t wasn’t so much that I went to school, but rather that school came to me. In every single waking moment of my life school surrounded me. I never could escape from it. I breathed school air. I heard school sounds. I saw school everywhere. I felt the school pumping in my blood. How could this be? Continue reading
He turned on his heels and walked out of sight like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers. Continue reading
From the beginning of European settlement, St Patrick’s Day in South Australia has been commemorated annually as a rallying call to express Irish identity in a new land. Continue reading
My poem was written in English and in Irish, so I needed to find a suitable Irish term for a Dust Devil. Continue reading
The highest peak of the Snowy Mountains. He named it after the Polish-Lithuanian statesman Tadeusz Kosciuszko, giving us Mount Kosciuszko. Continue reading
Caroline Chisholm had worked hard in Australia for the families of convicts to be reunited. No one knew we had been rejected from the list of travellers. Continue reading
Nobody wanted to know convicts in early British settlement of Australia and now family historians are eager to find a connection to a convict in their family tree. How times have changed. Continue reading
It was deeply emotional for me to be able to tell Judy the name of her father, something she had longed for all her life. I emailed a photograph, not being able to imagine the emotion of seeing a photograph of your father for the very first time. Continue reading
While there is good storytelling throughout the book, in relating the story of the Hayes family, the author showed real strength and artistry with the storytelling from her research. Continue reading
According to Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, the name Sheila derives from Cecily, ‘the English form of the Latin name of the…virgin martyr St Cecilia…The Anglo-Normans brought the name to Ireland and in time it became in the Irish language Síle.. Continue reading
Tinteán 