Abstract: Holton, Karina While the destiny of the eldest sons of aristocratic British and Irish families was marked out from birth, younger male siblings and their male offspring were often faced with major challenges when endeavouring to find a place for themselves in the world. Unless they were fortunate enough to be educated for business or the law, to carve out a successful career in the army or the church, or to marry wealth, they could be condemned to living in reduced circumstances, dependent for survival upon more privileged relatives. This was the case with Berkeley Lennox. Although clever, he lacked the financial means and the family support necessary to exploit his talents fully, although his unlikely career as a magician in colonial Australia during the mid-1850s was not without its successes. His story exemplifies the difficulties junior members of aristocratic families could face, and it serves also to illustrate how youthful indiscretions could blight an upper-class man's later life and prospects.
Abstract: McCarron, Barry There is a rich body of work on the history of the Irish in Australia, and the same can be said of the Chinese. However, scholars have only scratched the surface in exploring the comparative experiences and contributions of both groups. Looking at a broad range of individuals and drawing upon an array of primary sources, this article examines the nature and significance of relations between the Irish and the Chinese, from the gold rushes of the 1850s up to Federation in 1901. The article finds that relations were dominated by racial conflict, economic competition and an uneasy coexistence. Irish immigrants played a central role in anti-Chinese campaigns, aiming to advance their own upward socio-economic mobility, maintain strict boundaries between themselves and Chinese immigrants and project themselves into positions of power and influence. This restricted Chinese mobility, undermined Britain's relations with China and its Australian colonies, and helped lay the foundations for the White Australia Policy. Irish actions, attitudes and perceptions towards the Chinese were not monolithic, however. A few Irish men publicly denounced the anti-Chinese movement and a small number of Irish women married Chinese men, but, while the Chinese viewed some Irish people as allies in their fight for a better life, more commonly they experienced the Irish as adversaries.
Abstract: Orchard, Ellen This essay surveys the recurrent portrayal of the womb in Northern Irish poetry, suggesting that the 'womb poem' is a symbolic trope. It focuses on five poems: Derek Mahon's 'An Unborn Child', Medbh McGuckian's 'The Unplayed Rosalind', Michael Longley's 'The Freemartin', Leontia Flynn's 'Poem for an Unborn Child' and Paul Muldoon's 'The Sonogram'. The essay discusses how these poets use the womb as a metaphor for their own poetic parentage and for developing conceptions of selfhood through exploring the complex coexistence of mother and child, creator and created. The notion of motherhood, read outside a national context and the 'Mother Ireland' trope, is also examined and questioned.
Abstract: Noone, Val; Malcolm, Elizabeth A decade ago, while researching family history, Richard Olive of Melbourne was pleased to discover shipping records that revealed his great-grandmother, Johanna Sullivan from County Cork, had arrived in Adelaide in September 1849 on the Elgin. Noticing that she was only 15 years old, he began to search the records for her parents, only to find, to his surprise, that all the 190 passengers on the ship were teenage girls. As Richard drove his granddaughter, Eva, home from school that afternoon, he told her about his discovery. She asked him in what year Joanna Sullivan had arrived and, when he replied '1849', they both quickly realised that this was during the Great Famine. Eva said: 'Sounds to me like she was an Earl Grey orphan'. But, although Richard knew his Australian history well, he had never heard of Earl Grey-beyond it being a type of tea. Eva told him that she had come across the Earl Grey orphans in a novel she had recently read: 'Bridie's Fire', written by Kirsty Murray and published in Sydney in 2003.
Abstract: Fox, Ken This article analyses the regimes of vision and the functions served by the Irish border in contemporary cinema narratives as a way of reclaiming the border as a peopled landscape in cinematic space and place. Given the number of films set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there appears to be a surprising dearth of analysis of the role of the border. Among film examples, the article focuses on the work of Shane Connaughton, screenwriter on 'My Left Foot' (Sheridan, 1989) and author/screenwriter of the border films, 'The Playboys' (Mackinnon, 1992) and 'The Run of the Country' (Yates, 1995), both shot before the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement. These two films provide a rich representation of how the border impacted the lives of those who existed on either side of the divide. Since 1998 and the disappearance of border posts and army bases across the region, movement has been transformed, as have representations of crossing over. The article will argue that Johnny Gogan's post-agreement films, 'Mapmaker (2001) and Black Ice' (2013), and Brian Deane's short film, 'Volkswagen Joe' (2013), represent the border's liminal spaces as embracing in-between-ness as a key element of borderlander identity and, in doing so, they help to reclaim the border as a peopled landscape.
Abstract: Molloy, Kevin This article examines Ulster or Northern Irish immigrants from the Protestant unionist community who arrived in Australia after 1945. The journal 'Ulster Link' (Melbourne, 1960-88), the official organ of the Ulster Society, is analysed to explore North Irish Protestants' ethnic identity, information culture, networking capacity, demographic profile, youth culture, as well as their general social and cultural presence within Australian society. Further, the article considers what evidence we find in 'Ulster Link' for on-going Ulster Protestant migration, assistance to immigrants and the fostering of ideas of home, political identity, separateness and Britishness. How successful the journal was in achieving its intended outcomes will also be assessed. The conclusion argues that 'Ulster Link' acted as an important conduit for Protestant migrants, fostering networks for a proportion of new arrivals, while also supporting contacts for established migrants, and generally maintaining a sense of Ulster identity in Australia during the post-war era.
Abstract: Billings, Cathal The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was one of the biggest international news stories of its day, covered in a deluge of print and pictures. The recently established Irish-language journals, 'Fainne an Lae and An Claidheamh Soluis', both associated with the Gaelic League, eagerly followed the war. Drawing upon original newspaper sources, this article will examine how the Boer context was utilised by Irish-language writers as a medium through which to promote the Gaelic League's cultural, economic and social ideals, before, during and even after the war. It will also address the inconsistencies and moral questions involved in Irish nationalists' idealisation of the Boers, which necessitated playing down, or even ignoring, less attractive aspects of Boer national identity. Finally, it will consider how the Boer context also left space for the growth of political ideologies that were in conflict with the Gaelic League's fundamental ideal and that had a profound and lasting effect upon the organisation.
Abstract: Molloy, Kevin Review(s) of: Newman College: A History, 1918-2018, by Brenda Niall, Josephine Dunin And Frances O'Neill, Melbourne: Newman College, 2018, 270pp. RRP AU$70. ISBN 978-0- 646-98300-4.
Abstract: Malcolm, Elizabeth Review(s) of: Caroline's Dilemma: A Colonial Inheritance Saga, by Bettina Bradbury, Sydney: New South Publishing, 2019, 336pp. RRP AU$34.99. ISBN 978-1-742-23660-5.
Abstract: McLaren, Jennifer Review(s) of: An Irishman's Life on the Caribbean Island of St Vincent, 1787- 90: The Letter Book of Attorney General Michael Keane, by Mark S. Quintanilla, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2019, 202pp. RRP euro40.50. ISBN 978-1-846-82791-4.
Abstract: Mcdevitt, Patrick F Review(s) of: Famine Irish and the American Racial State, by Peter D. O'Neill, New York and Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017, paperback 2019, 280pp. RRP US$39.96. ISBN 978-0-367-34444-3.
Abstract: Markham, Katie Review(s) of: Imaging the Great Irish Famine: Representing Dispossession in Visual Culture, by Niamh Ann Kelly, London: I. B. Tauris, 2018, 320pp. RRP US$105. ISBN 978-1-78453- 7104.
Abstract: Williams, Maggie M Review(s) of: The Great Irish Famine: Visual and Material Cultures, by Marguerite Corporaal, Oona Frawley and Emily Mark-Fitzgerald (eds), Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019, 296pp. RRP 90.00. pounds ISBN 13-978-1-786-94159-6.
Abstract: de Bri, Jeda Review(s) of: Women and Embodied Mythmaking in Irish Theatre, by Shonagh Hill, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, 258pp. RRP 75. pounds ISBN 978-1-10848-533-3.
Abstract: Curran, Joe Review(s) of: Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-Famine Ireland, by Ciaran McCabe, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018, 320pp. RRP 29.95. pounds ISBN 978-78694-157-2.
Abstract: Morash, Christopher Review(s) of: A New History of the Irish in Australia, by Elizabeth Malcolm And Dianne Hall, Sydney: New South Publishing, 2018; Cork: Cork University Press, 2019, 436pp. RRP AU$35/euro25. ISBN 978-1-782-05305-7.
Abstract: Clancy, Stuart Review(s) of: Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland, by Brendan Kelly, Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2016, paperback 2019, 464pp. RRP euro29.95. ISBN 978-1-788-55086-4.
Abstract: Francombe, Charlie Review(s) of: The Civil War in Dublin: The Fight for the Irish Capital, 1922-1924, by John Dorney, Dublin: Merrion Press, 2017, 300pp. RRP euro19.95. ISBN 978-1-785-37089-2.
Abstract: Deedigan, Susie Review(s) of: Irish Women and Nationalism: Soldiers, New Women and Wicked Hags, by Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward (eds), new ed., Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2019, 240pp. RRP euro24.95/22.99. pounds ISBN 978-1-788-55097-0.
Abstract: Reilly, Ciaran Review(s) of: Monksgrange: Portrait of an Irish House and Family, 1769-1969, by Philip Bull, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2019, 269pp. RRP euro50. ISBN 978-1-84682-786-0.
Abstract: Malcolm, Elizabeth Review(s) of: The Americanisation of Ireland: Migration and Settlement, 1841-1925, by David Fitzpatrick, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, 254pp. RRP 29.99. pounds ISBN 978- 1-108-48649-1.
Abstract: Cooper, Sophie Review(s) of: Irish Women and the Creation of Modern Catholicism, 1850-1950, by Cara Delay, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019, 264pp. RRP 80.00. pounds ISBN 978-1- 5261-3639-8.
Abstract: Sullivan, Rodney; Sullivan, Robin "This paper identifies symbols of Irishness deployed in Warwick, Queensland, one of the State's most Irish towns, from 1871 to November 1917. It shows their potency as memory carriers and instruments of ethnic cohesion. Employing an ethno-graphic approach, it traces the periodic deployment, activation and emotional power of Irish symbols, Green and Orange, from both group and individual perspectives. It questions the standard interpretation of the Warwick Egg Incident of November 1917 as an anomaly and, also, the Dublin 1916 Rising and conscription as sectarian triggers.
We focus on episodes in the town's history when Irish symbols, including the green harp flag, an Orange banner, green ribbons and a shillelagh, figured in performances of Irishness, evoking both solidarity and hostility. The episodes were erased from the town's civic narrative but retained the capacity for retrieval. They lay dormant in family memory and local repositories but could be revived through changing generational perspectives or commemorative activities."
Abstract: Molloy, Kevin For most nineteenth century newspapers the 'serial story' was a commercial imperative, one that featured extensively in British and North American publications. It was a feature soon adopted by the Irish in the British colonies, with one difference, that the serial writing featured was almost exclusively 'Irish'. Within the newspaper, the serial story - whether fiction, history or memoir - formed an integral, inter-textual component of the information fabric for the migrant reader, read within the context of topical news of the day that framed such publications. While works by Irish novelists featured heavily in Irish-Australian newspapers, from the 1860s the influence of the Irish-American novel began to make itself felt. This paper examines the role of two Irish-American female writers, Mary Anne Sadlier and Christine Faber, and through two of their novels serialised in the Irish-Australian press examines why such works were crucial in both framing, and providing perspective, on complex political, social and cultural issues for the intergenerational Irish migrant cohort.
Abstract: Addis, Victoria This essay addresses the question of how writers exercise their responsibility to address recent/contemporary national violence. If they do, how do they ethically represent their homelands as places of violence' It examines two works that wrestle with these questions: Seamus Heaney's 1975 poetry collection, North, and Roberto Bolano's novella, By Night in Chile. Placing these works in dialogue with key theorists of nationhood and literature - Fredric Jameson, Homi K. Bhabha, and Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari - this essay foregrounds the power of literature to shape national discourse and discusses the opportunities and the challenges that result from that power for writers, like Heaney and Bolano, seeking to parse sensitive contexts.
Abstract: Byrnes, Greg; Noone, Val; Wooding, Jonathan M; Lindsey, Robert Since written testimony to use of the Irish (Gaelic) language in Australia is limited, inscriptions in Irish deserve attention as a valuable, though not yet fully-documented, source of evidence for use of the language. While those presently known are not numerous, sufficient have been identified to make it timely to assemble a corpus. In compiling this corpus we have had three aims. The first aim was to collect together a body of data of linguistic and historical interest which had been identified by individual researchers over a period of time and to publish it in a form easy of reference. The second aim was to stimulate others to identify further inscriptions, which we aim to publish in a future instalment. A further aim was to direct readers to some matters of particular interest concerning the content and subjects of the inscriptions, many of which only emerged in the course of our research, but which show these commemorations to relate to matters of wider historical interest.
Abstract: Lonergan, Dymphna While many Irish female names are saints' names, there is no Saint Sheila. According to Diarmaid O 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 Sile. In nineteenth-century newspapers there are references to the celebration of 'Shela's Day' on 18 March in honour of St Patrick's wife or mother. Some academics now consider this day to be the origin of the Australian English word 'sheila', used generically as a term for 'a girl'. This article investigates the links between Australian English 'sheila' and 'Sheila's Day' and challenges previously held assumptions.
Abstract: Coleman, Patrick Review(s) of: Religion, landscape and settlement in Ireland: From Patrick to Present, by Kevin Whelan, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018, 304 pp., RRP 45 Euro, ISBN: 978-1846827563.
Abstract: Toye, Richard Review(s) of: Churchill and Ireland, by Paul Bew, Oxford University Press, 2016, 240 pp., RRP 9.99 pounds, ISBN 978-0198755210.
Abstract: Carey, Steve Review(s) of: Joyce's Non-Fiction writings: 'Outside his jurisfiction', by Katherine Ebury and James Alexander Fraser (eds), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, xxiii + 230 pp., RRP 74.96 Euro (eBook), ISBN 978-319722412.
Abstract: Rosa, Sharon Crozier-De Review(s) of: Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Suffragette and Sinn Feiner: Her Memoirs and Political Writings, by Margaret Ward (ed.), Dublin: UCD Press, 2017, xxvii + 463pp., hardback, 35 Euro, ISBN 978-1910820148.
Abstract: Noone, Val Review(s) of: Fir Fesso: A festschrift for Neil McLeod, by Anders Ahlqvist and Pamela O'Neill (eds), Sydney: University of Sydney, 2018, 303 pp. (Series in Celtic Studies 17) AU$50. ISBN: 978-1-74210-444-7.
Abstract: Malcolm, Elizabeth Claims that the Catholic Irish-born community in colonial Australia was characterised by high rates of criminal offending were accepted by many contemporaries and have been widely repeated by historians since. Poverty, drunkenness, alienation and prejudice have all been put forward as explanations for lawbreaking. This article, through an analysis of samples of Irish prisoners in late nineteenth-century Victoria, challenges assessments of the levels and nature of Irish crime and the reasons offered for them. It shows that a large proportion of offenders were middle-aged women, not young men as is frequently assumed, and that most were convicted of non-violent, victimless public order offences that even at the time were acknowledged to be hardly crimes in any meaningful sense.
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