Life was not easy for Jane and Bridget, two of at least fifty famine orphan girls who were gaoled in NSW from the 1850s to 1900. Continue reading
Filed under Australian-Irish history …
From Armagh to Barrington: an Earl Grey orphan in Northern Tasmania.
Mary Ann McMaster came to Australia under the Earl Grey Scheme. Continue reading
130 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH – A REFLECTION ON PETER LALOR
A great-great-grandson remembers an unapologetic rebel and determined reformer Continue reading
A Woman Ahead of Her Time
It is easy today to forget the extreme ways that nineteenth-century British society divided along sectarian lines. Continue reading
The Influence of the Irish National School System on Australian Educational Policy
Waugh’s brief is not to debate the merits of the current Australian education system but to highlight the significant influence of the Irish National Schools system in colonial times in paving the way for the provision of public education in Australia. Continue reading
Dublin Museum as the World’s Leading Tourist Attraction?
EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is in contention to be named the World’s Leading Tourist Attraction at prestigious World Travel Awards Continue reading
The Famine Orphans, a Prelude to a Series of Profiles
In the eyes of Imperial social engineers, the Famine orphans were young marriageable women who would bring a stabilizing influence to a rough masculine colonial society. Continue reading
The ‘Best Choir in the Anglosphere’
Catherine Fitzpatrick, a convict’s wife, conductor of the first choir of an infant colony. Continue reading
Personal Reflections Inspired by A New History of the Irish in Australia
At the outset I must remark that all who are interested in the story of the Irish in ‘The Great South Land Under The Southern Cross’ will forever be indebted to the exceptional scholarship of two enormously talented historians, Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall. Continue reading
Feminists before First Wave
This book on Nano Nagle and her legacy casts a powerful gaze on the lives and culture of a body of nuns whose charism was particularly and importantly focused on girls Continue reading