Nobody would quarrel with the claim that Brigid herself ‘belongs to everyone’. Continue reading →

The text of a talk given at the Famine Memorial in Williamstown on 18 November by Perry McIntyre.
This talk is in two parts. The first concerns memoralisation of the Famine, specifically the background to the building of Sydney Famine Memorial at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney incorporated into the wall which offered protection for immigrant women, beginning with the first shipload of workhouse orphan women and, ironically, standing on the site of the original Barrack kitchens. The second part places these young Irish immigrants to Australia between 1848 and 1850 in the context of single female immigration and brings them into a 21^st century context. Continue reading →

With the Irish uprising of Easter 1916, many associated conscription in Australia as support for British domination in Ireland. Continue reading →