REMEMBERING THE IRISH FAMINE ORPHAN GIRLS

REMEMBERING THE IRISH FAMINE ORPHAN GIRLS

The 2023 Irish Famine Orphan Girls Commemoration event in Melbourne celebrated a dualanniversary this year – 175 years since the first Earl Grey Scheme ship arrived with Irishorphan girls in 1848, and 25 years since the Famine Rock standing stone memorial to thevictims of the Great Hunger was erected in Williamstown. Mr Daniel Lowe, Deputy … Continue reading

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Greetings, readers, and a very happy New Year. May 2024 and its ‘extra’ day be successful for you and your family. With the exception of the first article after this introduction, your editors are taking a rest from publishing new material this month, but we assure you that we will be back in February. We … Continue reading

Books of 2023

By Frank O’Shea Any year that provides new books by Sebastian Barry, John Boyne, Joseph O’Connor and Colm Tóibín has to have been a good one for readers. In the year just finished, we have met all of those with the exception of Tóibín whose book will be reviewed in these pages in the next … Continue reading

The Lillypilly Tree*

by Dymphna Lonergan The Lillipilly berries are falling on my new SUV’, said the next-door neighbour just after she opened the door. No ‘Hello’, or ‘How are you,’ or even ‘G’day’. But she was not in Ireland now. She was in Australia, South Australia. And she has been here for over forty years. She followed … Continue reading

Behind the Scenes of James Joyce’s ‘Exiles’

Behind the Scenes of James Joyce’s ‘Exiles’

by Frances Devlin-Glass Those who have been following Bloomsday for a very long time may remember the palpable thrill of seeing Exiles for the first time in a humble moved reading at Gasworks Theatre (in South Melbourne) twenty years ago in 2003. I was in Japan and unhappily missed it. The audience reported a frisson resembling electricity and surprise … Continue reading