. J3A U8 TR I A LLA
CHECK AGAIN iT DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
LAUNCHING OF PROFESSOR PATRICK O'FARRELL'S BOOK
" THE IRISH IN AUSTRALIA" UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
SYDNEY 15 OCTOBER 1986
Mr Horton, Ambassador Small, Irish Australians, ladies and
gent lemen
Professor O'Farrell in his introductory remarks to The Irish
in Australia says: " There is a nice irony in the situation
of the Irish Government joining the congratulatory
celebration of the Bicentennial of the foundation of a
British colony to which many Irish were sent as prisoners
for activities in pursuit-of Irish independence"
He goes on to say that ' it is delightfully appropriate that
it should dc so by assisting the publication of a book that
draws attention to the contribution of those compulsory
Irish Australians, and those who came free, to the building
of the nation that resulted from that foundation".
The willingness of the Irish Government to subsidise this
book is indeed, as President Hillery said in Canberra last
year, recognition of the involvement of Irish men and women
in the develcpment of Australia for nearly two hundred
years. I urcerstand that the Irish Government's
contribution to this project not only allowed Professor
O'Farrell to bring to fruition his life-time's study of the
Irish in Australia, but has also enabled the book to be sold
at a very attractive price.
This book, whose beautiful presentation is a great credit to
the New South Wales University Press and to the Australian
printers, Globe Press, is destined to have an even wider
impact Flowing from it is a documentary mini-series on the Irish in
Australia, being filmed here and in Ireland with the
co-operation of the Irish Government network, which will be
shown on ABC-TV and in Ireland, and I am sure will have as
great an impact on Australians as such series as " Rush".
2
This book is onlyone of the Irish contributions to our
Bicentennial. The Irish Government has established an
energetic Irish Australian Bicentennial Committee to
co-ordinate an exciting program. Aware of the growing
interest by Australians in their heritage, the Irish
Government is microfilming all the convict records some
40,000 in its archives, and will make these available to
Australia as a Bicentennial gift.
PlIans a re a I so u ridu rwa y f or othe r Bi cen Lenn ial1 event s sidch
as visits by theatre and folk groups, exhibitions and
displays of Gaelic football the game which is owed much by
our national football code.
The first Bicentennial Conference focusing on the historical
links binding Australia and Ireland was held in Kilkenny in
1983, a major conference was held at the ANU in August last
year, and another is planned to be held in Ireland next
ye ar
All of this is a reflection of the interest of the five
million Australians with some Irish in them and the
remaining eleven million who want to understand why as
well as of the indefatigable efforts of the Irish Ambassador
to Australia, Joe Small, whose dynamism and encyclopedic
knowledge of all things Irish-Australian has given a great
impetus to the relationqj between our countries and
especially to. Irish participation in our Bicentennial
c ele brat ions
I might mention here that in 1988 we in Australia will have
a chance to reciprocate in a small way some of the warmth
and interest that has been shown in Ireland towards our
200th birthday as a modern nation. Our Bicentennial year is
also being celebrated as the millennium of Dublin and I hope
it will be possible to co-operate with the organisers of
that event to ensure that Australia's acknowledgement to
Ireland is commemorated during the proceedings.
The Irish in Australia documents one of the dominant groups
making Australia the country it is today. Professor
O'Farrell points out that in our first hundred and fifty
years the Irish questioned and challenged attitudes to the
prevailing culture and religion. They sought and achieved a
nation broad and tolerant enough to include them as they
were, tolerant enough to accept those aspects of life they
considered most important.
In achieving this, they too changed. Workers of
Irish-Catholic descent were unlike their counterparts in
Ireland, who were poorly unionised and until recently
without significant political expression. The forces they
largely generated made them strongly unionised and attached
to a significant political party and one cannot fault
their political judgment in the party which they
predominantly chose to support.
3
Professor O'Farrell's book chronicles the emergence of the
Irish from b virtually sub-human status, based on the sort
of prejudices satirised by Swift in his ' Modest Proposal',
to which they were-consigned by the establishment during
Australia's convict days. Judge-Advocate Colonel David
Collins, for example, in 1791 referred to the Irish as " a
race of beings ( for they do not deserve the appellation of
men)" and as being " nearly as wild themselves as the
c a t t I e".
Some beiiijs"! o
Long before the 200-year span of the book is up, the Irish
have asserted themselves, established their equality, placed
themselves firmly in the mainstream of Australian life. And
the measure of their success in becoming central to the life
of Australia, paradoxically, is their relative lack of
involvement in the passions of Irish politics, as Professor
O'Farrell notes in the latter part of his book.
In 1988 we w: ill be celebrating two centuries of work and
achievement. It is a time to reflect on the distinctiveness of our
society; to recognise the contributions of all the groups,
all the individuals, who have lived and worked together to
make this country what it is today. The role of people with
Irish roots in coming to-grips with many of the major issues
which have confronted us over these years will be rightly
recognised as central. I need only mention the long debate
over State a-' d to education, the conscription controversies
of the First World War, the interaction between labour and
capitalism and, developing from this, the foundation and
achievements of the Australian Labor Party. Need I say more
than to note that the two Prime Ministers for whom I have
the greatest regard Curtin and Chifley were both of
Irish descent.
For it was through the struggles of our early years that our
national character was born, and that the promise of this
land was first realised. People from all parts of the world
have been drawn to this country with the promise of a life
of freedom, of opportunity, of a chance to make a
contribution in this just and fair society which the early
Irish Australians, and many others, sought to achieve.
The Irish in Australia is one of the first Bicentennial
histories and one that any Prime Minister would have been
proud to launch. But coming from a Ministry of Bowens,
Keatings, Youngs, Ryans, Kerins and Duffys what choice did I
have? Australians of Irish origin will obviously have a particular
interest in Professor O'Farrell's work but it will also be
welcomed by all Australians seeking to know why we are what
we are.
4.
And, I might add, by all Australians who appreciate superb
prose. I have rarely read anything more moving than the
final paragraph of The Irish in Australia, which surely will
be anthologised in any representative selection of
Australian writing in the last part of this century. I will
content myself with the following excerpt:
" Ireland in Australia was both fact and dream. Its
dimensions of fact coincide with the boundaries of the
contincent, but its dreams were unbounded, spanninqthe
world and more than the world. No man can fix the
' boundaries of the nation of the mind and heart. Least
of all. the soul. Nor call their territories complete".
In writiig about the Irish, Patrick O'Farrell has expressed
a truth vwh~ ch can be applied to all the nationalities who
make up this great country.
It gives ne enormous pleasure to launch this book, which in
both its outstanding intellectual content and technical
craftsmanship is genuinely Made in Australia.
I congratulate Professor O'Farrell, the New South Wales
University Press and the Irish Government on the production
of this elegant and devoted work of scholarship, which will
serve as the definitive account of a vital part of the
development of our nation and a most valuable contribution
to Australia's Bicenten~ ary.