Oceania Books

The Irish in Australia is a general history of the contribution of people of Irish birth to Australian national life and character first published in 1986 by New South Wales University professor of history, Patrick O'Farrell. The fifth paperback edition published in 1993 contains 362 pages with two prefaces, eight chapters - the eighth a new one on the "The New Irish - an updated bibliography, 21 useful pages of additional reading sources and an index.

The book is a rich chronicle based on primary and archival material noteworthy for its geographic scope as well as its leverage of study the author has done for other work he has published on Irish migration. He describes his sources as small, no doubt one of the reasons he pursued his research on a global basis at several points in Australia and at others in Belfast, Dublin and Rome.

Caution is recommended to readers who might infer too broad a meaning to the book's title, assuming it suggests the Irish in Australia were a homogenous community. On the contrary, O'Farrell weaves a complicated saga of people from Gaelic-Catholic, Anglo-Irish and Ulster Protestant traditions - seasoned with a few Irish Jews and Quakers - engaged in three areas of almost constant conflict.

* Conflict between distinct, separate and essentially poor Irish-Australian cultural factions;
* Conflict, "often bitter, sometimes violent," between Australians of Irish birth and the Australian establishment;
* Conflict, "often hostile and sometimes most indignant in its refusal to accept the Irish as true and proper Australians" between the Australian Irish and non-Irish communities.

The parameters of Australia's early foundation were marked by English and Irish extremes. Of the two national ancestral groups, O'Farrell claims the Irish have been the more dynamic force in the evolution of Australian national character.

O'Farrell uses extensive data to explain Australia's foundation as a British penal colony. He reports just over 40,000 mostly Catholic convicts were sent to Australia directly from Ireland by 1853, 26 percent of them women. Of the convicts sent from England, he cites estimates suggesting perhaps 8,000 were Irish-born and a similar number were of Irish ancestries. Irish social rebels, those convicted of crimes of protest against poverty and landlordism, were about 20 percent of the total. The rest can be described properly as ordinary criminals, mostly thieves. O'Farrell undoubtedly offends select conventional wisdom that upholds Irish convicts as honorable victims of gross injustice, social oppression and national persecution, or as heroic rebels. "The facts," he writes, "seem otherwise."

One of the strongest personalities in the formation of the Australian-Irish community was Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, Archbishop of Sydney from 1884 to 1911. Known for his discipline, dignity and pride in Irish identity, Moran advocated inclusion of the Australian-Irish into the British-run colonial society as themselves, not as imitation Anglo-Saxons. Careful to avoid any appearance of Irish nationalism, Moran stood for the richness of Irish culture, making no apologies for what was Irish. Polished and refined, Moran made it clear, "Australia must swallow the Irish potion neat." Moran's stance framed one side of the continuously simmering conflict between the English colonial administration and the new Australian-Irish population. On the other, the establishment insisted de facto membership in society was dependent on the Irish abandoning their identity. The Australian-Irish would have none of it.

Along with Cardinal Moran, about 2,000 mostly Irish Catholic priests arrived in Australia in the 19th Century and waged a holy war to capture the Australian wilderness of indifference, neglect, heresy and sin. Precisely because the Australian-Irish Catholic laity was so dominated by their exuberant, sometimes belligerent clergy, they were saved from the political tribalism and clannishness into which the American Irish fell. The immigrant priests established Irish Catholic symbols everywhere by building hundreds of churches, schools and convents throughout the country. Their presence and impact was ubiquitous.

Perhaps because of the strong emotion in much Irish poetry and song as well as the long economic and political struggle against Britain, there are several theories for the genesis of free Irish emigration to Australia. O'Farrell acknowledges many, but cuts to the chase with a thesis of common sense. He says the best left Ireland for Australia, not the worst. "It took initiative, resourcefulness, capacity and also, obviously, money."

The first free Irish in Australia built their image in the outback. Many experienced farmers arrived from Ireland between 1860 and 1880, finding immediate opportunity in affordable, plentiful land. Many originally non-farming Irish immigrants gravitated to these quickly successful Australian-Irish agrarian communities, investing their wages from first jobs as common laborers and miners into farms of their own. This combination of real and nouveau Irish immigrant farmers built sizeable Irish communities around the major cities in New South Wales, Victoria and the other colonies.

As time passed, Irish migrants gravitated more to Australia's cities, grouping together beneath the structures of neighborhood, parish church and school, workplace / work role, political party and sports. However, O'Farrell makes it clear the urban Irish in Australia did not retreat into ghettos like many of their emigrant countrymen in the U.S. and England. They maintained their communities, but considered themselves Australian-Irish, not just Irish, and strove to function as fully bona fide members of Australian society.

Useful data are plentiful in this book. We read that 342,842 Irish "free" immigrants arrived in Australia and New Zealand between 1851 and 1921, with 101,000 landing in the Victorian gold rush decade of 1851-60. This compares to nearly four million Irish who left the Old Sod for North America. Very few Famine refugees went to Australia, mainly because of the distance and greater expense of the journey. O'Farrell maintains the Irish people who went to Australia and New Zealand were "a much more accomplished, venturesome and happy lot than those the Famine had dumped on America." It is also true, however, that the Irish arrived relatively late in America, a country already settled and an environment more closed to them than was the case in Australia. Ironically, Australia was seen by many Irish as offering greater opportunity than America, where the urban ghetto - much like what they knew at home - awaited them.

O'Farrell refers to the celebration of St. Patrick's Day in Australia several times, explaining its various forms as a religious saint's feast day, a political statement, a social holiday and a boozy down-market street party. Occasionally it was all four, but most often it balanced precariously between an excuse for a drink-up and a lightning rod of both general public and Irish-Australian disapproval for its divisive, irrelevant rowdiness. Cardinal Moran took control of St. Patrick's Day observances during his tenure, trying to bring a sense of balance, sobriety and respectful Australian-Irish character to it. Sadly the celebration remains most famous for excessive drinking, brawling and otherwise objectionable behavior of many participants.

Several lay individuals played prominent roles in sustaining the Australian-Irish community. J.G. O'Connor, who had arrived in Australia from Ireland in 1841 at the age of two, became Sydney's premier Irish social chairman for over 40 years in the last half of the century. He acted under the mantle of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, founded in Victoria in 1871 and spread rapidly throughout Australia and New Zealand in the 1880s. Neither a nationalist radical nor a man of great means, O'Connor was the quintessential hale hearty, well met Irishman, always promoting an Australian-Irish cause to raise money. The Hibernians continue their preservation of Irish heritage, loyal support of the Catholic Church and good works for the less fortunate today.

The Australian Irish, then and now, take great pride in their sporting life. Sport allowed them to create instant heroes to help fill their needs for self-esteem. One of the most famous was Australian-born boxer Les Darcy who came to fame in Sydney in 1914. O'Farrell describes Darcy as "a pure and simple hero, a good boy who loved and looked after his mother, went to daily Mass, said the rosary - and won: the power in his fists came straight from God." At his death in 1917 at age 21, Darcy was discussed by some as a potential nominee for canonization as Australia's first saint.

O'Farrell explains how single Irish women immigrants often outnumbered Irish men in Australian cities. Bachelor Irish men in the cities tended to work at inferior jobs with low status and realized their inability to offer a woman much more than a life of drudgery and poverty. Their alternatives were to defer marriage until they accumulated sufficient wealth or not marry at all. As a result, many Irish female immigrants as well as first generation Irish-Australian women never wed.

This resulted in substantial age differentials between husbands and wives in the early Australian-Irish community. It also meant Irish-Australian widows of means as well as spinsters were not uncommon in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Irish immigrants didn't carry nearly as much of their homeland to Australia as one might assume. The Catholic school system where many Australian Irish sent their children competed with public schools in examinations. The priests and nuns who ran the schools were thus forced to load their syllabi with state-mandated classes on top of religious instruction, attendance at Mass and various other church events. "There was no room in the school day for Irish culture," O'Farrell writes. In addition, Irish Catholic Australians didn't want their children studying and embracing Irish culture. Most regarded the study of Ireland as irrelevant in their new situation as Australians.

"The Irish in Australia" by Patrick O'Farrell is a well-researched, comprehensive work written in a pleasant style describing the conflicts faced by people of Irish birth who emigrated to Australia. It bridges the great distance between Ireland and Australia with well-documented demographics as well as numerous stories of colorful Australian-Irish personalities from all corners of society. It includes numerous comparisons of the Australian-Irish immigrant experience with that of the much larger group of Irish emigrants to the United States. It provides entertaining and informative insight into Australia's rich Irish character and must be considered a premier source on Irish migration.

"The Irish in Australia" has been honored with the New South Wales Premier's Award for non-fiction and the Ernest Scott Prize for Australian history.

This is a well-conceived and interesting book that provides the research to support Snouck Hurgronje's assertion (in "Mekka") that the Jawah -- pilgrims from the Malay world -- *were* forming a new archipelagic identity in the Middle East. Laffan counters Benedict Anderson's claim in "Imagined Communities" that the pre-national religious pilgrimages didn't set folks on new journeys but merely returned them to their old lives with elevated status. He charts the creation of a new identity that was politicized but not nationalist in the conventional sense.

Now if only I could afford to own the thing...

As a "kamaaina"(person born and raised in Hawaii), I have read most of the literature about the State. Author Tom Coffman, has written several books about Hawaii, including his first, "Catch A Wave", which was about the 1970 gubernatorial campaign. He has written what I believe, is the best political history of the State in this current book. The previous "best" was one written in the late 1950's, entitled "Hawaii Pono" by Lawrence Fuchs. Coffman's book, in a highly readable and well-researched, up-dates that history and adds other facts. Coffman seems to have researched oral history accounts and other sources and adds much to knowledge about a state that is like no other...at the island edge of America.

I have always been a Jack London fan. However, every one of his stories has long since been read and reread by me and millions of others out there. Now, we have something new to hold onto, even if it is for just a short time. Thank you Gary and Tom for giving me Jack London once again. Perhaps one of you could sign the book for me sometime. What a pleasure. Thank you for intriguing mind-blowing stories. Jack grabs you once again and throws you, (not takes you,) into the very heart of the story.

This book contains excellent background information on Java and descriptions of both its major highlights and obscure attractions - particularly archeological remains and national parks - written by a team of expert authors along with photos of stunnning quality.
Practical information is found separately in the back of the book, and is somewhat dated but still adequate.
Highly recommended, even as a 2nd guidebook if you already have a general Indonesia guide stronger on practical details like Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.

Bruce Murray, former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, provides in this book an excellent discussion of the planetary science program of the United States from the dawn of the space age in the 1950s to the end of the cold war. It is an entertaining and interesting analysis of the cause of planetary space exploration written by a brilliant iconoclast in the space science community. Murray's ideas are always fascinating to consider, and his running critique on the role of humans versus robots in space exploration is certainly worth considering. This book is divided into five parts starting with the search for life on Mars, and continuing through "Probing Warmer Worlds," Voyager and the Grandest Tour Ever," "Lost in Space," "Comet Tales," and a reprise on returning to Mars. In each section Murray brings his hard-edged perspective and sometimes biting wit to trace the evolution of planetary exploration between the 1950s and 1980s. I will comment on two very interesting aspects of this book.

The first is the section that Murray writes at the beginning of the book on the longstanding human fascination of the possibility of life on Mars that Percival Lowell ignited and that culminated in the Viking landers on Mars in 1976. After years of belief that Mars might harbor life, the Viking landings demonstrated that the prospects for discovering extraterrestrial life had been oversold. Murray explains here that the Viking landers had been ballyhooed as a definite means of ascertaining whether or not life existed on Mars. The public expected to find it, and probably so did many of the scientists, and what would happen when hopes were dashed? Murray argued that "the extraordinarily hostile environment revealed by the Mariner flybys made life there so unlikely that public expectations should not be raised." Carl Sagan, who fully expected to find something there, accused Murray of pessimism. Murray asserted that Sagan was far too optimistic. And the two publicly jousted over how to treat the Viking mission. Murray, as well as other politically savvy scientists and public intellectuals, argued that the legacy of failure to detect life, despite billions spent on research since the beginning of the space age and over-optimistic statements that a breakthrough was just around the corner, would spark public disappointment and perhaps an outrage manifested in reduced public funding for the effort (pp. 61, 68-69, 74, 77). Murray seems to have been right, for after the Viking missions the U.S. did not send another probe to Mars until the 1990s.

Second, Murray is at his best in charting the bobs and weaves, ebbs and flows of space science politics in relation to the human spaceflight agenda of NASA. Without question, NASA's emphasis has been on human spaceflight--it consumes approximately half of the NASA budget every year--and the planetary exploration agenda must always be cognizant of this overarching priority. As the Space Shuttle came on line in the early 1980s, the planetary exploration program constantly fell sway to the shuttle's priorities. The NASA budget reflected the importance of the shuttle program, and the need to launch everything on the shuttle prompted the reconfiguration of planetary probes for that requirement. Murray makes numerous comments on this subject. He wrote that his planetary missions were constantly challenged by the shuttle, as NASA's dollars were poured into a development program which lagged behind schedule and over budget. He refers to the shuttle as NASA's "sacred cow" which always has to be fed despite any other worthwhile projects that went begging. This was especially true during the early 1980s when the shuttle was first starting to fly and the Reagan administration was intent on cutting government expenditures. In essence, Murray concludes, the shuttle priority ensured that the United States would have no mission to Halley's Comet when it reached Earth in 1986. Moreover, while it proved and enormously significant mission, what became the Galileo probe to Jupiter was constantly reconfigured for shuttle launch, each time increasing costs and compromising the quality of the science.

Murray ends his book with a reconsideration of Mars exploration, but this time with other nations. Writing in 1989, just as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, he foresaw some of the cooperative efforts that became the norm for spaceflight in the 1990s and later.

This is an important book, and one that is very useful for any who wishing to understand the nature of planetary exploration since the dawn of the space age. Too bad that it is out of print. Fortunately, there are several second hand copies available at reasonable prices. Buy them and read Murray's analysis. It is well worth the time and energy.

Just Left of the Setting Sun is a collection of non-fiction essays by a young Chamoru scholar-activist from the island of Guam. These essays reflect the present-day reality of the indigenous people of the island of Guam.

This book is framed in the context of an island that exists amidst the many conflicts and contradictions of being "freed from colonialism" by another colonial power in 1898 and "liberated from wartime aggression" by a country that put in under a Naval Administration until the 1960s and who worked to eliminate the culture of the local people through forced assimilation and nominal citizenship. It is written to articulate the reality of the Chamoru people of Guam as an indigenous Pacific Island culture, an American minority group, and an island people threatened by the encroachment of globalization into their lives. These essays will cause the reader to think critically on the subjects of globalization, sustainable development, sustainable governance, cultural reclamation, and self-determination on Guam, amongst the indigenous and colonized peoples in the world, question the value of democracy if it is involuntarily imposed on a people. This book is especially relevant for the present state of the world.

Just Left is included in an academic series that blue ocean press publishes - `The 1898 Consciousness Studies Series'. This series is a varied collection of essays on consciousness today in areas affected by the Spanish-American War and consequent possession by the U.S. These include The Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

While her husband Derek is in America for a year, Sandra Mahoney struggles with helping her eight years old son Peter cope with reading while returning to the workforce after several years as a stay at home mom. She gets a civil servant job with the Australian Labor Relations Service Department Industries Branch whose unpopular director Rae Evans was a friend of her deceased mother.

However, her peers except for the zany Ivan Semyonov make it evident they do not want her here; each fears for their job with the government changing parties as this branch is probably going out of existence. Canberra Times reporter Gail Tremboth calls Sandra as they were college cronies to ask about Rae. An email the paper received insists that Rae embezzled $900K by adding a zero to a grant check and has committed computer fraud. Sandra, remembering her mother's motto of loyalty to friends, believes her boss is innocent and tries to prove she is right with only Ivan helping her as everyone else in the office wants Sandra to take the fall even if she proves to be innocent.

THE TROJAN DOG is a terrific Australian amateur sleuth starring a delightful protagonist, a fabulous support cast who makes the office seem real, and a fantastic look at Canberra. Though Sandra feels the world caving in on her with her spouse overseas, her son struggling with school, and her new job probably ending when the government switches leadership, she believes strongly in doing what she perceives is the right thing by not just standing loyally with Rae, but actively proving she did not commit the crimes. Dorothy Johnston provides a super investigative tale that readers will value.

Harriet Klausner

I just received this book, and I think it is funny and the illustrations are cute! The author covers many different topics that are interesting and should be helpful. I really am enjoying reading through it and skipping around the different sections learning new things. My friends and I are having a blast!

This book adds significantly to the understanding of Katherine Mansfield and her New Zealand stories. I enjoyed it very much.