In summation, ‘A Long Way to Tipperary’ proved itself a most fitting tribute to the 200,000 Irish men and women who served in the Great War, with 50,000 (one in every four) of them making the supreme sacrifice. Continue reading
Filed under History …
Focus on Irish-Australian history
unraveling the gritty, dirty and sometimes uncomfortable side we don’t usually hear much about Continue reading
Home Rule for Ireland
A Feature by FRAN BADER marking the centenary of the Third Home Rule Bill A centenary ago on 18 September 1914, the Third Home Rule Bill for Ireland went on the statute books in Westminster, with its implementation simultaneously postponed for a year or for the duration of WW1. At the time there was no … Continue reading
Lady Historian and Pro-Communist Patrician
It’s a tale of an Australia which has disappeared – bourgeois, genteel (be-hatted and gloved), learned after its own fashion, but also full of patrician pro-communists. Continue reading
Australian Catholic Lives by Edmund Campion
Campion’s subjects represent the gamut of being human. Continue reading
Decolonising Indigenous Australia
Irish and Irish-identified Australians, or Scots who might have voted ‘Yes’, will be interested to read Noel Pearson’s latest pungent Quarterly Essay for its take on the agonizingly slow process of Indigenous decolonisation. Continue reading
THE OAK ** Quercus robur
The Vikings were the first invaders to realise the potential of the oak. Continue reading
Walking Old Sydney
In 2012 The Dictionary of Sydney developed a partnership with the Irish Consulate Sydney to develop new content. This project became known as Greening the Dictionary and saw eight new entries come online in 2013. These entries included St Canice’s Church, Elizabeth Bay; Irish in Sydney from First Fleet to Federation; and the surprising, Statue of Queen Victoria in Druitt Street. Continue reading
A Socialist Insurgent
This is a thoughtful, well-balanced, sensibly structured and extremely well-written book. Supported by a ‘Timeline’ of Connolly’s life and times, a useful and clear map of central Dublin in 1916, a selection of interesting photographs (some of which were new to me) an extensive bibliography and a couple of short appendices containing some of Connolly’s writings (including a number of his ballads and poems) the author presents a really clear and concise introduction to Connolly. Continue reading
Brutalised by Prison, and with a Thirst for Revenge
Chapter Two, ‘ Prisoner Number J464, 1883-98′ is the fulcrum of this book. It concentrates in detail on the British prison system of those times and Litton has done meticulous research to justify her conclusion that Clarke suffered so badly and permanently that it led to his utter thirst for revenge and a military solution against English oppression. Continue reading
Tinteán 