Susan has had international recognition with her interview on The Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ Radio1…The Irish National Foresters were a Friendly Society that commenced in Ireland and then started in Melbourne in 1886 … Continue reading
Filed under diaspora …
Community Gatherings in Ireland Old and New part one
. To this day, we have a saying in Irish ‘Bhí togha gacha bí agus rogha gacha dí le fail ann’, The finest of every food and the choice(st) of every drink was to be had there. This is believed to originally date from bards of one to two thousand years ago. As a chieftain or king, one’s reputation had to be maintained, or enhanced and these ‘songs of praise’, so to speak, were pivotal in this regard. Continue reading
God in a Bottle
they were usually ‘a reused glass spirit, wine or mineral bottle often containing a carved wooden cross, with a ladder leaning against it inside, sometimes (but not always) filled with water’. The water was usually holy water, or at least marketed as such. Continue reading
Based on truth and story: the Irish ballad tradition and its relevance to today.
The other songs cut straight to the chase of the reality of war. Mrs McGrath and Johnny, I hardly knew you. They give a heartbreaking perspective on the horror and futility of war and although tinged with humour they give a firsthand account of the injuries and lifelong disabilities inflicted. Continue reading
The Shanahans of Kangaroo Flat
They came and survived and their descendants are all over Australia. Continue reading
Seasonal Poems
Vermeer would have made much of it Continue reading
What’s On
Upcoming Melbourne Irish Studies Seminar on Heaney’s visit to Australia in 1994. Continue reading
The Old School
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
His First Rodeo A Chéad Róidió
He turned on his heels and walked out of sight like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers. Continue reading
St Patrick’s Day in South Australia
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
Tinteán 