. Continue reading
New Irish Fiction
Some good fiction reads for lockdown or self-isolating. Continue reading
Tinteán 