by Val Noone
Patricia M. O’Connor and Fidelma McCorry (eds), Continuity and Change: Post-war Migration Between Ireland and Australia 1945-2024, Oxon, Routledge, 2025. 237 pp. $244 hardback. E-book $64.79.
In reviewing this important book about Irish who have migrated to Australia since 1945, I have two messages. Firstly, Patricia O’Connor and Fidelma McCorry have broken new ground with a solid and stimulating book.
A community challenge
Second, what on earth is wrong in Irish-Australian networks that this book of 237 pages hardback costs $244 (with the mid-year sale discount). At $64.79 the e-book is still expensive. I will tell you about the book’s riches but first I have to get the price issue off my chest.
Here are some recent comparisons: Irish South Australia, 354 pages, costs $38.25; A New History of the Irish in Australia, 448 pages, costs $29.80; the Sydney book on the Irish National Association of Australasia, 306 pages, (assisted by the Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Program), costs $39.95; and The History of the Queensland Irish Association, 342 pages, costs $39.99.
Would no Australian publisher take this book? Among the financially successful post-1945 immigrants, and the book portrays most of the post-1945 Irish immigrants that way, are there none who can crowd-fund this book? Is there no successor to Peter Moore of Crossing Press who published books of Irish-Australia at mates’ rates? Is Gerry Higgins who funded the chair of Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne the only one to donate substantial funds to promote Irish studies in Australia? Here’s hoping O’Connor and McCorry find a way to make their work available to the general reader.*
Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and more
Now to the contents, and some comments. The editors have written 11 of the 16 chapters, with Kevin Molloy, Jean Butler & Anne Wayne, Seamus O’Hanlon (2) and Julie Breathnach-Banwait supplying the other 5. The book has four sections.
Section 1 on 1945-1980 is the largest with reports of interviews in Melbourne, Western Australia, and South Australia. Tasmania, NSW, and Queensland are missing. Was it coincidence that in a book concentrating on the traditional homeland states of Aussie Rules, and ignoring the rugby homelands north of the Murray, one of the first migrants mentioned by name was Jim Stynes?
Section 2 on 1980-2000 reports O’Connor’s extraordinary Melbourne interviews. Sections 3 and 4 on 2000-2015 and 2016-2024 are summaries of McCorry’s impressive sociological findings. Each section begins with a strong chapter on facts and figures at the national level from O’Connor and McCorry.
For the 1945-80 batch, economic circumstances in Ireland were important factors. In 1958 Irish Banking Review took a dismissive view of those who left in search of better working conditions, saying that emigration was ‘a useful safety valve’. On the other hand, O’Connor and McCorry open with a vague generalisation: ‘Migration is an indelible part of Ireland’s demographic fabric’. Nonetheless, Section One has five insightful chapters including a family history from Adelaide, the only one in the book.
Kevin Molloy’s over-flowing chapter takes the story from 1946 to 1971. He includes comparisons with UK and USA, but concentrates on oral history from Melbourne, its hostels, sporting activities, clubs, the Gaelic Link magazine, a cooperative, and dances at Carlton and Kew. His examples range from Maurice who arrived at Port Melbourne not knowing where he would sleep that night to Rosemary, a nurse, who planned her moves ahead. He highlights a little-known story of Anglican clergyman Reverend Bill Coffey and his efforts at cultural maintenance for Ulster migrants of all faiths.
Perth stories from Jean Butler and Anne Wayne also rely on oral history interviews. Although they identify those years as ones of economic hardship in Ireland, most of Butler’s 29 subjects and Wayne’s 11 had good employment prior to migrating. Perth’s weather looms large as a drawcard. The Australian Irish Heritage Association played its part in community building, though I was surprised that founder Joe O’Sullivan did not get a mention. (Personal names are not listed in the Index.) Wayne arranged her interviews through The Claddagh Association which is funded by the Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Program.
The British Fairbridge Society Migration Scheme, and its movement of people from Northern Ireland to Pinjarra farm school, has a special chapter. Patricia O’Connor has compiled an instructive account built on a tower of work done by Paula Magee who came from Belfast with her parents and eight siblings in 1963. A high point is the action of five Irish men in removing their children from Pinjarra and setting up a co-operative.
In 1951 and 1955 Victoria recruited several hundred mostly male workers from Ireland to work on Melbourne’s trams. Two photographs of a household of them in Union Street, Armadale (called in the book East Malvern), are the only photographs of people in the book. Through the Irish Welfare Bureau Seamus O’Hanlon arranged interviews with four men and two women and has gathered stories of work, marriage and relatively affluent progress. He stresses the shocking rate of emigration in those years from working-class Dublin. Some were indeed ten-pound poms, having first migrated to England.
O’Hanlon also has the following chapter which is about his parents and six children who arrived in Adelaide in 1964 by plane, unlike the trammies. He tells of their links with Irish Catholic friends, rosaries and fasting, enjoyment of the music scene, and good lives. He says that an economic downturn of the 1970s affected adversely his parents’ last working years. Presumably he had the Fraser government years in mind, but in the mid-1970s the Whitlam government’s Medibank and community health centres improved old age for most Australians.
Working holiday visas
Coming to the 1980-2000 migrants, O’Connor explains that the 1975 Working Holiday Maker visas and the 1979 Points Entry Schemes made a big difference. Their number peaked towards the end of the 1980s, she says. O’Connor then turns her spotlight on Melbourne where in 2001-2002 she conducted an amazing 203 interviews.
Only 21% came without having contacts in Australia. Many listed a sense of adventure as a motive, and most had not intended to settle. Post-arrival partnerships with Australians changed many minds. 85% spoke of missing family. I looked in vain for a story O’Connor told at an Irish Studies seminar in Melbourne in 2002 about how many of her interviewees burst into tears at that point. Her packed chapter concludes that, in general, this wave of migrants had two homes and were transnational. The third section consists of Fidelma McCorry’s three reports on her sustained investigation of 2000 to 2015. She recalls the influence of President Mary Robinson’s celebration of the Irish diaspora and later the impact of the Global Financial Crisis and the collapse of the Irish banking system in 2008, signalling the end of the Celtic Tiger. Her reports cover Australia-wide migration. Her statistical work shows that the 124,050 Irish-born people in Australia in 2013 was the peak, up from 75,770 in 2000, and followed by some decline.
McCorry mentions the Irish Abroad Unit in Dublin’s Foreign Affairs department and its management of the Emigrant Support Program. Contrary to a comment by O’Connor, Táin magazine published articles about post-1945 migrants by Terry Monagle, Frances Devlin Glass, Geraldine Ryan, Margaret McNally, Bernard Lyons, myself, and others. Táin promoted the 2002 visit to Australia by the Irish government Task Force on Policy regarding Emigrants, led by Paddy O’Hanlon. At the request of Bronwen Walter I had the privilege of writing the background paper on post-1945 migration to Australia, which was included in the Task Force report but is not cited in this book.
Accidental migrants?
Regarding the 2000-2015 cohort McCorry came to the conclusion that many were ‘accidental migrants’. Most had tertiary education, came for adventure, had not prepared and did not intend to stay. This resulted in a sharp increase in demand for services of Irish welfare organisations: e.g., some still had mortgages to pay in Ireland.
Twenty pages here on return migrants draw on the first social-media survey with 399 replies and 40 interviews, most under 30 years of age. Family and homesickness were leading reasons given, with visas and distance also listed. McCorry comments that the effects of migration on psychological well-being have not been studied.
At page 189, the book has a conclusion before, oddly, adding a chapter about 2016-2024 plus a chapter about the Irish language. Of the post-2016 phase McCorry identifies the influence of changed policies of Irish and Australian governments, Brexit, and developments in Northern Ireland. She notes that in 2013-2016 more left than arrived. Connemara-born and a migrant of 2008, Julie Breathnach-Banwait then has an interesting 5-page reflection on her 2017 decision to write poetry in her mother tongue.
If the editors produce an accessible edition, in addition to comments tabled above, a few other matters need attention: the number of Irish convicts coming to Australia was some five times higher than the figure they gave; the doubling up of their biographical entries was a slip-up, as was the mixing of ‘I’ and ‘we’ in the Acknowledgements; and am I right to think that trauma, displacement and tragedy are not discussed. More stories and less generalisations would appeal to a wider audience, as would using just the second half of the title.
In summary, O’Connor and McCorry have succeeded in their objective of opening detailed discussion of the Irish who came to Australia in the seven decades since 1945. Their book contains much about why they migrated; what were the factors in choosing a destination; how they responded in their new home; and what effect migration had on their identity and belonging. This review is based on one reading but many pages are calling out for a second look.
*Patricia O’Connor and Fidelma McCorry advise that ‘Paperback copies of Continuity and Change are scheduled to be released by Routledge in 2026. Details of pre-order facilities or earlier release dates will be appear in later editions of Tinteán as they become available.‘
Val Noone is the author of Hidden Ireland in Victoria and was editor of Táin magazine. In 2013 the National University of Ireland awarded him the degree Doctor of Literature for his contribution to Irish Studies in Australia.
Tinteán 