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ACCOUNTANTS & TAX AGENTS 9 DJ Gordon & Associates................... 9321 2266 BEAUTICIAN 92 Sharon Nolan Brows & Beauty....... 0498 980 987 BUTCHERS 96 McLoughlin’s Meats........................... 9249 8039 47 Meat Connoisseur............................... 9309 9992 ELECTRICAL 11 Powerbiz Electrical............................. 045 12 555 13 EVENTS, ENTERTAINMENT & 65 Frank Murphy Celtic Rambles......... 107.9fm RADIO 30 Fiddlestick ................................David 0413 259 547 21 Torc Ceili Club 63 St Brigid’s Festival Imbolc Feast 93 St Patrick’s Day Parade & Festival FUNERALS 76 McKee Funerals.................................. 9401 1900 IMMIGRATION & TOURISM 7 EasiVisa ............... Carol-Ann Lynch 9429 8860 IRISH COMMUNITY GROUPS 57 Aust Irish Heritage Assoc................ 9345 3530 67 Bodhran Group Lessons................... 0457 362 338 39 IACC ..................................................... 1300 513 633 77 Irish Families in Perth 68 The Claddagh Assoc.......................... 9249 9213 IRISH FOOD & CAFES 17 Clonakilty MECHANICS 1 Killarney Autos .......................... Neil 0439 996 764 MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT 87 Stephen Dawson................................. 9172 2648 PROPERTY MAINTENANCE 13 Housemaster Building Inspections. 0405 632 391 89 Integrity Property Solutions............. 0423 618 506 PUBS, CLUBS & RESTAURANTS 15 Durty Nelly’s, Perth............................ 9226 0233 15 Galway Hooker, Scarborough 49 Irish Club of WA, Subiaco................ 9381 5213 34 Jarrah Bar, Hillarys............................. 9246 4112 27 JB O’Reillys, West Leederville........ 9382 4555 2 Paddy Malone’s, Joondalup............. 9300 9966 31 Ric O’Shea’s @ The Beaconsfield 6226 9240 53 The National Hotel, Fremantle........ 9335 6688 48 Woodbridge Hotel, Guildford.......... 9377 1199 SOLICITORS & LEGAL 61 Kavanagh Lawyers............................. 9218 8422 14 Vibe Legal............................................ 6111 4890 SPORT & SPORTING CLUBS 92 GAA ..................................................... 0458 954 052 90 Shamrock Rovers................................ 0410 081 386 TRANSPORT & FREIGHT 30 AI Express............................................ 9243 0808 TRAVEL & TOURISM 67 British Travel........................................ 9433 3288 TYRES, BATTERIES, BRAKES ETC 13 Tyrepower Perth City ...............Fiona 9322 2214
Australia Irish Heritage Association..........................................91 Australia’s ‘Irish’ Prime Minister’s...10 Bill Daly.............................................. 86 Bloomsday 2022 @Irish Club.......….14 Book Reviews.....................................74 Catalpa Monday 2023...................….44 Claddagh Seniors…........................... 50 Damn Yankee Whalers…...................46 Darkness into Light…....................... .89 Dublin Calling: Albo’s Irish punk past…...................................4 Famine Commeroation Subiaco........79 GAAWA Junior Academy…...............94 Gaelic Football & Hurling..................92 G’day from Gary Gray....................….62 G’day from Melbourne.................... ..54 Honorary Irish Consulate...............….15 “I’m half Irish, half Italian, Mate!”...6 Irish Theatre Players........................ ..81 Many are called, few are chosen...….13 Martin O’Meara VC…........................32 Memory man Joe Graham…..............72 Michael Collins assassination…........66 Out & About…....................................76 Paddy Malones Xmas fun…...............64 Paula from Tasmania..........................77 Perth Rose of Tralee Ball…................59 Politics…............................................ .36 Rifles fired up Dublin punk scene......8 Shamrock Rovers…......................... ..60 Shane by Noel O’Neill…...................80 Traditional Irish Dance.................... .82 Ulster Rambles................................. .84 Tralee Roses glow and grow…...........24 Winners are Grinners Dave Callan interview…......................18
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ALBO’S IRISH PUNK PAST D U B L I N CALLING BY LLOYD GORMAN
Dublin 1988. Photo: E.A. Kennedy/BrandNewRetro.ie
I
n 1988 as Dublin celebrated a thousand years since its foundation as a Viking settlement the city’s underground music scene was a swarm of rowdy and raw punk rock energy - and a young Anthony Albanese was there in the thick of it. In fact it is exactly thirty four years ago this month since ‘Albo’ – then 25 – was at large and on the loose in Dublin. At the time the Irish capital was a very different place to the metropolis and tourist mecca it is today.
Alan Parkers’ hit film The Commitments was released in 1991 – but based on the 1987 Roddy Doyle novel of the same name – and captured that sense of the city on the brink of the economic revival that became known as the Celtic Tiger. High unemployment saw long queues at dole offices, urban decay meant many buildings in and around the city centre were falling down or boarded up and a heroin epidemic swept through the community. The young Aussie may have only been passing through but he was there long enough to sample 4 | THE IRISH SCENE
A hip Anthony Albanese.
Anthony Albanese
some of the subversive punk counter culture that kicked back against to this grim environment. He might have been a man about town every night of the week but what we do know for sure – thanks to Albo himself – is that he attended at least one punk gig there and it just so happens that it was some of his fellow countrymen. “Heading to the Factory Theatre [Sydney] tonight for #CelibateRifles - found this photo from Dublin 1988 #flashbackfriday,” he tweeted in December 2014. The Celibate Rifles* were a punk rock band from Sydney formed in 1979 while they were still at high school. The group’s name was their take on their English counterparts, the most famous Punk group ever, the Sex Pistols. They played Dublin in August 1988 and you’d have to image the like-minded Aussie boys who were all about the same age and from a similar background would have met each other or even enjoyed a drink before or after the Dublin gig. Like the Irish, Australians are usually keen to have a yarn with their own kind whenever their paths cross, and the more exotic the location the more that is true. The photo has one tell-tale that places him fair and square in Dublin. The logo and some of the writing on the side of the bus are blocked by the young smiling man. But many readers might recognise it as the logo for Dublin Bus,
a part of CIE. In fact this logo was introduced just the year before. In case you’re interested the design is based on the 13th century Dublin seal depicting a castle of three watch towers surrounding one of the gates in the city’s medieval wall. The ‘Dublin Bus’ photo has even played a small part in his journey to become Prime Minister. Five years after he rediscovered the photo he dusted it off and used it as part of his bid to become the leader of the Australian Labor Party after the party – then headed by Bill Shorten – failed to defeat the Morrison government at the 2019 federal election. That post attracted a comment from none other than The Celibate Rifles themselves on May 27, 2019. “Well he seems to have reasonable taste in music,” they said about the image of him as a t-shirted youth. A few months later he posted it again when the bands enigmatic front man Damien Lovelock died at the age of 65. Thanks to one posting of the image we even have an idea of when and for how long Albo was in Dublin. Lindy Morrison, who was the drummer with the Australian indie-rock group the Go-Betweens (1980 to 1989) was slightly miffed by the inoffensive picture. “Humph. So you didn’t have a Go Betweens tee then?,” she messaged. He responded: “I did actually Lindy, but you weren’t playing in Dublin in July/August 88”. So we know something about when he was there and even a little about what he did but why he was there is not yet clear. It could be that like generations of Australians before and after him he was a backpacker on an overseas adventure that included a stop in Ireland. But is it possible the visit was motivated by something else? Might he have been there to meet or find relatives? THE IRISH SCENE | 5
“I’m half Irish, half Italian, mate!” O
n the campaign trail Mr Albanese was keen to stress that he wasn’t the typical candidate for the top job. “We’re a diverse country, and the fact that I have a non-AngloCeltic name... I think it sends a message out there hopefully to multicultural Australia that you can achieve anything in this country,” he told reporters in the run up to the May 21 poll. Before and during the election campaign there was plenty of discussion in the media about the correct way to pronounce his Italian surname. The outgoing government party even built one of their main slogans around it: “It won’t be easy under Albanese”. When asked about how he would like people to pronounce his Italian name Albanese is very relaxed about it and tells people just to call him ‘Albo’. His profound love and respect for this mother Maryanne Therese (née Ellery) who was called Mary amongst family members and the discovery of the Italian side of his life story was fully documented in his 2016 biography ‘Albanese – Telling it Straight’, written by political journo Karen Middleton, and extensively reported by the media. He also claims Irish heritage but exactly what that is is much less obvious. The issue came up during a Triple M radio interview in Perth in March this year when he was asked about it directly. “We’ve got the Leader of the opposition in the studio with us,” the show host said. “Anthony Albanese, we learned earlier half Italian, half Irish*. Mr Albanese, are you more one than the other?”. In his response Albo spoke openly about his Italian links. “I was raised very much here in the sort of Aussie culture, I guess,” Albo said. “My mum was, there was just me and my mum at home, and she was very much an Aussie Catholic, I guess….My family are from Puglia,
6 | THE IRISH SCENE
down in the south. And thank goodness for social media. They’ve done it tough through the pandemic over there but I’ve been able to keep in contact with them. And it’s a great thing, being able Schoolboy to talk to the Anthony. other side of the world. Mind you, they ring sometimes at really inconvenient times. They don’t get the time difference.” That was the full extent of his answer to the question! * This appears to be a reference to another Triple M interview Albanese gave in Brisbane in February 2021. One of the presenters asked him about ScoMo, Hillsong, the Christian vote and if “you [will] be joining him?”. The then opposition leader answered: “Mate, I’m half Irish, half Italian, so guess what religion I am? See if you can work that out. I’ll give you I’ll give you the clue. Rome. It begins with Rome.” While he acknowledged his Irish heritage he did not elaborate on it. Albo describes himself as a ‘cultural Catholic’ and while his faith in the religion may have lapsed the faith of his mum was profound. She died 20 years ago but has been the singular and most important influence on him as an individual. From his maiden speech in parliament to the gruelling campaign trail and in his victory speech on election night it is clear that his values and outlook were defined by her.
Anthony Albanese When she was 25 years old – the same age as Albo when he was in Dublin – she took a cruise from Sydney to Southampton and had a h mum Anthony wit romantic relationship with erese. Th Maryanne a handsome Italian steward working on the ship. She fell pregnant and at the end of the voyage the lovers went their separate ways. She raised him as a single parent on a council estate. He grew up believing his father had married his mum but was tragically killed in a car crash but his mum revealed the truth when he turned 14. “She made the courageous decision in 1963 to keep a child she had out of wedlock,” Mr Albanese said in May as he campaigned for the top job. “She chose, in order to – to deal with the pressures extensive online research produced remarkably that were on a young Catholic woman at little information. Irish Scene sent questions that time, in those circumstances, to take my to the prime minister’s press office in the full father’s name, and I was raised being told realisation and understanding that there are that he had died. That’s a tough decision. It incredible demands on his time and attention says something about the pressure that was at the formation of a new government. placed on women. And pressures that are still He has pledged to visit Western Australia ten placed on women, when faced with difficult times a year in recognition of the state’s critical circumstances. So, the fact that – that young role in helping elect him as the leader of a kid is now running for prime minister, says a lot majority government. Perhaps on one of those about her. And her courage. But also says a lot trips there might be an opportunity for Irish about this country. About this country.” Scene to discover more about the Irish side of If his dad was Italian then it figures the his identity. It might not be a straightforward Irish heritage was on his mother’s side. She answer and only he knows the is sometimes described as being an Irish answers. At the very least Australian or Australian of Irish descent but it might be fun to what that means exactly has been difficult to find out some of define but there are some clues that he has his memories a soft spot for it. “Think every Irish person in about his Australia is at #Kilkenny v #Galway #hurling time in at Sydney Showground,” he tweeted on Dublin. November 11, 2018 for the full format hurling match played that day, as part of the Magners Sydney Irish Festival in Sydney Olympic Park. “Was a fun afternoon #hurling,” the sports – and music – mad MP added. Despite my best attempts to get a copy of his 2016 biography through a public library or bookshop the best I was able to manage was to read the first few chapters online for free that deal with Albanese’s family background and his mother (in great detail) can be previewed online but these make no mention of a specific connection to Ireland. Attempts at THE IRISH SCENE | 7
Rifles fired up Dublin punk scene S
*
shores”.
ydney might have been homebase to the Celibate Rifles had a special affinity for playing in Ireland. There is strong evidence to suggest they performed there on a number of occasions and had a loyal following. In 1987 Hot Press music writer Paul O’Mahnony wrote that they were “occasional visitors to these
They played Dublin in 1986 with local band The Slowest Clock as the support act. The same four piece group – Frank Pryce (vocals), Gerry Fahy (guitar), Brian Neavyn (bass) and Pete Kinsella (drums) – also supported the Rifles at the Underground in August 1988, which would appear to be when Albo saw them play live. It was quite a night apparently. An account of the gig on irishrock.org remarked that “the drummer played one-armed”. The Slowest Clock broke up in 1990 but in their time they also supported big acts of the day such as A House and Something Happens, amongst others. The Rifles were also in Dublin in 1987 according to the date on a photograph taken by George Curran and published with a story ‘All our lives spent Underground: Dublin’s finest music venue remembered’ written by Paul Page, published on Betweenthebars.net. “Situated on [Dame Street] one of the busiest 8 | THE IRISH SCENE
intersections in the city centre, a passer-by would easily miss it if it wasn’t for the iconic London Underground rail symbol that marked the narrow doorway leading down to its subterranean location,” Page wrote. “A tricky, tight staircase (perilous if inebriated) brought you down to a long, narrow bar – immediately to the right and just behind you at the foot of the stairs stood the tiny stage. When the band were playing, a trip to the toilets was fraught with the risk of decapitation. That trip usually involved a well-timed duck under the neck of a guitar to make it through. The bar itself wasn’t anything special – it wasn’t plastered with posters or rock memorabilia. It wasn’t a hang out for Dublin celebrities. It was a place for genuine music fans, there was no bullshit VIP area (incredibly, such a thing existed in Dublin nightclubs, even in the grim 80s) or welcome mat laid out for Dublin scene-sters.” George Curran had some great memories of the place and a rare photograph of the Rifles on stage. “You could get close up to the band due to the“intimate”nature of the venue. Only problem was trying to take a photo and jostling for space with people coming and going to the loos. Happy Days!.” Decades later the Underground – in the basement of what is Peadar Kearney’s pub in Dame Street in the city centre – appears to have rediscovered its roots as a lively punk venue. There is a great photograph of the Rifles that places them in Ireland. All
Anthony Albanese
the band members are wearing ‘Italia 90’ Ireland tee-shirts in a venue they were playing at that time. As anyone who lived through it will happily remember the whole country went soccer crazy as Ireland did well in the FIFA World Cup that year. The Sydney boys were keen to join in the craic it seems. They also made a strong impression on Ireland’s top music commentator and presenter, Dave Fanning. “For a long time I didn’t know who the track [Pretty Colours (1984)] was by but thanks to the wonder of the internet I finally figured it out,” Fanning said in an article. “It’s a fantastic track and one I never grow tired of.” High praise indeed! Punk rock began in the UK but was embraced in Ireland where it would hugely influence dozens of young and emerging local artists and groups, including the Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers, Shane McGowan and U2 would all carve their own sound from its foundations and bring it into the mainstream. That influence has spread to the United States where Celtic groups like the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly and Black 47 are two of the leading proponents of this frantic style of music. Albo is not the only leader of a nation to have mixed it up on the punk scene. Back in 1979 at the height of his fame as the UK’s punk poet John Cooper Clarke was in Dublin for an event at the Project Arts Centre. “I was ably supported by your president, Michael D Higgins [himself a poet],” he told the Irish Examiner newspaper some years ago. “I’ve since met Michael D at a film festival in Galway… he went to a great deal of trouble to point this out to me!.” THE IRISH SCENE | 9
A recorded history of Australia’s ‘Irish’ PMs BY LLOYD GORMAN
A
nthony Albanese is Australia’s 31st Prime Minister since the Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 and he is the latest in a long line of Australian PM’s who can lay claim to Irish heritage. That said they have been thin on the ground in recent years. You have to go back to Kevin Rudd (PM 20072010 and again briefly in 2013) to find the most recent PM with that distinction – and he was a recent convert, so to speak. In 2008 the Mormon church researched his family history and presented it to him while he was in office. Their genealogical gift showed that his greatgrandparents on his mother’s side – Owen Cashin and Hannah Maher – were both Irish born and married in 1887 in Brisbane. Skip Rudd’s predecessor John Howard (19962007) and you find a similar story with Paul Keating (1991-1996). Keating was born in Sydney, one of four kids, to Minnie (née Chapman) and Matthew John Keating. He was descended
from Irish immigrants born in counties Galway, Roscommon, and Tipperary on his father’s side while on his mother’s side, he was of mixed English and Irish descent. His maternal grandfather, Fred Chapman, was the son of two convicts, John Chapman and Sarah Gallagher who were transported for theft in the 1830s. Before Keating there was Bob Hawke (19831991) who did not have any Irish blood at all but that didn’t dampen his enthusiasm and there was plenty to go around. “Some Australians have not a drop of Irish blood flowing in their veins,” were his opening words at a gala dinner to welcome Taoiseach Charles Haughey to Australia in July 1998. “Some Australians have rectified that shortcoming by marrying into an Irish family and I include myself in this category. “And some of us have the great good fortune of being able to claim Irish blood by birth or ancestry. Indeed almost one in every three Australians can make the proud boast of having been born in Ireland or into an Irish family.” Indeed they made up a significant proportion of the Australian population, more than anywhere else. “So Australia is the principal province of that Irish empire having been endowed as no other country has been with the hard work and determination of generations of Irish men and women”. If this is true, as I firmly believe it to be, then surely the epicentre of that Irish empire in Australia must be the Australian trade union movement and the Australian Labor Party which I have the honour to lead.” Go back two more leaders and you have William McMahon who held the top job from 1971-1972.
10 | THE IRISH SCENE
Australia’s ‘Irish’ PMs McMahon was born in Sydney to William Daniel McMahon – a Catholic with a weakness for heavy driker and gambling – and Mary (née Walder) an Anglican of English and Irish descent. McMahon’s grandfather on his dad’s side was one James “Butty” McMahon who was born in Co. Clare, who came to Australia as a child and and married Mary Coyle fron Co. Fermanagh . Before McMahon John Gorton led an Australian government (1968-1971). Gorton did not have a birth certificate but is said to have been born in Wellington, New Zealand, to John Rose Gorton and an Alice Sinn (whose mum was Irish). Gorton’s father may have had a soft spot for Irish girls. His first wife (in he UK) was one Kathleen O’Brien. His predecessor was John McEwen (1967-1968) whose father was David MacEwan (he changed this name later) from Mountnorris, Co. Armagh who was a successful pharmacist in Belfast before he migrated to Melbourne in 1889 where he continued his trade as a chemist in the gold boom town of Chiltern. Before him Harold Holt (1966-1967) had some Irish ancestry from his mother, who was born in Eudunda, South Australia and also had Cornish, English and German heritage. For most of the 1940’s Australia was led by PMs of strong Irish stock. Ben Chifley (1945-49) had a grandfather Patrick and grandmother Mary from Tipperary. He
was very conscious of his Irishness. “I am a descendant of a race that fought a long and bitter fight against perjurers, pimps and liars and I should be very ashamed to stand for any principle that did not give the ordinary men and women of the community the right to know what they are charged with,” Chifley said a speech against the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. Australian born Franke Forde was PM for just eight days in 1945, stepping into the breach on the death of John (Jack) Curtin. His father John Forde was from Ballinaglera, Co. Leitrim while his mother Ellen (née Quirk) hailed from Co. Tipperary. Because of his deep connection with Western Australian John Curtin is probably the prime minister of Irish parentage that most people might know. Curtin’s courageous leadership of the country during the war years of 1941-45 earned him
THE IRISH SCENE | 11
Australia’s ‘Irish’ PMs the eternal respect and gratitute of generations of Australians and the status as one of the nation’s greatest leaders. Sadly he died not long after the war in Europe finished and six weeks beofre the Japanese were defeated in the Pacific, in Australia’s backyard. Curtin was born in Victoria and christened John Jospeh Ambrose by his parents John and Catherine Agnes Bourke (known as “Kate”) – both from Cork – but he dropped these names and wanted to be known as John or Jack. Arthur Fadden was Australia’s 13th PM in 1941 for ‘40 days and 40 nights’. He was the eldest of ten children of parents Annie (née Moorhead) from Co. Tyrone and Richard John Fadden from Co. Galway. Going back to 1932 and 1939 Joseph Lyons was PM. He was one of eight children to parents Ellen (née Carroll) and Michael Henry Lyons. She was born in Co. Kildare and was taken to Australia when she was a young child. Michael was born in Tasmania to immigrants from Co. Galway who arrived in 1843. James Scullin (1929-32) had the distinction of being the first Australian born, and Catholic, Labor
prime minister. He had the responsibility of leadership during the years of the Great Depression. He was the fifth of nine children to John Scullin and Ann Logan, both immigrants from Derry. His family’s recollections of hard times in their native Ireland, combined with his own witnessing of poverty in rural Victoria are said to have shaped his views on the active role of government in improving the lives of citizens. In the six years leading up to Scullin’s adminisration the regins of power were held by Stanley Bruce. His father John Munro Bruce was born to Scottish parents in Co. Leitrim while his mum Mary Ann Henderson was born in Ireland. They were cousins who married in Australia in 1872. Under the brief term of Chris Watson Australia became the first country in the world to have a labour prime minister. The country’s third PM he only held office for four months in 1904. He had an interesting background and was born the son of a German Chilean seaman and an Irish born mother Martha (née Minchin or Skinner) who later remarried. So out of the 31 PM’s Australia has had to date, 13 of them were the offspring or descendants of marriages with at least one Irish parent or grandparents.
12 | THE IRISH SCENE
Stephen Dawson
Many are called, few are chosen!
I
t isn’t beyond no ambitions to grab the top job these things the bounds of can be thrust upon them by their colleagues possiblity that who need a capable candidate. a future Western The second premier of our state was one Australia premier George Lionel Throssell who was born at could be a son of Fermoy, Co. Cork in May 1840. At the age of ten Ireland. Indeed, his family left Ireland for Western Australia. He it has happened went on to become a successful merchant and before. Premier to get involved in the local politics of Northam Mark McGowan and then in the new Legislative Assembly. and several of his When his party leader and the premier of the ministers have some day walked away from state parliament to Irish ancestry but one of the cabinet’s most join the new Federated parliament he was senior members is a full blooded Irishman, succeeded by Throssell on February 15, 1901. Stephen Dawson. He was born in Dublin and It was to be a short premiership. He was a first came to Australia in 1986 on a family very capable administrator but his extreme holiday. Then in 1989 the Dawson family difficulty in hearing and inability migrated to Australia to escape the struggling to handle political factions and Irish economy. He joined the Labor party on in-fighting meant he led the his first day at Edith Cowan University and government into an election since then has worked his way up through the which they losed. On May party as a Chief of Staff to various government 27 he resigned as leader ministers in WA (and Victoria) before first and moved to the backgetting elected in 2013 as a Member of the bench where he retired Legislative Council (MLC) for the WA electorate three years later. If another of Mining & Pastoral Region where he is Irishman ever gets into the the party’s biggest vote getter. He has held position again hopefully multiple shadow and cabinet positions since they might last longer than a 2013 and is currently Minister for Emergency hundred days. Services, Innovation and ICT, Medical Research and Volunteering. And in July last year Mr Dawson was made acting premier for something like four or five days while See all our Monthly Specials at tyrepowerperthcity.com.au McGowan – affectionately called ‘State Daddy’ by many – During these • WHEEL REFURB & PUNCTURES Call Fiona or Adrian Covid-19 took a break. • WHEEL ALIGNMENTS
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Irish Consulate
Passport Applications After Covid there has been a huge increase in the number of Irish passport applications. Figures released by the Department of Foreign Affairs show that as of May 2022 a total of 560,000 passports were issued, which is 90,000 more than pre-Covid figures. The overall trend is a 50 to 60% increase this year alone. Many additional staff have been hired but there are still significant delays. We recommend that you renew your passport at least 6 months before your passport expires. In fact, you can start the application process 12 months before your passport expires. Passport Applications online All applications for Irish passports are online athttps://www.dfa.ie/passportonline/- . This includes first time passports and newborn baby applications. The paper application forms are no longer used – everything is online. Travelling in and out of Australia and Ireland if you have an Australian passport (as well as an Irish passport) you should travel in and out of Australia on your Australian passport. Please remember that you need a valid visa or an Australian passport to enter Australia. If you become an Australian citizen, you no longer have a visa- therefore you must have an Australian passport. Further, your airline at
Dublin airport (or at your stopover) may refuse to board you without a valid Australian passport or visa. Dual Irish/Australians have been refused boarding because of these issues so please ensure you have a valid passport or visa. Children’s passport/Foreign Birth Registry if you have children who were not born in Ireland and you want them to have an Irish passport, there a few things you should know. 1. If one of the child’s parents was born in Ireland, the child is automatically entitled to an Irish passport to be applied for online in the usual manner. 2. If neither of the child’s parents was born in Ireland and one of their grandparents was born in Ireland, the child must be registered on the foreign birth registry. This is currently a two-year process which should be commenced as soon as possible. 3. So that your children can pass on the right to an Irish passport to their children, your child must be registered on the foreign birth registry before they have children of their own – otherwise it will be too late. For further information on foreign birth registration, please see: https://www.dfa.ie/citizenship/ born-abroad/registering-a-foreign-birth/ How the Honorary Consulate Perth Can Help you. We are here to help Irish citizens so please contact us if we can help on:
08 6557 5802 info@consulateofirelandwa.com.au http://consulateofirelandwa.com.au/ THE IRISH SCENE | 15
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Winners are grinners BY LLOYD GORMAN
D
undalk born comedian Dave Callan is onto a winner with his latest gig.
He fronts the Lotterywest’s latest advertising campaign ‘That’s the Ticket’ to thank their customers for playing the lottery, and by extension supporting many good causes and groups in WA. Last year alone, for example, $865million was funnelled into local communities across the state in the form of grants and prizes, which benefit thousands of West Australians. Research carried out for Lotterywest found that many people do not know that most of the money raised by the state owned body goes to local charities, clubs, groups and projects.
“I had no idea myself,” Dave admitted to Irish Scene. “I discovered that the work Lotterywest do is pretty great for the community and the give a lot of money to worthwhile causes, such as Foodbank, Mens Shed and help for the homeless in Fremantle. It makes a huge different to the people who may not have a voice or be able to fend for themselves or as privileged as as many of us our, so its a great cause.” The new ad – which was first shown on Perth television channels on June 6 – has Dave as himself, dressed in Lotterywest activewear, dashing around several local locations and
18 | THE IRISH SCENE
organisations linked to lottery funding, including Midvale Skate Park and St. Patrick’s Community Support Centre in Fremantle. He is happy with the end product but hasn’t always had a good experience shooting them. “You don’t know they go, they can be a bit cringe worthy, but they did a good job, sometimes scripts do not have you in mind, or are for a version of you they believe exists but which may not be accurate. But in this case they wrote it with me in mind and they gave me a bit of flexibility to be me. I really enjoyed the whole thing, it came up well. From the very start I said I was willing to work with them to make it as funny as possible and put my own stamp on it, which is what they wanted, so that made me optimistic from the start about how it would turn out.” Shooting on a previous ad for a home loan provider did not go as well. “The idea of the ad was there was a really black and white couple paying their mortgage and they don’t like it and then it went into full colour and its me and some girl and we are in the nude, because we are free of our mortgage and happy in a lovely garden with the sprinklers on and they put black bars over our bits,” he said. “We had to stand in the front garden of this house in a residential street in Claremont, if I remember correctly, and then we heard close by, a little too close for comfort, a bell ring and then there were all these kids walking past us looking at us naked in this garden, that was a little bit awkward. I won’t forget that.”
Dave Callan
It took Dave, then at the tender age of 15, about a year to settle into their new life when his family migrated from Dundalk to WA in 1990. One of the things that helped him find his feet in the early years was comedy. As a first year student at Edith Cowan University he took part in a talent competition called Uni-mates. He did a five minute stand up routine. “I always wanted to try it and I said oh stuff it, I don’t know anyone, not thinking ahead that if I bombed I’d be a social leper until people forgot about it. So I jumped up and did it, I can’t remember much about it,it was a bit of a blur.” After the show the MC – professional comic David Lenny – urged him to come along that night to the Laugh Resort, a pool hall called Pockets in the area that is now Yagan Square, for their comedy night. “I said I didn’t think so because it was all Ben Elton and Billy Connolly material. I just repeated stuff I had heard watching them on VHS tapes over and over again because I loved it,” he added. “I love it, I was drawn to it but I never thought I’d do it. This was going to be a comedy venue with other comedians and a comic savvy audience so I knew that wouldn’t fly so I said I’ll come down and watch for a couple of weeks and write my own material. So I went down the first night, which happened to be the debut of Rove McManus and the next week I went was also the first night for Dave Hughes, hard acts to follow, but on the third week it was my turn.”
Self conscious about a roomful of people looking directly at him while he took to the stage for the first time Dave came up with a novel solution to the problem. “I figured the best way to go would be to blindfold myself and do the whole set blindfolded,” he explained. “I still had the eye mask from the plane that they give you to sleep, so I wore that and could hardly find the mike stand but got free laughs fumbling my way up there and did the whole routine with my blindfold on. I had loaded the audience with about 17 of my friends from school and uni and it was great, it was absolutely amazing. I think stacking the audience helped, and nervous energy helped and they said come back the following night and do it and I said great. I was expecting it to be as good as the night before but THE IRISH SCENE | 19
“I was thinking whose this fella, he’s just brilliant, he’s speaking our language and having the Aussies in stitches with a real Irish sense of humour. I once got my photo taken with him at the Regal which is funny now because I know him and I’ve never shown him the picture.”
the second night I absolutely bombed, its a common story, second gig blues.” he turned up for the second night in his Woolworths uniform (he worked at the supermarket in the Galleria Shopping Centre) and it was a quieter night in terms of the size of the audience, and it wasn’t packed with his mates for moral support. He heard people talking in the audience and thought they were talking about how bad he was which made his confidence plummet. “So I cut my losses and got off before my set finished, but because the first night was so good it made me want to get back up there for a third time but if it had gone the same way I don’t think I would have got up again. I got the bug.” The stand up comedy scene in Australia is a tight knit community and Dave is now accepted as one of the country’s foremost funnymen. Certainly his friendship with Rove has continued to be a close one on a personal and professional basis. For many years the Perth born comic had a big presence on Australian TV and Dave often played roles in sketches and scenes for his shows. In one episode of Rove Live Dave was a guest alongside Jimeoin and Sinead O’Connor, for a section called ‘Words that sound better when said by….’ in what must have been one of the top Irish line ups on Aussie TV ever. As it happens Jimeoin – originally from Derry, Northern Ireland – is also on our screens at the moment, spruiking a brand of cartridge free printers. “His playful yet understated approach was a good match for a product with such a powerful and unique sales proposition that it, in many ways, sells itself,” the product owner said about why he was chosen to be the face of this campaign. “Jimeoin was a massive hero of mine growing up,” added Dave. 20 | THE IRISH SCENE
When asked who he rates on the local comedy scene at the moment he mentions relative newcomer and fellow Irishman Ronnie Neville. Ronnie now calls Fremantle home but is a well known face and has a big following in America where he featured on a shopping channel as a ‘pitch man’ for the “Irish prep bowl”, which he uses his Irish charms and wits to promote. Watch out for him in local comedy venues around the city and expect to see more of him. John Pinder from the UK and Andrew Wolfe are his other picks. In terms of his own comedy Dave could well be moving in a new direction, thanks to Covid. Up until relatively recently he was based ‘over East’. “I bailed on Melbourne after the first big lockdown of three months, I let the lease go on my apartment and came back to Perth, where we migrated too in 1990. My brother just had a baby, my nephew and my parents wanted me to be close. Nobody knew what was going on with Covid back then so I thought the best thing was to be with family and so I came back here at the end of 2020.”
Danger Dave
Unsure if the comedy game would be able to recover fully from the fallout of the pandemic the comedian who is sometimes called Danger Dave looked in other directions. “It’s a bit of a pivot from show business but I enrolled in a Bachelors of Counter Terrorism, Intelligence and Surveillance at Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, which gets people sniggering until they realise I’m serious,” he said. “I spoke to someone who was doing the course and they were raving about it, its one of the first of its kind in the world, or was when it started anyhow. Its super interesting.” There was a bit of a learning curve involved from going from a “carefree comedian” to doing research and writing essays and assignments but after a while he found his level, even if he admits it was “quite taxing”. On top of studying full time he continued to work and gig full time as a
Dave Callan
comedian, no easy feat at the best of times. “But that’s a good problem to have, being too busy. Unlike other parts of the country comedy didn’t go away here so I was still able to work. Not all his gigs have been in cushy corporate events or pokey venues. Back in 2016 his skills on stage brought him to Afghanistan where he helped entertain Australian and allied troops stationed there. “I find the course is brilliant, the lectures are fantastic and its really great material that I want to use for scriptwriting,” he added. “Most shows based in the spy world are over the top and borrow off each other and very few people writing content of the kind actually have a grounded understanding off how it all works so I thought it would be a good grounding in the world of espionage and security. I’m not
going to pivot into that world but I want to do a comedy script series for TV or film that is an action comedy about spy agencies. “But we definitely have the cars and get to drive the Aston Martins in the third year,” he laughed.
Dave’s overseas work “The funny part for me is that I’m back at ECU Joondalup where I did an arts degree in 1993. Here I am again back where I started about three decades later, its disheartening, but kind of funny as well. It sounds like a real old codger thing to say but I remember when all this was sand. You’d get off the train at the end of the line and it was literally sand and a few highways and ECU would be the beacon in the distance
THE IRISH SCENE | 21
Dave Callan stint in the fickle world of advertising. Working on a brief for the character to be someone between American actors Jake Glyllenhaal and Jack Black some 160 actors across Australia tried out for the role of Finn and auditions and tests over months. In the end they landed on the 30 year old Irish man who had done some acting in the Irish Club, Subiaco.
and now Joondalup is a whole city. It feels weird being an Irish person in what is now essentially Little Britain with English accents everywhere. I feel like my house is right in the middle of Little Britain. My house is basically Liverpool, its the one Irish spot in Little Britain.” A trip back to Ireland seems likely in the near future. “I used to go back every two or three years and I was going to go back in 2020 and I don’t need to tell you what happened then, so its been almost six years since the last trip back. I’ve got an iron in the fire for August but otherwise I might just up stumps and wander on over to do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and wonder over and see the old sod then.”
Manifest Destiny ‘Manifesto’, iiNet’s first major advertising campaign – which had a budget of $7 million – to introduce the company to the general public was launched in April 2007. Overnight the face of “iiNet’s lovable Irishman ‘Finn’” exploded across TV, newspapers, radio ads, buses and giant billboards in Perth and Sydney. Finn – aka Dublin born actor David Lee Smyth – had arrived. His days of dressing up as Peter Pan as an entertainer for kids parties were well and truly over but his story took on another Pan like quality. Today he is as fresh faced as he was back then and is still iiNet’s poster boy, which surely must be a record breaking 22 | THE IRISH SCENE
“We saw a lot of good actors but when it came down to it David was believable, almost like we were hearing from an iiNet staff member - that’s how well he got our culture and the message that we were trying to deliver,” iiNet marketing manager Scott Waters told the Sydney Morning Herald in June 2007. Smyth himself said the brief was to be a young guy with the appeal of someone between American actors Jake Glyllenhaal and Jack Black. In terms of finding the right identity, Smyth was arguably a good fit for the tech firm started by Co. Clare born Michael Malone and his mate from university Michael O’Reilly. The two Michael’s were hungry and enthusiastic internet users at UWA where Malone did a science degree (majoring in pure mathematics). But as soon as they left uni – the only place with internet access at the time – they would lose access. So in 1993 before the World Wide Web was a thing the mates with nothing more
eville. Ronnie N
Dave Callan than a desire to keep accessing the internet such as it was then – started a company (iiNet) in the bedroom of Malone’s parents house in Padbury as a way of sustaining their internet addiction. To make the venture work they needed enough paying users to support their hobby. Operating from home presented Malone with a particular hurdle to overcome. “[My parents] needed a lot of convincing that when I was talking to Ireland on the net they weren’t going to get a big bill for overseas phone calls,” he laughed..
iiNet’s server room. From there the company would move into commercial offices in the Perth CBD and grew exponentially from this point. In September 2015 it was acquired by TPG Telecom for $1.56billion and CEO Michael Malone left the firm he had created. Despite the odds Finn survived the corporate takeover and even a change of advertising agency for the company’s marketing.
Within a few months they had half a dozen customers, mainly other graduates looking to get online as well and within another 12 months they had 200 customers. By July 1995 they had 1,500 and iiNet took on its first paid employee whose office was a bedroom in the Malone family home that he shard with Michael, Deanne Godfrey, a cat and a pool table. Michael O’Reilly worked in a storeroom that doubles as
THE IRISH SCENE | 23
Tralee Roses glow and
24 | THE IRISH SCENE
grow
Rose of Tralee
R
ebecca Mazza from North Perth but family roots in Kanturk, Co. Cork has had the great distinction and life changing pleasure of being an Australian Rose of Tralee – the Sydney Rose to be precise. An incredible experience for any young woman in a ‘normal’ year it has been an extra-ordinary one for Rebecca and the other 2019 Roses who have had their time and title both cut short and extended by the global Covid-19 pandemic. At a recent gala event in Sydney Rebecca was finally able to pass on the baton to the next Sydney Rose Mairéad Brennan (Maud) and while the whole thing has been a life changing whirlwind but her Tralee adventure isn’t quite over yet. “I think for me definitely one of the highlights was when I was originally selected,” the 27 year old speech therapist told Irish Scene. Readers were first introduced to Rebecca three years ago, in the 2019 July/August edition ‘Perth girl will be Rose fo Tralee for Sydney’. “Its strange because as soon as they called out my name I don’t remember anything, I don’t think I really believed in myself at all. I remember when mum and dad came over I said was doing the Rose of Tralee. I was doing it to make friends and have fun because I had just moved to a new city Sydney and gotten a job. I’m not going to win it or anything but come along it’ll be a good night and then when they called my name it was like...what the hell?...I think it made me realise something about going on stage and talking about myself. I think it is a very Australian thing... the tall poppy syndrome...you don’t want to draw attention to yourself or beat your own drum and you can fall into that trap….but it is also something that can reaffirm, that yes, I am capable of doing this and more and performed in Ireland, give a speech in front of 500 people, done live radio and all this stuff it gives you confidence in your day to day and this whole experience has given me. The nerves never go away completely but you know you are capable of it and you will get through it. That’s what I learned and cherished the most from this experience, it challenged me.” She wasn’t the only one she had to convince. “All my Australian friends asked me why did I enter a beauty pageant. I think its the image of the sash and the dress. I told them it was nothing like that and when they came to the Sydney selection they realised that because they were imagining some fashion catwalk or something like that. Its just ordinary women, with some Irish heritage of course, but it doesn’t THE IRISH SCENE | 25
Like her counterparts, Rebecca has had longer than the normal 12 month stint of being a Rose to reflect on everything.
matter what you look like, its about your personality, your story and how you represent your country or county. I think that giving women a chance to tell their story is a really powerful thing and it really has a special place in my heart.”
26 | THE IRISH SCENE
One of her highlights happened in March. “New York was the best, after everything you couldn’t beat that. I finally got to do the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York this year, which was amazing. Its pouring down with rain, its freezing cold and yet the streets are lined with people waving at you. It was just incredible especially after two years of lockdowns. I remember at one point the Arizona Rose was in front of me and the Kilkenny Rose was on the other side and we were walking along... all these different accents and it was great to see everybody again...it was so surreal to be walking down Fifth Avenue but a great, great experience. It kind of reminded me of what Tralee was like, nobody can prepare you for it. I had Maud over for dinner recently and you try to explain it someone but nothing can quite prepare you for it. You go into this small town, you put on this sash and suddenly you become this celebrity for a week, its mind boggling, its fantastic but it is completely crazy at the same time. Kids are coming up to you for autographs and photos and you’re just thinking to yourself
Rose of Tralee
I’m just some random chick from Australia, its just insane,” she laughed. The 2019 Rose of Tralee was a milestone one for the international festival as it was the 60th anniversary. It was also significant for other reasons. It would be the last Rose festival for some time for reasons that would soon become apparent. “After Tralee I went back [to Perth] for a reunion over Christmas and New Year,
just before everything went into lock-down. I was meant to go to New York in March 2020 for St. Patrick’s Day and of course that was a no go for obvious reasons.” After the six week lock down in Perth she returned to Sydney where she would experience more extended lockdowns that spoiled what should have been a fun filled and active period as a Rose. “I did a couple of radio pieces but there wasn’t anything going on, and when events were organised they had to be cancelled, it was just dead and it got to the point where spirits were pretty well dampened by it all.” By good fortune she said the Landsdowne Club in Sydney were able to hold their iconic St. Patrick’s Day lunch events and she took part in the festival “in the pouring rain” walking and talking with people alongside a committee member dressed as St Patrick himself. Another thing that changed in 2019 was the format of the competition itself. The number of Roses taking part in 2019 was capped at 32 with some locations – such as Perth – being assured of a place every second year. Rebecca said
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THE IRISH SCENE | 27
28 | THE IRISH SCENE
Rose of Tralee this made a positive difference for everyone involved. “We had a great group, everyone got on well and we had the best time. We had 32 Roses but in previous years there were 64, which they would cut in half that week and it could cause some dramas. You might have a situation where you were sharing a room with a girl who didn’t’ get through to the TV night but they would still have to go to all these events . Can you imagine coming all the way from Perth, Sydney or definitely any of the Australian Roses and how disappointing it would be to come all that way to get rejected for the televised event, it would be disheartening to say the least. I talked to girls from previous years and it would cause such rifts, so its real good that’s in the past now”.
but particularly for our Olivia Duffy, from Co. Meath, who is going forward as the Perth Rose in August 2022. Go n-eirí an t-ádh leat! (Good luck to you!)
Rebecca will bring her experience and understanding of being a Rose to Tralee in August but in a different capacity. She will be there as a representative of the Sydney Rose Centre and there to support Maud and help everything everyone have the best experience they can. “I’m not in the spotlight this time, I’ll be more behind the scenes,” she added. “I told Maud there’s not much time. I hardly saw my own family throughout the festival because its so go go go. Every day there is so much on and you do one event and then you are whisked off to the next one and they you have formal dinners so you have to get ready for that quickly as well, so there’s always a lot going on.” With the whole week likely to pass by in the blink of an eye what would you say to any girl going forward as a Rose Irish Scene asked Rebecca?. “I would definitely say just try to relax and enjoy the ride, enjoy the process, enjoy all the events, try not to get caught up in the more frivolous things. And don’t look at the bookies, there’s no point. Its full on, just don’t look at it. I think I looked at it afterwards and I was somewhere in the middle. I was happy with that, not that it matters anyhow... who cares?.” She also strongly suggests that if they can Roses should if they can spend some time hanging around after all the fuss has died down. “Make sure you’ve got some time after the festival as well, so that you are not going home on the last day. That’s when you really get to know everyone when everything is over and everyone can be relaxed.” Good advice for any and all Roses of course,
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Soldering on in memory of Martin O’Meara
O
n August 14 the people of Lorrha, Co. Tipperary will celebrate a local historical figure with a unique connection to Western Australia. The Victoria Cross won by Martin O’Meara – born in 1885 in Lissernane, Lorrha and raised in that picturesque corner of Ireland – will be at the heart of a ceremony held in his honour. It will be a significant moment in the history of the medal and the memory of its original owner. Almost exactly 107 years earlier to the day O’Meara, who had emigrated to Australia and was labouring in Collie as a sleeper cutter, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1915. He narrowly missed deployment to Gallipoli where Australian soldiers began their place in World War 1 and earned the name ‘Diggers’, a moniker which they still proudly use to this day. Martin would serve with the 16th Battalion on the Western Front in Europe and it was here that he would distinguish himself on the battlefield, not for taking life but saving it. Over the course of August 9-12 1916 his battalion was engaged in heavy murderous
action with German forces at Mouquet Farm near Pozières. During those four days Martin O’Meara, a stretcher bearer, went out into No Man’s Land time and time again to rescue wounded Australian soldiers and officers. In the face of the constant bombardment and gunfire that peppered the killing zone between the opposing enemies trenches he found and carried at least 25 of his comrades back behind their own lines for medical treatment. When he wasn’t dragging men from almost certain death the shy but heavily built O’Meara carried military supplies
Members of the Lorrha Martin O’Meara VC committee: From left, Ger O’Meara (Secretary), Ambassador Gray, Mike Hoctor, Rose Mannion (Chairperson), Louis McCormack (Treasurer), Nancy White.
32 | THE IRISH SCENE
Richard Bennett, Curator, Army Museum of Western Australia with Martin O’Meara’s V.C.
Martin O’Meara
Neighbours of Martin O’Meara from Lissernane from left Mary Stephens, Mick Hoctor, Carmel & Sheila O’Meara, Joe Dolan, Michael O’Meara.
Grave of Martin O’Meara, Karrakatta, Perth, Western Australia (Image Leith Landauer).
and food up the line to where they were needed. Despite the horrors around him the strongly Catholic O’Meara was ‘always cheerful and optimistic’ and willing to ‘volunteer for any job’. The following year he took advantage of being in Europe and returned home to Lorrha. When they found out the local hero (not that O’Meara ever thought of himself in those terms) the local community and surrounding parishes raised a testimonial, money he donated towards the restoration of the Lorrha Abbey but which went into repairing the parish church. It was a brief visit home and his last. Towards the end of the next year he – and thousands more like him – returned to Australia by boat in 2018. A short time after the returned service men arrived at Woodman Point, South of Perth, where they were put into isolation because of the dreaded Spanish Flu pandemic, O’Meara’s life was plunged into tragedy. Shortly after a local journalist interviewed him by phone and all appeared normal, he suffered an episode from which he would never recover. For the rest of his life – he died in December 1935 – he was held in mental institutions, restrained in a
THE IRISH SCENE | 33
Martin O’Meara
Martin O’Mea ra.
straitjacket, which caused a political scandal at the time, even if nothing changed as a result. His coffin was carried by other VC winners and the tragic Irishman was buried with full military honours at Karrakatta Cemetery. On August 14, to coincide the event at his birthplace I intend to visit his grave and anyone who would like to join me is very welcome (I can be reached at 0479047250). Australia’s Governor General and Australian Ambassador will be guests of honour at Lorrha and the local community is expected to turn out en-masse for the special occasion. A committee was formed to help fundraise and organise the tribute. It will be the one and only time the VC will be in Lorrha. A few days later it will be winging its way back to Western Australia where it will go on display at the Army Museum of Fremantle from the end of August. His medal was donated to the museum in 1986 and is normally its permanent home. In 2019 the O’Meara VC was loaned to the National Museum of Ireland – the first time ever an Australian Victoria Cross was allowed to leave the country.
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CHRISTMAS IN JULY
Dear Members, see posters for details for Christmas in July at the Club! All welcome! Bookings 0423 914 382 www.trybooking.com/events/landing/877490 A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS IN JULY The last two weekends in July! Options for Saturday or Sunday! Bookings Drew 0423 914 382 Live music: Ciaran O’Sullivan Duo Tommy Russell & Teresa Alan Woods Classic Christmas Buffet Doors open from 6.30pm Sat 23rd & 30th and 12.30pm on Sunday 24th & 31st Tickets $55 and $20 for children (Sun) Call/text 0423 914 382 Online Booking with TryBooking
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Irish foreign affairs minister defends position on Western Australia In response to questions asked by LaoisOffaly TD Charlie Flanagan – and inquiries by Irish Scene – Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs Simon Coveney offered the following explanation for why he had decided against a full time consulate general in Perth. His response to Mr Flanagan – himself a former foreign affairs minsiter – came in late May, weeks after the last edition of Irish Scene was published, including the story ‘Mission’ not possible for Perth.
You will appreciate that this was a robust process involving a range of factors, including our national, political and economic priorities, as well as the availability of resources for each potential mission location. The locations of new missions also needs to be considered as part of a balanced package consistent with the ambitions set out in the Global Ireland strategy. The reply to your recent PQ represents my current thinking on this issue based on this latest review of options. Once the Government decides on any new missions to be opened, an appropriate announcement will be made. Our commitment to the Irish community in Western Australia is steadfast. Our Honorary Consul in Perth, Marty Kavanagh, provides excellent consular services to Irish citizens in Western Australia. He is fully engaged with the Irish community and, with the support of the Embassy and State Agencies, he assists in developing trade and economic relations with Western Australia. I understand that our Ambassador will visit Western Australia soon and I have asked him to make every effort to include Perth, when possible, in future high-level visits from Ireland. I am aware that, unfortunately due to thenprevailing restrictions, it was not possible for Minister Naughton to include Perth in her recent St Patrick’s Day visit to Australia.
Dear Charlie, Thank you for your recent email regarding my reply to your recent Parliamentary Question [PQ] on Perth and the further questions you have now received from Mr Lloyd Gorman, publisher/editor of the ‘Irish Scene’ magazine. Mr Gorman is seeking clarification regarding the development of my thinking on this matter over recent months, as expressed at the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence and in my reply to your recent PQ. At the Joint Committee in November, I said we needed to think about Western Australia in the context of enhancing Ireland’s global footprint but I also said that I didn’t want to pre-announce anything. In March, I told the Committee that Perth was being considered as part of a package which was not yet signed off. Following that meeting and prior to my PQ reply, I reviewed the options for enlarging our diplomatic footprint globally, including in Australia. 36 | THE IRISH SCENE
My Department will continue to explore options for further expanding and strengthening our mission network, including in Australia. I wish to assure you and Mr Gorman that I will seek to ensure that Western Australia will benefit, whether directly or indirectly, from any additional resources which we can provide in Australia. Yours sincerely, Simon Coveney TD Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence
Julie Bishop – a good friend of Ireland Charlie Flanagan was Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs (and trade) between 2014 and 2017. Julie Bishop, the member for Curtin from 1998 to 2019, was his Australian counterpart from 2013 to 2018. In February 2017 their paths
Politics office, interviewing, or something more relaxing. Flagship Event attendance - the Chamber’s Summer BBQ at the Australian Ambassador’s residence in Killiney - where you can engage with hundreds of your fellow members currently based in Ireland. European dimension - engage with the representatives of all the Australianlinked business groups across Europe who will join us during the week.
officially crossed during a visit to Ireland by Ms Bishop on her one and only trip to Ireland to date. “Julie and I had a close working relationship on Ireland/Australia trade, immigration visas, Irish diaspora,” Mr Flanagan told Irish Scene. “Julie would’ve been a good PM but unfortunately didn’t make it. She was a good friend of Ireland. And she was understanding and supportive of Ireland’s position, post Brexit, in particular our Peace process.” Bishop - who was deputy leader of the Australian Liberal Party between 2007 and 2018 – was badly dudded by her own ministerial colleagues in the leadership race which saw Scott Morrison emerge as the new party leader and PM.
Business makes the world go round and round In late June the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce organised a five day long ‘business delegation’ to Ireland. “Join us on the delegation to build your networks, gain insights into Irish businesses and meet skilled professionals, ready to make the move,” IACC information about the tour said. “Highlights will include: Your opportunity to engage with best in class businesses in a shared business tour of Ireland - north, south, regional and metropolitan. Discover new customers, suppliers, investment opportunities and team members.”
“Talent in focus - we will host a Talent Open Day in Dublin, and possibly another in Belfast, based on demand, as well as our activities in the regions so you’ll have plenty of chances to find your next key hire.” Meanwhile, a group of Irish business owners might well be on their way here it emerged recently. “[Will] a trade and investment mission to Australia will happen later in 2022,” TD Darren O’Rourke asked the minister for enterprise and trade Leo Varadkar at the end of May in the Dail. Mr Varadkar said trade missions organised by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland and led by a govenrment minister between early 2020 and the third quarter of 2021 had to be done virtually before they could be once again be held physically from the last quarter of last year. “It had been hoped to arrange a trade mission to Australia and New Zealand in Quarter 2 of 2022, however New Zealand’s annual National Agricultural Fielddays has been postponed due to Covid-19 concerns,” Mr Varadkar added. “My Department is currently working closely with its agencies in relation to a trade and investment mission schedule for the second half of 2022 which will maximise opportunities to help Irish companies to access new markets and to increase the levels of foreign direct investment into Ireland.”
“Time built into each day for your own activities, keeping in touch with your Australian
THE IRISH SCENE | 37
Politics
Its Home & Away for Sinn Fein On the subject of inter-country visits one of Ireland’s most high profile politicians will be here soon. Mary Lou McDonald, president and leader of Sinn Fein will be guest of honour at a string of events across Australia hosted by the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce in midlate July, kicking off in Perth. “Ms McDonald will share her thoughts on the impact of the global pandemic, on the implications of Brexit, and on the role of Ireland in both Europe and the wider world from a business and geopolitical perspective going forward,” the IACC said. “We look forward to being able to bring such a high-profile visitor to Australia to address our members and guests, and look forward to the discussion.” While she is in Perth Mary Lou will also feature at a Cairde Sinn Fein event in the Irish Club, Subiaco, on Sunday July 17, starting at 6pm. The path to Australia for fund raising and awareness generating campaigns is a well worn one for Sinn Fein leaders . Indeed, this will not be her first time here for the Republican party leader. Ms McDonald was here in 2014 (with party colleague Francie Molly MP) and laid out the party’s electoral strategy for the 2016 general election. 38 | THE IRISH SCENE
Reporting on that tour at the time the Irish Independent reported that Ms McDonald boldly claimed the party would not settle for anything less than a 32-county Irish Republic. “Our mission is the Republic and we want all of it - we won’t settle for anything less,” she told Irish-Australians in Perth. “Ms McDonald said the fundraising trip was part of Sinn Fein’s campaign to engage with the Irish diaspora and to “secure a Border poll and the ongoing work towards Irish unity”. Her SF predecessor Gerry Adams was also no stranger to Perth, and the rest of the country. His bid to visit Australia in 1996 was blocked by the Federal Government on the grounds he was ‘not of good character’ but as the situation in the North improved including with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which lead to a peace deal he was able and allowed to come in 1999. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein – once branded the politial wing of the IRA – is enjoying growing electoral support back in Ireland, North and South of the border. It is now the largest political party in Northern Ireland after the Assembly election in May. SF won 27 of the 90 seats in the Assembly, putting it ahead of the normally dominant Democractic Unionist Party (DUP) for the first time, which also means it fills the position of First Minister.
The party’s march to government is also well underway south of the border where it is now the main opposition party in the Dail. In the 2020 February election the lions share of votes was split almost equally between the states two biggest political parties Fianna Fail (38) and Fine Gael (35) and Sinn Fein (37). this meant SF were in a position to help form government but were blocked from office by the coupling of old Irish civil war opponents FF and FG, now frenemies in power.
Claire put her Hand up to have a go! Its highly like there are others but at least one of the 1,624 candidates who put themselves forward in the Federal election in May was from Ireland. Claire Hand – who ran for Clive Palmers United Australia Party – was one of ten people who contested the West Australian seat of Cowan. “Claire was born in Dublin, Ireland and emigrated to Australia when she was three years old,” her election profile stated. “She spent her primary school years within the City of Joondalup before returning to Ireland for a short time. She completed senior high school in Australia. After graduation, she secured a role in the mining sector as a Contracts and Procurement junior officer. She then moved into Information Management and has spent the better part of a decade leading the implementation of document management systems in national and international projects. She has lived in the City of Joondalup for the majority of her life in Australia, and has been an active community volunteer since her early teens, when she was part of the Joondalup Youth Advisory Council. She has since continued to volunteer in the community, and in 2021 she ran as a candidate for the North Ward in the City of Joondalup Local Elections. “I was not motivated by an ambition to become a politician. Instead, I wanted to advocate on behalf of the people of Joondalup. My aim was to ensure that our community’s concerns and interests were being heard and addressed.” she added. “The need for better community outcomes inspired me to become more involved at a local government level. I ran as 40 | THE IRISH SCENE
an independent with the aim of giving the community a greater voice separate to any political agenda.” It was always going to be a long shot for any of the independents or micro-parties to get over the line and in the end encumbent MP Anne Aly was returned, one of four vital Labor MPs from the West who helped give Anthony Albanese a major government.
Fáilte Ambassador Kennedy It had been on the cards for a while but the appointment of Caroline Kennedy as America’s ambassador to Australia was confirmed in May. The daughter of the late US president John F Kennedy (pictured together) she is a heavyweight in her own right, including as a former ambassador to Japan, making her an ideal pick of diplomat fro the Indo-Pacific region (which is very much in Australia’s neck of the woods), particularly at a time when tensions and relations in the region are mounting and worsening.
Politics Like her dad, she has a strong affinity for Ireland and was there in 2013 for a special ceremony for an eternal flame to him in Dunganistan, Co. Wexford, to mark the 50th anniversary of his epic trip to the country in 1963.
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Politics Premier’s premier Dublin visit Premier Mark McGowan ticked off an item off his bucket list recently, one he shared with a packed Irish Club on St. Patrick’s Day last year. “I don’t know if realise but my last name is Irish....my heritage on both sides are all Irish… and one of my life ambitions actually is to go back to Ireland – I’ve never been there”, he said to a big reaction from the welcoming crowd! However, that changed recently for Mr McGowan when he jetted off to Europe in late June. But his visit to Dublin was not as a tourist or in search of his Irish roots. Flying out on June 25 the trip was more FIFO than Family Fortune. He headed up a trade and tradies mission to try and lure investment and skilled workers from Ireland. He is using the start of the direct Perth to Rome Qantas flight as a launching pad for a wider offensive. After a busy round of meetings and talks in Rome and he set course for the UK and Ireland. “In his capacity as Treasurer, financial industry engagements will be a focus of events in London and Dublin with banks and investors, as part of the mission led by the Western Australian Treasury Corporation to help deliver better outcomes for WA’s borrowing program,” the press release added. “In a first, the Premier will visit Dublin on a range of economic and skilled workforce matters with the aim of attracting more skilled workers from Ireland to WA to take up jobs in residential construction, healthcare, hospitality, tourism and the mining sector. “This builds on the McGowan Government’s efforts to attract more skilled workers to WA, including the $195 million Reconnect WA package which includes
initiatives to attract international workers, skilled workers for key industries, backpackers for hospitality, agriculture and students to WA, and the dedicated ‘Belong’ advertising and recruitment campaign to attract healthcare workers. “The State Government will also expand its marketing of the ‘Build a Life in WA’ campaign [originally aimed at other Australian states] to attract construction and trade workers from Ireland and European markets.” Also wearing his hat as state treasurer Mr McGowan pledged to promote WA as a safe and incredible place to live, study, visit and do business on the Reconnect WA mission. On the last day of parliament before he flew out Mr McGowan explained what he would be up too. “I will be going to Ireland to promote opportunities to move to Western Australia to undertake work in our state, particularly in construction, mining, health care, hospitality and tourism,” he told the Legislative Assembly on June 23. “We have a record number of jobs available. As we know, it is a very tight labour market, and a lot of businesses, and indeed hospitals, are looking for additional staff. Ireland has always been a ready-made location for people who want to come and live in Western Australia and fill some of those positions. Whilst in Ireland, I will be having a meeting with the President of Ireland, Michael Higgins, who came out here a few years ago. He was re-elected to that role, and I look forward to seeing President Higgins again. I will be having a meeting with the Prime Minister of Ireland, Hon Micheál Martin, as well. This will be a very productive set of events to promote Western Australia and ensure that we continue on the pathway of being the strongest economy in Australia and probably the world.” With a hectic schedule like that it is highly unlikely he got a chance to do anything for himself personally, but who knows his brief time there might even have inspired Mr McGowan to return for a holiday and to track down his Irish ancestors.
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Catalpa Monday April 10, 2023 Mark it in your diary!
I
n the long timeline that is Irish history Easter Monday is a key date in Ireland and Western Australia. It is best known perhaps as the day on which the Easter Rising started in April 1916, an important moment that helped lead to the creation of the modern nation Ireland is today. But it is also a significant occasion to the story of Ireland for reasons much closer to home for the Irish community in Western Australia. Indeed, exactly forty years to the day before the Easter Rising began a group of Irish patriots struck a blow for their freedom – literally – and the cause of Ireland in one of the most dramatic and daring prison breaks in modern history. On Easter Monday, 17 April 1876, six Fenian prisoners who had been transported on the last convict ship to Australia – Hougoumont – made good their escape from the Swan River Colony against the most incredible odds onboard the American Whaling ship Catalpa, an escape orchestrated by many of their compatriots in America, Ireland and Western Australia. More than a century later and a generation of Irishmen like Ormonde Waters, Liam Barry and Brendan Woods (now all sadly deceased) all equally passionate about our history used their respective talents to document and share the incredible Fenian story of Western Australia. Today that legacy is carried on by the likes of Dublin born Peter Murphy and the John Boyle O’Reilly Association. Their work and the efforts of others helped lay the path for the Catalpa Escape Wild Geese Memorial on Rockingham Beach – designed by local WA Irish sculptors Joan Walsh and Charlie Smith – in 2005. Since then the Australia Irish
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Heritage Association has staged an annual commemoration at the Catalpa memorial. Now a major re-enactment of the events of Easter Monday, 17 April 1876 that has been three years in the making is planned for Easter Monday 2023. “It will be an iconic event with two core elements,” said Laurie Smith, Chair of the Rockingham Catalpa Rescue Project. A large free festival of Irish culture, music food and entertainment, will be held in park on the coast and close to Railway Terrace, the main street of Rockingham. There will also be two performances on the day of a 90 minute long re-enactment of the events of the day. “Three carts bringing six prisoners and others will arrive at Railway Terrace and they will proceed down to the beach where they will be met by Captain George Anthony and the rowers from Catalpa,” he added. “Once they get to the beach there will be a whaling row boat – an exact replica of the type used by George Anthony – that we’ve been fortunate enough to get from the Albany Maritime Museum. They’ll be rowed out to the Catalpa, our wonderful three masted STS Leeuwin II, a great replica
Catalpa for the purposes of the day. One of the good things about Rockingham is that the deep water comes within 50 metres of the shore where we expect 10,000 people will be at the park for the Irish festival, able to see this magnificent ship just about 100 metres away. Once they get on board we have another ship that has been donated to us, which the maritime experts say is the closest thing to the (police boat) Georgette that will be nearby. The bloke who owns her has kindly indicated he has an old cannon which can make a big noise and which he can get, so she’ll be firing a couple of shots which will be dramatic and a great spectacle. “There will also be excellent narration so nobody will be in any doubt about what’s happening and on the oval there will also be a large screen on which our incredible cinematographer Paul Barron will show what transpired a few hours earlier when they got out of the prison. And Paul will be filming the whole thing, so all in all quite an amazing event.” Laurie said there has been an amazing groundswell of support for the project, which will cost his Rotary Club approximately $280,000 to produce. “We are expecting City of Rockingham to put in about half of that and I’m sure the WA community will put in
the balance.” A prospectus with event and sponsorship details has been printed for the historic project. In 2024 the Rockingham Catalpa Rescue Project organisers intend to repeat and expand the event to include Fremantle, another part of WA steeped in the Fenian story and home to kindred spirits in the Fenians Fremantle and Freedom Festival Committee and Joanna Robertson, director of Kidogo Arthouse at the historic bathers beach and Freo locals Joy and Mike LeFroy, authors of the book The Catalpa Escape, and many others. “Following a successful implementation in 2023, we aim to grow the event annually to involve more Irish groups and stakeholders in the program, culminating in a two-day event for 150th anniversary of the Catalpa Adventure in 2026,” he added.
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Whaling barque at Rockingham Jetty circa 1890s.
F
orget for a moment it was Major Edmund Lockyer in 1826 the first white fellow to claim Western Australia on behalf of the British Empire, known then by the Dutch as New Holland, and who far back as 1627 mapped the WA coastline as an addition to their expanding empire. Before the Dutch it was claimed the Portuguese were WA’s first invaders, while still speculated by some historians, it may have been the Chinese.
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Next it was the French in 1792, in a race with the British to claim WA on behalf of their serial invader Napoleon Bonaparte. Anyway, imagine for a moment it had been the French and not the British to invade WA. Would us blow-ins now be speaking with a French accent, and instead of having porridge for breakfast, croissants, and rather than being referred to as ‘Aussies’, ‘Frozzies’? Then we Irish arrived, all dressed up in our
Catalpa
Damn Yankee Whalers!
BY PETER MURPHY
convict suits and with nowhere to go, except on a chain gang toiling in the bush. I’ll come back to us Irish later. It must have been a sight for First Nations people to see ships from different countries arriving on their shores, and engage in donnybrooks over land they had occupied for over 50000 years, and if the invading parties had only bothered to ask were they willing to share their land, rather than take it by force, I’m sure they could have come to some arrangement. Little however is talked about those other invaders from the northern hemisphere, the Americans. That’s right, well before the French, English and Irish had set foot in WA, the Americans – since the mid-eighteen century had been coming and going to WA faster than homesick Dubliners. Thing was about the Americans - unlike the Dutch, French and English - they weren’t in the least interested in invading WA and planting the Stars and Stripes, as the Dutch had with a plaque 100 years previous. They were more like Vikings, interested solely in plundering the riches of the surrounding seas, thereby leaving First Nations people not only bereft of their ocean resource such as fish, whales, seals, molluscs and mutton birds, but they also left a bloody stain still to be acknowledged and reconciled with.
Catalpa at anchor in Koombana Bay Western Australia.
Evidence of American whalers visiting WA was first documented when two whaling barques, Asia and Alliance were spotted off Shark Bay in April 1792 by a British maritime expedition led by Captain George Vancouver, while the British military outpost established in King George Sound (Albany) in 1826 under the command of Major Lockyer reported the
Catalpa poster - Denver USA.
THE IRISH SCENE | 47
Irish whalers. Sound was used largely by American whalers. Of course the Irish were never far from the fray around that period. Take for instance, Patrick Ryan, 33, sentenced to transportation in 1822 for horse stealing. Ryan, a sawyer by trade, was one of a group of 23 convicts sent to the Sound under the command of Lockyer to help build the military outpost. Ryan however had other ideas, and began to plot with his fellow convicts a rebellion to seize the outpost including its munitions. He began to make his move in January 1826 by having his fellow convicts down tools and refusing to work. Lockyer, aware of Ryan’s nefarious intention, quickly nipped the revolt in the bud by having the Irish rebel arrested, tied up and flogged. After receiving numerous lashes Ryan capitulated and promised he’d behave. Had Ryan’s little revolt succeeded it could have possibly changed the course of early European history in WA, and rather than being referred to as ‘Aussies’ or ‘Frozzies’, it may have been ‘Paddies’. Back to them damn ‘Yankee whalers’ as they were referred to by British settlers. Since mid-eighteen century, numerous American whalers plied the WA coast between King George Sound and Shark Bay in the hunt for whales, and with the Sperm Whale their preferred catch due to its blubber, said
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Barque Catalpa (circa 1876). to produce the best quality oil used to flicker street lamps in the developing world. They had made the perilous three month voyage from faraway American eastern ports, such as New Bedford, New London, Nantucket and Sag Harbour, while it’s oft reported the Yankee whaling fleet at its peak during the early 1800s numbered up to 700 vessels, and 70000 men were engaged in the industry. It’s difficult to say what effect these Yankee whalers had on the overall lives and culture of First Nations people; however it has been widely reported there was a burgeoning trade between both parties, and with fresh drinking water, kangarooBarque and wallaby meat, along with Catalpa (circa 1876) certain bush medicines useful in combating scurvy and dysentery in demand, and traded in return for sugar, flower, molasses and chocolate. Sadly there were reports of Yankee whalers kidnapping (black-birding) First Nations young men and women to be sold as slaves on cotton farms in America’s Deep South, and with some of the women used as sexual objects by crew members during the long seasonal whale hunt. A yarn with an Irish connection involving a sailor on a Yankee whaler is an interesting one to say the least. His name was William Amsley, aged 21, said to be a native of Cape Verde, off the West Coast of Africa. It’s doubted however that was his real name, as in those days it wasn’t unusual due to the number of desertions by crew members when visiting exotic ports, their identification papers were handed over to the next available (slave) man. William arrived in Koombana Bay (Bunbury) on the whaling barque North America in 1843.
Catalpa However, the barque had just arrived when a violent storm lashed the bay wrecking the barque. Destitute and with no means of support, William put himself forward to a local whaling merchant as a ‘gun’ Yankee whaler, and it wasn’t long before he was made master of a whaleboat, which would sustain him in wages, food and accommodation over a number of years. And although becoming a respected whaler and seaman in the Koombana Bay region, William ‘being a man colour’ would find it difficult to wed a woman of Anglo Saxon origin, and it was only when the 3 ‘Brideships’ arrived from Ireland in 1854 did William manage to secure the hand of one, Johanna Fennell. Several years later, William would take command of the 17-ton cutter Brothers which plied the Indian Ocean between Fremantle and King George Sound delivering mail and provisions to settlers, where in between, Joanna would give birth to several children. William would unfortunately pass away at the age of 51, thereby leaving Joanna to raise the children on her own. Struggling to make ends meet, she married a George Grant from Busselton. However, not long after that marriage, Grant deserted her leaving her again to struggle to care for her children. Joanna carried on best she could to raise her family, and with some of them later becoming prominent athletes in the district. She remained in Busselton until her death in 1890. Of course the Irish connection to Yankee whalers doesn’t end there. For it was the Yankee whaler Gazelle that plucked Irish political prisoner and poet, John Boyle O’Reilly, from a remote beach north of Bunbury in 1869 in a dramatic escape that would lead eventually to another Yankee whaler Catalpa being involved in the dramatic escape in 1876 of six of O’Reilly’s Fenian comrades still locked up in Fremantle prison, and like O’Reilly, were whisked safely to America. Ironically, O’Reilly, on the Gazelle, would find himself on the end of a harpoon in chase of whales, and where during one particular chase, found himself the hunted rather than the hunter after falling overboard. He would later pen a poem citing his experience on the Gazelle: ‘We were down in the Indian Ocean, after the
Barque Catalpa (circa 1876). Barque Catalpa (circa 1876)
sperm, and three years out; The last six months in the tropics, and looking in vain for spout, Five men up on the yards, weary of straining their sight; And every day like its brother – just morning and noon and night – Nothing to break the sameness; water and wind and sun, Motionless, gentle and blazing – never a change in one.’ (Extract from ‘The Amber Whale’) It would take another 100 years before it was realized whales had been slaughtered almost to extinction, and with the last whaling station in WA at Albany hanging up its harpoons in the late 1970s. But who could ever imagine twenty years on, tourism in the form of ‘whale watching’ would generate far more income into the Albany community then was previously generated during the slaughter of these majestic mammals? As I wrote this Iceland decided to ban whaling within two years, thereby leaving Japan the only country in the civilized world to continue on with the slaughter. Note: Kings Cottage Museum (Bunbury) displays a number of artifacts salvaged from the Yankee whaler North America (see image attached). Peter Murphy is a member of the Fremantle Fenian Festival Committee, and author of two novels (Fenian Fear and Fenian 63) based on Fenianism in mid-nineteenth century Australia, and available for purchase at Fremantle Prison, Fremantle Arts Centre, and New Edition bookstore in High St, Fremantle, or by email: kiahcreek@bigpond.com. THE IRISH SCENE | 49
CLADDAGH SENIORS The Claddagh Senior Group held their first winter event on Tuesday 21st of June 2022 at Event Cinema in Innaloo, for a light lunch followed by private movie viewing. The group watched “The Drovers wife”. It was such a wonderful turn out and they all enjoyed the day out and are looking forward to our next event. All senior members of the Irish Community in WA are welcome to join the group. If you, or a senior you know from the Irish community, would like to attend events in 2022, you can register by calling Patricia Bratton on 0417 099 801/08 9345 3530 or by contacting the Claddagh office via admin@claddagh. org.au/08 9249 9213.
TECH SAVVY SENIOR The Claddagh Association is launching a Senior Digital training program in July, which is sponsored by Emigrant Support Program (ESP) Grant. This program is jam packed with everything you need to know from cyber security to how to utilise social media daily. If you our interested in this program please email : admin@claddagh.org.au or call us on 08 9249 9213
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Claddagh Report CLADDAGH SUPPORT WORK – END OF FINANCIAL YEAR DONATIONS The primary aim of the Claddagh association is to support the Irish community when in crisis. To cover the needs of individuals and families in difficult circumstances Claddagh must fundraise throughout the year.
CLADDAGH’S MORNING TEA WITH CELLENA CONNOLLYMOYNIHAN, SECOND SECRETARY, EMBASSY OF IRELAND, CANBERRA Celina Connolly-Moynihan, the Second Secretary of the Embassy of Ireland, Canberra attended the morning tea with her husband, William, and welcomed the opportunity to met some of our Seniors, volunteers and members of Irish community groups who support us in our mission. It was such a great morning catching up. This event highlighted the strong bonds and connections of the Irish Community in Western Australia. Guests had the opportunity catch up with Cellena to discuss the upcoming projects and events. Special Thanks to the Claddagh’s committee members who made this event possible and to those who could provide us all with their wonderful home baked goods and beverages.
DARKNESS INTO LIGHT The Claddagh Association was honoured to be chosen as the Charity partner for this year and to raise money for this wonderful cause. It was a very successful event; We would like to thank the Darkness into Light Perth for reaching out to us and allowing us to be the partner for this year’s event. And all who contributed and supported especially our volunteers who donated their time and their efforts greatly to the success of this event.
If you would like to support Claddagh’s work in 2022, you can donate at our website: https://claddagh.org.au/ support-our-work/makea-donation/ All donations above $2 are tax deductible. Don’t forget, if you or someone you know needs Claddagh’s support, please contact the Claddagh office via admin@claddagh.org. au/08 9249 9213. If your need is urgent, you can call Claddagh’s crisis line on 0403 972 265.
13/15 Bonner Drive Malaga. Enquiries: 08 9249 9213 / admin@claddagh.org.au
Crisis Support: 0403 972 265
www.claddagh.org.au CLADDAGH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Claddagh has started working on the foundations and first steps of the Oral history Project 2022 We held the interviewer training at the end of May where we had a number of our volunteers attend. This project has been delayed due to COVID and we are excited to finally be moving forward with it. We are planning a lunch for the final product of this event in September of 2022. Do you want to get involved? If you are interested in getting involved in this project either as a volunteer or as a participant, we’d love to hear from you. Please slide into our messages or send us an email to the office: admin@claddagh.org.au We’re really keen to hear from anyone in WA with a multicultural background, people with aboriginal heritage, people who are involved in any of the community groups being set up, anyone who has a great life story, young people who have just moved out to Australia, and especially a week after #IDAHOBIT anyone from the rainbow community. Where do I find out more? If you want to read some excerpts from our 2020 project you can access on our website or read the book online here: https://issuu.com/.../from_home_to_home_-_oral_histories... The full collection can be accessed via the State Library of WA https://encore.slwa.wa.gov.au/.../C__Scladdagh... We’ll be reposting some of the stories from our last project over the next few months to our social media profiles. We hope you enjoy them!
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G’Day from Melbourne BY MIKE BOWEN
Queensland Sunshine B
ack at my desk after another whirl wind trip, this time to Queensland for some sunshine. Yes, sunshine as one would expect but did see any no. I cowered from the rain, while waiting for the sun to show its face after seven days rain. I sat pondering how amazingly things turn out not always as expected and soon after my thoughts turned to how extraordinary things turn out also.
I cast my mind back to the late 1960ts and the first time I crossed over the Cork and Kerry border heading for Tralee with my friend with Tom Ellis, who was driving the delivery van and me the passenger trying to play a guitar with the fret board sticking out of the side window. The sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. We stopped off in Killarney and sat on a pavement and had a little sing song for fun. Soon we were counting money that passer byes threw to us. After gathering up the money we looked at each other in amazement as too how generous and friendly the people were. We continued to Tralee to deliver the van load of goods. This time we again sat on a sidewalk
alee. The Brogue in Tr
after delivering the goods and again another sing song and another load of cash. With a pocket of cash, we thought we would have a drink to congratulate ourselves at the nearest bar, Houlihan’s bar in Rock St. What followed on from my first meeting with Richie Houlihan was a friendship with him his family and extended family. His sons and daughter and their cousin James plus my sons, all share the same friendship today.
Some months after that brief drink In Richie’s bar I began work for Irish roofing in Cork. The job saw me travel the length and breath of Ireland many times but somehow, I always seemed to get more work in Co Kerry and based in Tralee. It didn’t take long to accumulate friends and feel at home thanks to Richie for introducing me to Francie his brother Sheila his sister and his cousin Donnie who was the best manager that the Old Brogue bar ever had. Donnie and Richie had equal personality’s when it came to politeness and generosity. Richie’s bar was g in e Travel of Richies bar. Th ck the hub for catch ups for all ba e th at e g, th Relaxin d Karl in e of the locals an before heading off to the many on ith w ’s by la al W great dances that Tralee used . background
54
| THE IRISH SCENE
ion. lman family reun Houlihan and Bu
G’Day from Melbourne myself returning more regularly and again more catch ups with Richie’s family. Fast forward again to 1991 with much water under the bridge as they say in the classics, or
to have in the Brandon Hotel, Horan’s Motel and Parklands. In 1971, I was employed by Gael-Linn and appointed Manager for Co Cork and Co Kerry. I soon found myself spending less time in Cork and more in Tralee that had now become my adopted home. With much more friends in Tralee than I ever had in Cork. Then circumstances beckoned me to migrate to Australia in 1974, leaving friends and family behind but not forgotten. Fast forward to 1986 and for every one of those twelve years while worlds apart, I sent Richie a Card on the lead up to the Rose of Tralee festival and the Tralee races along with many phone calls. In 1986 I returned to Ireland on holidays and one of my first calls was to catch up with Richie and reacquaint with him and his family, by then he had a young family and so did I. It only took a few minutes of catch-up stories before it felt like I had never left the Irish shores in 1974 and it showed me just how important it is to always be in contact with true friends. On my regular yearly returns to Ireland, I always brought some Australian t-shirts plus Australian hats and other little presents for Richie’s children. As the years rolled on, I found
Sean & James.
in my case many hundreds of thousands of flight time. As mad as it may sound, I agreed to take an Australian band (The Travelling Wallaby’s) to tour England and Ireland with the main object for them to be the first Australian band to open the Rose of Tralee festival. The festival had always intrigued me since I first attended it in, time 1973. All went well through England, Dublin and Cork, with sell-out crowds. There is nearly always going to be a slip somewhere along the line when taking on a task like that and in this case the hotel bookings were misplaced or deleted so they told me. In a panic I make an emergency drop-in to Richie for some guidance as to where or how I can find accommodation for the Traveling Wallaby’s, a smile and a tap on my shoulder and the problem is solved some of the traveling crew will stay at his place, some at his brother Francie’s place and the rest with his sister now Shelia Bulman and her Cork Husband, Karl. The band arrival in Tralee with a police escort and as planned, The Travelling Wallaby’s opened the festival to a rousing 70,000 crowd and later that evening The Band put on a special performance for Richie and friends at his Houlihan’s Bar that is still talked about to date. The Wallaby’s were so impressive, the festival had them perform two more centre stage gigs and Guinness booked them for another dozen gigs in their venues, making the Wallaby’s tour a major success. The morning after the festival opening there were a lot of sore heads. Wanting some fresh air, I sat outside Sheilas front doorstep with my guitar in hand soaking up the early morning sunshine. Her young son James came and sat beside me, I put my Akubra hat on his head, handed him my guitar and showed him a few cords. At the time little did I think how much of an impact it would make on him as he has grown into an accomplished guitarist and has a beautiful voice. Fast forward some years later, on another of my visits to Ireland, Richie, told me Sheila and Karl wanted to have a chat with me. My meeting with S&K was filled with tears as both parents were upset at, losing their son to Australia. Their other son John had previously migrated to Mexico. I assured them, THE IRISH SCENE | 55
G’Day from Melbourne that as long as James had my phone number he would be ok on my watch and so it was and still is. James migrated to Sydney, he and I are in regular contact by phone and with my visits to Sydney. Sheila and Karl travelled to Sydney a few years later to visit James, all three came to spend time with Marie and I here in Melbourne. Fast forward again and on another of my visits, to Tralee I was honoured to attend Karl’s moms wake with the extended family while it was a very sad occasion The Houlihan’s and Bullmans made it a very memorable occasion. With the demise of the Celtic Tiger Richie’s son Sean (James’s cousin) headed for Sydney with his best mate Tom Leahy. Sean found it hard to settle there and after working his way through a few rural fruit farms to finish his mandatory three months to secure his visa he travelled down the east coast to Melbourne. With a strong hospitality background from his time managing his dad’s pub, he ended up managing some of the biggest venues in the city. He tried his hand at
Richie, his sons daug hter, Abbey and a frie nd.
56 | THE IRISH SCENE
edding. James & Fluer w
a college visa for another year while working at nights and studying during the day, to get a last gasp de facto visa to remain in Australia. He went back to university to change his career and now works as a building surveyor. He will be marrying Abbey, the love of his life later this year. This occasion will be another reason for all the family’s to get together again. In 2016 I had a premature wake party. Yes, I can imagine what you’re thinking, he didn’t take his medicine this morning. Well believe me I did, as the seventy-five friends and family, present at the Maldon Hotel in Cork for the occasion will vouch for it. Of the seventy present, 37 travelled from Australia plus some additions from Geneva, Doha, France and of course from Tralee. Considering how good a wake
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G’Day from Melbourne n and Shelia Karl Bulman, Mike, Richie Houliha Bulman.
Jonathan Bowen with James and Fluer Bulman.
Karl and Sheila Bulman
can be and how boring most birthday party are. I went for the wake and thought, if anything were to happens to me and friends couldn’t make it to my funeral it wont matter, as they will have already been at my wake and so will I. The Bullmans and Houlihan’s added to the heavenly voices on the night that continued into the early hours of the next morning as I watched on through squawky and foggy eyes, as great fun was had by all and I got to be, at my own wake. Good planning or what? All the guests thought so. In September 2017 it was back to Tralee and then a flight to England to catch up with the attend the wedding of James and Fleur Toocaram with Houlihan’s and Bullman clan. What can be better than a three-day celebration with friends like that? Since then, James and Fleur have added two new members to the extended family, Ita and James junior. Sean and Abbeys wedding later this year 58 | THE IRISH SCENE
brings the Houlihan’s the bullman’s and the Bowens, together again for the umpteen times. I can bet, that it won’t be a short session event as our catch up are never short and this occasion won’t be any exception. This is an extraordinary relationship of families that began by a chance drop into Richie’s bar for a celebration drink all those years ago. I have never thrown away a phone number or an address. It’s so easy to lose contact with friends, just because its to much trouble to make a phone call or now day send an electronic message. Until next time, be good to those you love and slainte from Melbourne.
on Sean and his so bride Abbey.
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I
t is safe to say the first ever Carramar Shamrock Rovers Family Fun Day was a huge success. Officially the busiest day the club has ever seen with hundreds of our members and friends flocking to Grandis Park to enjoy a fun packed day. Our canteen staff worked tirelessly whilst the kids enjoyed bubble soccer, face painting, bouncy castle and lots more. Our U8, 9 & 10s even got to enjoy a couple of games on the day as we were supported by other local junior football teams. Our Girls Under16s did a fantastic job selling raffle tickets on the day and of course the highlight of the day was the raffle for the Mini Cooper, donated by Madman Motors, which was won by local man Steven Mackin, whose daughter plays in our U11s team. As a not for profit community based club, days like this are hugely important to help us generate income to put back into the club for the benefit of all our members. A key focus area for the funds raised will be improving our junior set up.
60 | THE IRISH SCENE
We have been able to give a vital injection of new equipment for our junior facility at Houghton Park. We have purchased 4 new sets of Alpha Goals, new nets for the larger goals and have placed orders for 20 junior size football mannequins, speed ladders and flat markers. We have also been able to establish a fund to draw upon for replacement equipment as the season progresses. This fund will also be used to help send some of our junior teams to tournaments such as the Bunbury Cup and the
Australind Girls Carnival. These tournaments are hugely important for the continued growth and development of our junior sides.
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Some of our members may recall that the defibrillator located outside Grandis Pavillion was stolen. The Fun Day has enabled us to replace this with a brand new HeartSine 360P fully automatic defibrillator which can be used in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest. We will also be adding some much needed protection from the elements by way of 2 large, 3 sided matchday gazebos.
Finally, the club would like to say a huge welcome back to Charlie Gooch. Charlie made a welcome return to football following a year long absence. He underwent surgery to repair his ACL and MCL following an injury he sustained last season where he was Captain of our Under 15s. He has undergone intensive rehab to get him back playing and the club were delighted to see him return to the field of play for the first time last week. Looking fitter and stronger than ever, he also found the back of the net no less than 4 times. The future looks really bright for this promising young talent and we couldn’t be happier for him.
The club would like to extend a huge thank you to fun day sponsor, Madman Motors who made it all possible. To everyone who donated raffles, purchased tickets, and supported the canteen on the day, the club is extremely grateful for
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G’day from Gary Gray AUSTRALIA’S AMBASSADOR IN IRELAND Stay up to date with what’s happening in the Australian Embassy, Ireland by following:
@ausembire
Australian Embassy, Ireland
@AusEmbIre
West Australian Nyoongar man Jack Collard spellbound visitors with his traditional dancing and didgeridoo playing.
Australian Indigenous Fashion & Culture Showcased in Ireland The Australian Embassy in Ireland was delighted to host an Australian Indigenous Fashion and Cultural event at the residence of the Australian Ambassador to Ireland, Abbey Lea on 27 May 2022, in the lead up to Reconciliation Week. Representatives from 100% Indigenous owned fashion houses Kirrikin, Liandra Swim, Ngali, and Maara Collective showcased their designs and guests were spellbound by Nyoongar man, Jack Collard’s traditional dancing and musical talents, playing the didgeridoo. This event follows on from a fashion show by the troupe held in Brussels as part of Australia’s Mission to the EU seeking to establish Australia’s free trade agreement with the region, and would not have been possible without the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and BHP. Australian Ambassador to Ireland, the Hon Gary Gray AO said it was an honour to have the Indigenous fashion houses present their collections at the residence. “Australian Indigenous culture and art is among the most beautiful in the world,” he said. “To have this travelling troupe visit our residence is a moment of pride and deep emotional connection. Look at the beauty, design and Indigenous culture on show. Our Australian Indigenous fashion industry is going places.” Models who travelled with the group, West Australian Shannon McGuire, Darwin based model Haylee McLean and Tiwi Islander Cassie Puruntatameri showcased designs for guests throughout the event; some of whom had never travelled overseas before. Connacht rugby player and Wiradjuri man John Porch also attended the event, travelling over from Galway to support the initiative, and wore a blue Kirrikin set on the day.
62 | THE IRISH SCENE
G’DAY FROM GARY GRAY Additionally, one of Abbey Lea’s reception rooms had been set up as a shop, so that items of clothing from all four designers was available for guests to take a look up close, feel the fabrics, try on garments and engage with the designers. Creative director and designer of Liandra Swim, Yolngu woman Liandra Gaykamangu said the Dublin event made it even more accessible for her to launch her designs internationally through an e-commerce platform as well as via local retail outlets. Many Irish fashion boutiques attended the event from around the island, and showed interest in a range of items across the four collections. The event also drew local media attention, with Irish Times Fashion Editor Deirdre McQuillan commenting she had never seen anything like this come to Dublin before. “The quality and also the dimensions of the stories of the prints, and that they tell you so much about different Australian communities - that’s something very new and very special,” she said. “I love the colour and it’s just an extraordinary event and great to welcome such gifted creations from Australia.” The event also drew the attention of Irish weatherman Deric Hartigan from TV3’s Ireland AM breakfast TV show. All morning, Deric held live weather crosses from Abbey Lea, interviewing Ambassador Gray, who had the chance to speak about the significance of Australia’s Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. Deric was able to also showcase Indigenous culture and fashion, interviewing Amanda Healy, Kirrikin label’s CEO, Connacht Rugby Player John Porch, as well as celebrating Aboriginal culture through music and dance. The Hon Gary Gray AO Australian Ambassador to Ireland
WISHING YOU AND YOUR FAMILY A WONDERFUL 2022. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA, STAY IN TOUCH.
TV3’s Deric Hartigan does a live weather cross showcasing Australian Indigenous fashion and culture from the gardens at Abbey Lea (above).
West Australian Nyoongar man Jack Collard spellbound visitors with his traditional dancing and didgeridoo playing (left). Creative director and designer of Liandra Swim, Liandra Gaykamangu speaking with guests interested in hearing more about her collection at Abbey Lea. THE IRISH SCENE | 63
64 | THE IRISH SCENE
FRANK MURPHY PRESENTS
CELTIC RAMBLES 107.9FM RADIO FREMANTLE SATURDAY 8AM - 10AM PRODUCER: GERRY GROGAN
Music. Conversation. Special Tributes. Interviews. Celebrating the Ireland of today and past times.
RADIO
FREMANTLE 107.9fm
BY BRIAN CORR
Michael Collins - his assassination and its effect on Ireland
T
he 100th anniversary of Michael Collins death is on the 22 nd August this year.
Reading about Collins’ assassination, down the years, I couldn’t understand why Collins, whose intelligence operation had broken the British hold on Ireland, could be so amateurish on his last trip, taking the convoy along dangerous back roads in West Cork, returning by the same route, ignoring warnings of an ambush, drinking in local pubs, and the ambush lasting more than 30 minutes with only one casualty – Collins himself. The British have, for centuries, operated one of the greatest espionage networks in history. As far back as 1777, they spent over £200,000, a huge sum at the time, in gathering international intelligence. Commonly used was
66 | THE IRISH SCENE
a ‘mole’ or ‘sleeper’, planted, often for many years, in rival political circles; plus a host of spies, traitors, and informers. Tom Clarke was the man who made the Easter Rising possible; it wouldn’;t have happened without him. In 1883, he took part in a bombing campaign in England. Because of informers, he was caught and served 15 horrendous years in prison. He came out determined to fight the British by any means. Aware of spies and informers, he went secret and sidelined anyone who didn't work with him. Despite the certainty of failure, he pushed ahead with the Rising. Michael Collins had a happy childhood, steeped in republicanism. Even though he played a minor
Michael Collins role in the Easter Rising, in the GPO, he made a name as a skilled organiser, highly respected in the IRB. And, in the GPO, he spent time with Tom Clarke. DeValera had a sad upbringing - an illegitimate child born in America, discarded by his mother when she sent him to Ireland, unloved by his grandparents, and bullied at school. Four times he tried to be a priest, refused because of his illegitimacy. He found a niche in the Gaelic League and was one of the leaders in the 1916 rising. As had happened previously, the British knew about the rising in advance. They let it take place, and beat the Irish into submission, mainly to discredit the Irish in the eyes of the Irish-Americans - part of their efforts to get the U.S. to join the Great War, and to get more Irishmen to enlist. They succeeded on both issues. DeValera was the second highest ranking military officer during the Rising. Michael Malone, a subordinate, led the outstanding action of the Rising, inflicting more than half the British casualties. DeValera took the credit; Malone got a cheap headstone. DeValera didn’t stand trial, was never convicted, never sentenced, never reprieved. After 1916, for many decades, every major decision made by DeValera benefited Britain, to Ireland’s detriment. Clarke was executed, and Collins was interred. When Collins was released, Clarke’s wife passed secret files to Collins; files that contained the names of spies and informers, plus details of the G Division; the secret police who handled the spies and informers.
the Squad killed 15 of these in simultaneous early-morning strikes. Later that afternoon, the British entered Croke Park during a Gaelic football match and killed 14 spectators. On the 22nd June 1921, King George V opened the new Ulster parliament. On the same day, the British ‘discovered’ and held DeValera overnight. Also, on the same day, Lloyd George initiated a new era of conciliation. Significantly, the North of Ireland was set up immediately before the British negotiated for peace. After the treaty was signed, DeValera began to split the Irish. He walked out of the Dail, taking his supporters with him. When the people voted for the treaty, he started the Civil War, demanding that his followers ‘wade through Irish blood’. DeValera and his followers roared all over Ireland creating havoc, while Collins was striving to have the treaty accepted, and to avoid a civil war, whilst supporting the IRA in the north. When it became obvious that Collins and Griffith had defeated DeValera’s anti-treaty forces, their deaths were a foregone conclusion. On the 22 nd July 2022, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated, almost certainly by Collins men. On 12 th August, Arthur Griffith was poisoned. Commander-inChief Michael Collins, under cover of a routine tour of inspection, was travelling on a safe-
Collins spent a night in Pearce Street Police Station checking this data. He then ordered the G-Men out of Ireland, under the threat of death. They tried to hunt him down. Then the Squad, a team of hit men set up by Collins, started killing the G-Men. They fled, some to England, some to Dublin Castle. “The Cairo Gang”, a secret group of intelligence operators, was then set up secretly to capture or kill Collins. He had a spy, his cousin, in Dublin Castle, passing information, including the names and addresses of the Cairo Gang. On the 21 st November 1920,
THE IRISH SCENE | 67
it up - DeValera. He was in a position to convince Collins that he was setting up a major peace conference whilst keeping the anti-Treaty leaders ignorant of his secret invitation to Collins. DeValera was well-positioned to co-operate with the British secret service’s plans to assassinate Collins. This ensured that the Civil War continued. Many leaders on both side were killed. The pro-treaty side won, allowing the benign Cosgrave government to continue, the situation in Northern Ireland to settle, and DeValera to remain hidden as their ‘sleeper’.
conduct guarantee for the purpose of peace negotiations. He was not careless, or unaware of the dangers in anti-Treaty territory. He came with a well-equipped full military convoy, well capable of protecting him. All day long, Collins was talking about peace. Nearly everyone in the area knew that Collins was heading to Béal na mBláth to end the civil war. For the trap to be successful in both assassinating Collins and in placing the blame on the anti-Treaty side, only one man could set
Whilst DeValera did not take part in the ambush, he lured Collins into the area. He had to be there himself or Collins would have detected a trap. Importantly: twenty-five professional soldiers travelled out as escort to the Commander-in-Chief, General Michael Collins. Following an encounter with a force of five men with vastly inferior arms, they brought Collins back dead. There were no other fatalities. When the convoy came into sight, the ambushers fired a warning shot or two, and did not hit anyone. The motorcyclist ‘scout’, when he encountered the barricade, didn’t act as a scout. Instead of rushing back to inform his commanding officers in the rear, he got off his motorcycle and stood about, loitering. He played a key role: his failure to immediately alert those behind him resulted in more distance between Collins and most of his bodyguard. The Crossley tender, having received no information from the ‘scout’, came up to the same spot and stopped. The commander of the tender did not act like a ‘bodyguard’. The tender should have rushed back to protect Collins. Instead, it stayed where it was and the soldiers were ordered to get out - split into two sections: one to move the barricade, the other returning fire. Collins was obscured from their view, over 400 metres away, around a bend. When the ambushers stopped firing at this forward end of the site, the soldiers from the Crossley tender could hear firing from the direction of Collins’ car. They stayed where they were
68 | THE IRISH SCENE
Michael Collins Brian Corr with Sliabh na mBan 1997.
and waited for the shooting to stop. It is not possible to rely on the accounts we have from the Collin’s end of the ambush site. A point on which all Free State accounts agree, is that about the time Collins died, the firing stopped. The powerful Vickers .303 machine gun on the armoured car was used extensively, apparently to hide the noise of th assassin’s gun. The ambushers did not believe that Collins fell at their hands, even accidentally. Members of Collins’ escort believed that he was not killed by the ambushers, meaning they believed he was a victim of foul play by men in the convoy. DeValera then played his favourite role - the innocent bystander - while saying he wanted peace. If it had been more generally known that Collins was lured south by the promise of talks, questions would have been asked as to who had made the promise. The winners were DeValera and British interests in Ireland, north and south. It was necessary to keep Collins’ associates permanently confused about what happened. It was necessary to completely deceive DeValera’s anti-treaty comrades as to his actual role, at the same time setting them up to take the blame. On Dalton’s orders, Collins’ body was brought to Shanakiel Hospital in Cork, a hospital still controlled by the British. It bypassed an Irish-controlled hospital on the way. The head nurse, Eleanor Gordon, with Commandant Frank Friel, cleaned the wound
and bandaged Collins’ head. They were certain there was an entry wound on the hairline as well as the exit wound at the back of the head. Eleanor Gordon stated that she saw a singed hole on the back of his tunic that looked like a bullet hole, meaning that the weapon that fired it, must have been only a few inches away. Dalton’s activities after Collins’ death raise many questions. He was given a plush position as Clerk of the Senate by the Free State authorities, and reportedly served in MI5 during WWII. There was no inquest, and no inquiry, into Collins’ death. Even in that troubled period, inquests were routinely held into the deaths of men of much less renown, and in far less questionable circumstances. Those present at Collins’ death were never formally questioned by any official authority. Sean Hales, on numerous occasions, demanded an inquiry, or autopsy, into Collins’ death. On 7th December 1922, he was attacked and shot dead. DeValera’s Civil War immediately moved into the area of atrocities and what can only be called war crimes, by
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Michael Collins
both sides. The Free State government, with British support, won. The British were the biggest winners: most of the top Irish leaders were dead; the Northern Ireland regime was secure; Anglo-American relations were never better; Irish-American relations were never worse, and international public opinion was overwhelmingly on the side of the British. DeValera’s legacy was misery and violence. He wrote the epitaphs for those who followed him into civil war, betrayers who were later betrayed by their own leader. All Collins asked for was an “acceptance of the people’s will”. For more than 40 years, DeValera pushed the Irish into despair and poverty. The South was a basket case until rescued by the EEC in 1973. More than a million people, a quarter of the
70 | THE IRISH SCENE
population, fled Ireland during DeValera’s time in power, mostly to the UK, after America shut its doors because of DeValera’s neutral stance during WWII. Married men, with no work in Ireland, travelled to England to build railways, make motorways, and dig ditches; working long hours to send money home. At best, they saw their wives and children once or twice a year. They rented squalid bedsits with other married men. When they were too old to work in England, many returned to a wife and children who had built separate lives for themselves. Some died strangers in the home they had worked for years to build and maintain. This was DeValera’s Ireland. DeValera made numerous attempts to remove Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith from Irish history. DeValera, as quoted by author Tim Pat Coogan, once said: “It’s my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Collins and it will be recorded at my expense”. True, without a shred of doubt. 500,000 attended Collins’ funeral. Originally from Co. Kildare Brian Corr lived in Perth from 1989 until he retired to Hobart in 2015. His interest in Michael Collins stems from organising a fundraiser in 1996 with the Michael Collins movie, and driving the armoured car in the Curragh in 1997.
Belfast born, bred and buttered memory man
BY CAROLINE SMITH
“My grandfather developed an interest in history at a young age. As a child, his father would take him on bicycle rides all over County Antrim teaching him of the local history,’’ Mr Graham said. “It was on one of these excursions when he was just twelve years old, that he and his father visited the grave of James Hope from the Society of United Irishmen, who was buried right beside his son Luke Hope.
B
elfast has always been a city that was easily misunderstood. Not least during the difficult years of the Troubles, the richness of its language and stories – in addition to the beauty of its surrounding landscape – was obscured by the decades-long news reports of violent struggle and death. Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, there has been greater opportunity for people outside the city (and Northern Ireland generally) to discover its unique culture, with Belfast growing as a tourist spot and a site for creative endeavours, not least the filmmaking associated with projects such as The Game of Thrones. However, even before this political change was in the wind, there were some who were already working to collate and promote Belfast history and stories, not only for local people, but those further afield. One such figure was Joe Graham, whose death in December 2021 brought the end of an illustrious career at the helm of historical magazine Rushlight: The Belfast Magazine. Inspired by the stories told by his own father about local history – in addition to his own research – Joe founded the publication in 1972, during the heart of the Troubles. Speaking with his grandson (also named Joe) allowed for some reflections on how the magazine developed, including a childhood trip which had inspired its name.
72 | THE IRISH SCENE
“One word from Luke Hope’s grave caught my grandfather’s eye and that was ‘Rushlight’... Luke St Hope had published a paper called the Rushlight in the 1820s, though it only lasted 41 editions with Luke dying a young man. In 1972, when my grandfather founded Rushlight, he named it so in memory of James Hope and his son Luke.’’ Another figure of importance was local writer Michael McLaverty – author of Call My Brother Back - who taught Joe Graham during his school years at St John’s Public Elementary School and later at St Thomas’ Secondary Intermediate School. “My grandfather would always speak with great fondness and pride of his time being taught by Michael McLaverty,” Mr Graham said. “Mickey’ as he and the other children would call him, encouraged him to express himself in the written word.” But at the very heart of the Rushlight project was a desire to record and retell the working-class history of Belfast and its people. “Sharing Our-story instead of His-story,” said Mr Graham. “From its birth, Rushlight aimed to present history in a truthful, warts and all way; protecting its integrity by being kept free of grants and funding.” These stories then, included recollections about the lives of Belfast hard men such as Stormy Weather and Silver McKee – who came from either side of the political spectrum but carried respect for one another, as well as journalist Barney Maglone (editor of the Morning News and then Irish News), and characters from the boxing world such as Terry Milligan and trainer George Scott. The magazine also carried columns about the history of different Belfast districts, replete
Rushlight: The Belfast Magazine with photographs of key figures and events. And although the key focus was on Belfast itself, Joe Graham often journeyed to towns and sites across the province, writing about the hidden histories of each – particularly in relation to rebellions and repressions of local people. He endeavoured throughout to view these events from the perspective of people on either side of the political divide, often highlighting the religious persecution suffered by Protestant groups outside of Northern Ireland, as well as the experiences of his own Catholic community. The importance of ordinary – often working class – people was highlighted through Rushlight’s mention of local families in each area, and the contribution of ordinary people to the province’s (and city’s) main economic activities. Equally, readers were encouraged to participate by sending in their own photographs and information, making it a publication not only ‘for’ but also in part ‘by’ the people.
Irish communities in Belfast, Brompton, Canada, and around the world’. “People also contacted my grandfather throughout the years to find long lost family and friends, many of whom were successfully reunited thanks to the Rushlight,’’ he added. “Since he passed we have received hundreds of messages from people all around the world, from friends sharing their grief and condolences to readers sharing their memories and writers citing his influence...for many his legacy is the gift of his life’s work and research, the history that he preserved with truth and integrity.”
Evidenced throughout Rushlight was Joe Graham’s own love for Belfast – including the Ballymurphy housing estate where he was born, and which he referred to as ‘God’s Little Acre’. Often, according to his grandson, this had led to his involvement in political developments, including the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. “He was present at Duke Street, Derry, on 5th October 1968 and at the Burntollet Ambush, on 4th January 1969,” said Mr Graham. “He was also a founding member of the Belfast & District Civil Rights Group, the Ardoyne Citizen’s Action Committee and the Belfast Housing Action Committee. “These groups were founded to address the need for the provision and improvement of housing in Catholic areas.” And although the histories recorded in Rushlight were definitively about Belfast and Northern Ireland, the magazine – which is now online – was sent all over the world, from Australia to the United States and Canada, according to Mr Graham. Reflecting on this, he also noted his grandfather’s receiving of the ‘Irish Hand’ award in 2002 for ‘continued and appreciated contribution of Rushlight Magazine to the
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Book Reviews TRESPASSES BY LOUISE KENNEDY / BLOOMSBURY $29.99 It’s 1975 and ‘The Troubles’ are raging through Northern Ireland. Twenty five year old, Cushla Lavery lives in a small town near Belfast, where she teaches grade 7 pupils in the local Catholic primary school. She also looks after her gin-soaked mother, Gina, and still finds time for part-time work in brother Eamonn’s pub, with its clientele of local Protestants and security forces. It’s here that Cushla meets the older, married, Protestant barrister, Michael, who has outspoken views on the justice system and civil rights. Michael introduces Cushla to his sophisticated coterie of friends and the two soon become involved in a torrid love affair. At school, Cushla takes a young Davy McGeown, who is continually bullied by other pupils, under her wing, eventually meting Davy’s family who live in a ‘mixed’ housing estate on the edge of town. When Davy’s father is savagely beaten and left for dead by a Protestant gang Cushla’s decisions and actions, as tensions in the town rise, will have far reaching consequences for both her family and her covert liaison with Michael. Author, Louise Kennedy is the award-winning writer of an acclaimed short story collection with Trespasses her initial foray into the longer literary format. Having been brought up in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’ Kennedy has successfully depicted the cadence, unease and political turmoil of ‘normal’ life in province during this bleak time, as I recall from my time there during the mid-late 1970s. She has so perfectly captured the idiomatic Ulster vernacular that some readers might benefit from a copy of John Pepper’s, ‘Ulster – English Dictionary’. Characters are well rounded, plausible and memorable as they face the daily tensions of a society in conflict. Realistic, tender and unflinching, Trespasses is a masterful and intimate portrait of those caught between intransigent warring factions where it’s not what you do that matters, but who you are. Kennedy’s unforgiving, unflinching narrative has produced an immersive, addictive reading experience which will resonate with the reader long after the final page. - Reviewed by John Hagan.
74 | THE IRISH SCENE
AN ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING ORCHARD, TATE & WEBB / BLOOMSBURY $39.99 What are the 100 best books? Are extinct animals just hiding from us? Which songs have stood the test of time? Who is the best James Bond? These are just four of the 200 intriguing questions addressed in this excellent infographic publication. But what are infographics? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an infographic (or information graphic) is “a visual representation of information or data”. Basically, it’s a collection of imagery, such as pie charts and bar graphs with minimal text to give an easy-to-understand overview of a topic. According to co-author, Christian Tate, ‘With infographics you have the chance to tell so many different stories … with loads of information for people to delve into’. To further explain let’s peruse two examples of how the authors approached the first question (above) to develop a compendium of ‘best 100’ books published? The authors seemingly took a less than universal approach by collecting only rankings from the 30 best English language book lists, including published translations, up to 2001. This categorised the most popular 100 works of fiction and poetry resulting in the identification of F Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, as being the best book of all time. Ernest Hemingway received accolades for being the ‘most prolific author’, contributing four books to best 100 listings. In relation to songs which have stood the test of time (above), the authors worked with Spotify to determine the number of global plays every song received in 2020 to eventually identify which song from each year since 1950 remains most popular today. All the old favourites are there from country, folk, rock, soul, jazz and pop, with the authors revealing such trivia as the longest and shortest ballads. Interesting to note that six Christmas songs made the list. Topics in this fine publication include athletic achievements, engineering, the Earth and space, but not all inclusions are serious as authors tackle issues such as ‘What is the best thing since sliced bread’. And who would have known that Ireland rated 11th on the world consumption of
Book Reviews cocaine list. This is a superbly presented, absorbing, intriguing and revelatory publication, chock full of engrossing info to keep the reader thoroughly informed and entertained over a long period of time. PS – Daniel Craig keeps the Aston Martin as the ‘best James Bond’. - Reviewed by John Hagan.
WHAT I WISH PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT DEMENTIA BY WENDY MITCHELL / BLOOMSBURY $26.99 During 2021, there were about 472,000 Australians living with dementia, 28,300 of whom were diagnosed with early onset dementia (people in their 30s, 40s and 50s). With an estimate that almost 1.6 million Australians are involved in the care of someone living with dementia, it is likely that we each know a person, or know of a person, living or dealing with the life-changing cognitive and intellectual deterioration. Perhaps, occasionally unsure where the car keys have been left, or forgetful about someone’s name, has given many of us cause for concern and unease. Wendy Mitchell was shocked to be diagnosed with dementia at the age of 58 (in 2014) and was surprised at the lack of information available to her as to how she might cope with the disorder. With the help of family, friends and medical professionals she set about facing her situation, discovering ‘that I had much less to be afraid of than I thought’. In this thoughtful, warm, courageous and illuminating book, Mitchell shares something of what she has learned about dementia as she confronts her affliction, describing how that initial diagnosis did not herald the end of her fruitful life, but the start of a new, exciting and different phase of existence. The book is divided into concise sections as Mitchell explores the six key areas of her new life challenge – senses, relationships, emotions, environment, communication and attitude – something of a ‘howto’ manual for people with the condition and those who support them. She has penned a practical guide; a beacon of hope for all those who live with dementia and wish to continue to live a fruitful, satisfying and fulfilling life as Mitchell seems to be doing. She has just taken up skydiving. - Reviewed by John Hagan.
STRAITS: BEYOND THE MYTH OF MAGELLAN BY FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO / TRADE $39.99 Even at primary school, we all knew the answer to
the teacher’s question, ‘Who was the first man to sail round the world’? ‘Magellan’, we would chorus; some even knew the dates of the historic voyage. But how wrong we were. In this meticulously researched book, renowned historian, Ferenandez-Armesto blows away the Magellan fable, revealing that the legendary seafarer did not attempt, much less complete the global circumnavigation for which he became so famous. ‘I undertake the closest reading ever of the texts that are available … I can show more of what Magellan was like than any of my predecessors’, states Fernandez- Armesto. Rather than the dedicated, swashbuckling, brave adventurer of popular historic repute, Magellan was something of a rat bag - egotistical, malicious, secretive, avaricious, brutal and ruthless. During his 20s, Fernando de Magallanes (or Magellan as came to be known) learned to sail, navigate and fight for his native Portugal along the Malabar Coast, on the Arabian and Laccadive seas, and also on mainland Morocco and Malacca. But sensing that his chance for fame and riches lay not with Portugal, Magellan defected to serve Carlos I, King of Spain. The first half of the book is devoted to describing Magellan’s 16th century world and describing how his expeditionary force was conceived and developed. By the time Magellan set off with his flotilla of five ships, his wildly expensive voyage was years behind schedule and already riven with suspicion, distrust and animosity. Magellan had agreed to inform the other captains of the route, but with Spain far behind, he refused to do so. Mutinies eventuated resulting in hangings for some and the marooning others, leading eventually to Magellan’s death (on the island of Mactan). The fate of the crews of the various ships, only one of which eventually limped home to Spain is meticulously documented. Despite all this, the sobriquet, ‘Magellan’, has been adopted by many commercial organizations such as Magellan Petroleum, Magellan Health, Magellan Aerospace and, in Australia, the Magellan Financial Group, all seemingly anxious to bask in the explorer’s perceived Endeavour, adulation and glory. With the publication of Straits, and the myth of Magellan exposed, perhaps a naming rethink is necessary. I doubt this will happen for as Fernandez-Armesto states, ‘failure… can be fruitful for fame [and Magellan’s] failure was total. Yet his renown seems impregnable’. For those interested in the history of exploration or biography, this devastating Magellan expose, narrated with vitality and wit, should prove excellent reading. Reviewed by John Hagan.
THE IRISH SCENE | 75
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Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was in Perth for a high profile media trip in late June. But the high flying Irish airline chief was not the only Dublin born head honcho for another massive Australian company in town around the same time. Stephen Rue, Chief Executive of the National Broadband Network (NBN) came across from the eastern states on the week starting Monday 20 June and dropped into two NBN centres in the metropolitan area. One NBN worker to catch up with the boss was Emmet Fenlon, originally from Emo, Co. Laois who kindly brought along some recent editions of Irish Scene, including the January issue which had a cover story and interview with Mr Joyce. Now that we are on his rader hopefully we can bag an interview with Mr Rue and give him front page billing too.
Walking between worlds
In his final weeks as Governor of Western Australia former Labor heavyweight Kim Beazley unveiled a statute on the grounds of the governor’s residence at Government House in the Perth CBD. The life size sculpture is of Whadjuk Noongar woman Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (Balbuk) who was a land rights activist for her people in her day. The statue depicts her in her later years, when she would walk across her ancestral lands, with little regard for fences, boundaries and built structures that emerged as the city of Perth took shape, protesting loudly the dispossession of her people. The statue is erected above a plinth that depicts the path Balbuk would walk, with her Wanna, a digging stick used by Aboriginal women, along the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River). The natural curves of her trek followed the arc of the river and the land, and stand in stark contrast to the rigid gridlines of the early city. Mr Beazley said she “walked between worlds” at the unveiling. Remarkably it is the first statue of an aboriginal woman in the city and there was a lot of Irish input into the long overdue memorial. It is the creation of husband and wife sculptors Charlie and Joan Walsh, originally from Waterford who have been based locally in Giggiganup for many years. Installation was done by a crew from heritage specialists Colgan Industries – who have quite a few Irish guys on their books – under the expert watch of Galwayman Frank Smith who helped install the Famine memorial in Subiaco, and many more besides.
Paula from Tasmania
BY PAULA XIBERRAS
Esther‘s fostering knowledge through academic assistance Esther Simpson was the real life woman who inspired Caroline Beecham’s latest novel ‘Esther’s Children’. Once again Caroline continues to discover extraordinary but little known women from history giving them their chance to shine. Esther Simpson’s name has not been a high profile one and few have heard of this remarkable woman who did unique, hard ground work to rescue academic refugees during war. The title Esther’s Children refers to the fact that if Esther had not rescued these academic refugees during the time of harsh regimes in Europe through the organisation known as the academic assistance. they would not have had the chance to allow their research and knowledge to ‘grow’ to adulthood and create change in the world. Their lives and subsequent success was fostered by Esther as she worked in Austria in 1936 for the council of academic assistance. The novel while telling a true live story gives some poetic and romantic license because as Caroline says ‘Esther’ deserves it’. We don’t know anything about if this busy and dedicated woman had any romantic affiliations but in the book she gets a romantic storyline with Harry Singer, a young musician and academic. Esther herself had academic qualifications in languages and was like Harry a talented musician. There is a playlist in the book that allows the reader to listen to some of Esther’s music on Spotify. In 1940 refugees were interned as enemy agents on the Isle of Man and this is what happens to Harry Singer. Those that had to live through this experience were doctors, lawyers, painters, lecturers and performers. They survived by practicing their crafts. Esther saved 16 Novel prize winners, without her intervention many advancements in knowledge we have today would not have existed. People like Nikolaus Pevsner an architect, Karl Popper a philosopher and Ludwig Guttman, Neurologist and the man that formed the idea of what we now know as the Paralympics. There was also Ben Elton’s father physicist and educator Lewis Elton.
Esther is at last being given the recognition she deserves with a blue plaque at Leeds, the place of her birth. Esther’s Children is out now published by Allen and Unwin. - Reviewed by Paula Xiberras.
Starry, Starry eyes and the eyes of a child, for this Vincent The Journey since his win on Australia’s Got Talent at just 15 years of age has been phenomenal, Mark tells me when we chatted recently on the release of his new album. ‘In The Eyes Of A Child’ is his tenth studio album. The other nine have all reached #1 on the ARIA classical crossover charts. In the time since his win he has toured both at home and overseas and experienced marriage and fatherhood. We talk about how being a father has influenced the songs on the new album and also about his friendship with Ireland’s Tommy Fleming. ‘In the eyes of a child’ signals a change for Mark. Since his last album his life has changed dramatically. He has married and had a child, his son Matteo in 2020. The album is a family one in and demonstrates how he’s been able to connect emotionally to songs like ‘In the eyes of a child’ that he couldn’t before the birth of Matteo. Songs like ‘Have you ever really loved a woman’ connects with his wife and a couple of other songs ‘Il Mondo’ ad ‘A time for us’ were favourites of his grandfather and connects with their relationship. Away from studio albums, Mark has done musical theatre and was chosen by Dame Julie Andrews to play Freddy Eindfelde in the 2017 production of My Fair Lady. Another dream has seen him sing ‘Because you’re mine’ alongside his hero Mario Lanza. When asked what songs on the album are his favourites, Mark says all of them. Mark says he is respectful of all genres of music not just his niche of classical and that all music is valuable, especially so through COVID. It was on a cruise that Mark first met Tommy Fleming who had sold 2 million albums.
THE IRISH SCENE | 77
for Aisling
day for the Irish community and women all over the world”.
Paula from Tasmania
A group of musicians played traditional Irish airs and a flute
befriended many celebrities. The Theatre she worked Tommy saw Mark’s talent and showcased him on his anda fan fiddle as at well as a top withwhere her Gill says celebrities gathered housed a cafe PBS special ‘Voice of Hope’ and now Mark has werenews amongst to hear fromthe their agents in the pre mobile era. base in Ireland so much so that he will makecounty’s a tour colours Later earlier days of Coronation Street Gill was of his own. His work with Katherine Jenkins tributes has alsolaid out for in thethe young Irish working as a telephonist Increased his profile in the UK. A not so distant placewho was woman in adition to being a in Regent Street at Granada vigil in Sydney attended by dozens of TV fielding the first reactions to the now long-lived where Mark would like to return to perform a full tour promising and popular educator was soap. is Tasmania which he thinks beautiful, especially after people on the hill above Bronte Beach also with her local his brother in law sent him some photos from hisheavily involved to the emotions felt by all who Being at the forefront of thespoke entertainment industry GAA club and a musician in her own own visit. In the Eyes of a Child is out now. Gill married a Greek actor but after seven they touched by heryears death.
right. Elaine O’ Gradycompany, who attended parted but the acting bug continued with the vigil tweeted: song working “In frontinofmodelling the crowd and on the grass, a r Gill’s“The threebeautiful young children acting forsang somealong extra cash. of candles illuminates a framed photo Queen of Castledergt of the kookaburra who to the stunning The next move for Gill was working as aofpaparazzi smiling young woman,” It’s a great pleasure this issue taking snaps of celebrities and royalty. Prince Charles to write a story and introduce a traditional Irish she wrote. Sunrise-watchi to Gill’s across the city wonderful, Irish (by choice), friend, music at the even introduced his bride Princess Diana at beaches mum! Sadly Gill was the first person in London to the lovely Gill Marseilles. vigil tonight for is a staple social activity fo lay flowers at Kensington Palace in tribute to the Formerly from England, now #AshlingMurphy lotsmany of Sydney’s Irish expa Princess following her tragic passing. For living in Castlederg, appropriate Perth’s Irish community – like many in Perth,”. It became years Gill and a friend collected signatures to havemore a popular for others this Queen of Irish and music in Australia across he fountain built in the Princesses honour.than ever during last year’ fandom. Gill works as a radio Similar events world –on came to playing hold a vigil It’s a greaa An interest in music and particularly Irish singer when outdoor lockdown, presenter Finntogether Valley FM selection t plea sure this issue of to writ e a story and intro (by choice), frien were staged d, duce a wonderful, the in the wake theand shocking love ly Gill Marseilles. Daniel O’Donnell her wellIrish encouraged Gill to use music from theof50’s 60’s asmurder well as American meetups were the only Formerly from Eng Australia, land across now living in Cas honed celebrity skills to promote both Daniel and for many of us of 23 and yearIrish old Tullamore Country music. Gillteacher presentation Irish music fandom. is, unique opportunity Gill works as a radi tlederg, appropriate for this Queen a selection of mus of ente r on Finn Vall ic fromincluding one at many young upcoming Irish singers. This love of Irish because also offers and reflections of o pres ey FM play Aislingshe Murphy whilememories she was Irish jogging ing music. Gill presenta the 50’s and 60’s as well as Ame living thousands of miles f rican Country and tion is unique bec reflections of her ause she music and Ireland itself, following her many visits in also herinexperiences with celebrities both in England and exp offe erie rs memories and nce the Amphitheatre s with celebrities both in It’s bee broad daylight in her home town n a life of of mixing with the England and in Irela our families, to see friends cele nd. briti this es extraordinary lady of movpromotion in Ireland. ie, music and roya of the singers, soon led Gill to make her the Lon Kangaroo lty for don of the fifties, Michael Cain’s dau . Inat Tullamore, Co. Offaly in January. young Gill did bab ghter and was a ysit Saturday’s clifftop gatherin penpal to Pauhome in Ireland. Without friends and family nearby l Ank a. It’s been a life of mixing with the of movie, With acelebrities job as a telephonistPoint, Brisbane “to remember her in Covent Garden Gill was eventually ‘adopted’isby Harvey Point’s Noel by far the biggest I’ve ever seen at office Gill met lady. and late music and royalty forpeople this extraordinary In the r wor and befriend Hundreds of Irish – atbox including king in a by theatre manywho housed a cafe whe celebritihave anded all died genderes.Cunningham The The re Gill says celebriti atre she workedand of course Gill has made many agedid es gathered to hea nts in the Bronte... The primary school teacher’s London of the Gill babysit Michael pre mobile era. r new families withfifties, youngyoung children, took part s Late from r in the their by the was working as a earlier dayfriends based violence”, organised s of Cor throughout the world, including myself, from telephonist onation in Regent Street Cain’s daughter and was a penpal Anka. tionsto at Granada TV field Street Gill to the murder has deeply shaken many of u now long -lived soap. ing the first in an evening time vigil andreacwalk atPaul her promotion of Irish music and attendance at Irish Australian Support Association Bein g at the fore With a job as a telephonist in Covent Garden and Sydney. The mood among those gath front of the ente rtainment industry concerts. Long may The Queen of Irish music reign in the Flame of Remembrance in rKings but afte seven years they Queensland. Gill A mar piece ried a written for her.ie parted company, s three you but the acting bug Greek actor later working in a theatre boxGill’ office andin ng child their candles ren wor continued with Castle-derg! - Reviewedwith by Paula Xiberras.on the hill this morn cash. modelling and her Park on January 19, organised byGill themet actingdescribed for some extra bykingAnna Rourke a sunrise is of sadness – and utter disbelief.” The nex t move for Gill was Claddagh Association andandsupported working as a pap roya araz - Reviewed by Paula Xiberras.
Queen of Castled erg by Paula Xiberras
lty. Prince Charles zi taking snaps of even introduced celebrities mum! Sadly Gill his bride Princes was the first pers s Diana to Gill’s on in Palace in tribute to the Princess follo London to lay flowers at Kensing ton wing her tragic pas sing. For many yea rs
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78 | THE IRISH SCENE
THE IRISH SCENE
Famine Commemoration
Famine Commemoration Subiaco May 21 2022
D.J. Gordon & Associates (WA) Pty Ltd
A C C O U N TA N T S & TAX A G E N T S SERVICES INCLUDE: • Income Tax Returns • Business & Instalment Activity Statements • Preparation & lodgement of objections to ATO assessments • GST and ABN registrations • Company Secretarial services • Bookkeeping
Myles Gordon LLB, FIPA
987 Wellington Street, West Perth WA 6005 Correspondence to: PO Box 480, West Perth WA 6872 E: djgordon@djgordon.net.au T: 08 9321 2266
THE IRISH SCENE | 79
BY NOEL O’ NEILL
H
e sits in my study on a feathered pillow and looks out. He watches the rain running down the window pane waiting for it to stop. When it does, he looks up at me, puts his paws on my lap and I recognize that familiar look of “Time for a walk”. So, I put on his harness and my coat, I place him on his bed in the front seat of my Ute and off we go to the park. I speak of course of my dog Shane, my little Shih Tzu Maltese. He’s five years old now and we have repeated this routine every winter’s day between showers. His colours are unusual for his breed. His back is coal black and his head and paws are snow white which give the appearance that he is wearing a black coat. I understand now why they call a dog a man’s best friend because an amount of trust has been established between us. He relies on me for food, shelter and companionship and I rely on him for unconditional love. You really have to own a dog to appreciate the feeling of being greeted at the door after a long absence. The wagging tail, the welcome home. When I speak to him (and I do often) I get the feeling he understands me. To be perfectly honest, when I have to go out somewhere I explain to him not only where I am going but what time I will be back and if that sounds crazy then I must confess that I apologise to him if I am late and the explanation goes something like, “I know I said half past ten and it’s now eleven o’clock but so and so had my ear and I couldn’t get away. You know how it is, well maybe you don’t but put yourself in my position for a minute…My monologues with this dog are endless. He even talks back to me. It’s a low fast little growl that I answer back in a low fast little growl and we come to some kind of an understanding that somehow never gets lost in translation. When it comes to meal time, it’s nothing but the best. No dog food for this little prince Boiled chunks of chicken breast with an added OXO chicken cube. Hand fed! When he’s had enough he turns his head and walks away. When it comes to stuffed toys, he has 80 | THE IRISH SCENE
more than the average child/ dog. There is a gorilla that is actually bigger than him that he playfully carries throughout the house. A longnecked duck that he nips at and plays with mostly after a good meal. There was a moose that was twice his size that he would leave out in the rain and sometimes drag it in soaking wet. Dog treats- Shane has more treats than a kid on Halloween. He has liver treats, chicken treats, rawhide chicken sticks etc, etc. At night at a certain time he tells me that it’s time to go to bed so I lift him up on my bed and he curls up and sleeps. I am awakened usually at dawn when he thinks I should get up. I am “pawed” awake. This wake- up ritual is followed by a face wash from his tongue. “Okay! Okay! I’m up! I just have to make a cup of coffee, get dressed and then we’ll take a drive to the park. Oh, wait a minute, it’s raining. Well don’t look at me like that I’m not the one who made it rain. Just sit there for a few minutes until it lets up. I’ll drink my coffee and by that time we should be okay…He sits in my study on a feathered pillow and looks out.
Irish Theatre Players
O
ur April season of “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” was well received by both our audiences and critics. There were many stunning performances and we must offer a huge thanks to the director Brendan Ellis, his hugely talented cast and crew. Next up is our One Act season of plays, opening on July 14th at 7.30pm and continuing for six performances. Our One Act Season focuses on giving first time actors, directors and stage crew the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience. We have “Dilate” a story of a heavily pregnant Marnie, wanting a home-birth who goes into labour with her sisters, Bec and Kirsten joining her for support. But when her overbearing mother and eccentric gran arrive on the scene we find out some family truths and it’s time to dilate in more ways than one. Local playwright Yvette Wall has delivered another hilarious comedy which will be directed by Dale James. We welcome Tadhg Lawrence who hails from the Garden of Ireland to the ITP family. Tadhg is directing Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter”. A tense story of two hired
assassins waiting for the call in the basement of a hotel. Their instructions are the same. But perhaps, this time something else has changed. Waiting, it seems, can feel like an eternity. “The Plan” is a new play by local playwright Seán Byrne and is directed by Stan O’Neill. While Stan is no stranger to ITP, having appeared in many productions, this is his first time directing. “The Plan” is a comedy about Marie, her daughter and Marie’s best friend, who sit down to write a funeral plan for Marie’s husband, who is not present and doesn’t get a say in the plans for his funeral. Performance dates for the One-Act season at the Irish Club in Subiaco are July 14, 15, 16, 21 and 22 @ 7.30pm. There is also a matinee performance on July 17 @ 2.00pm.
THE IRISH SCENE | 81
10yrs competitors at the Easter Feis.
15yrs & Over WA competitors at the Easter Feis.
Celtic Academy Dancers at the Easter Feis.
Dancers from the Kavanagh Studio at the Sweets of May Feis.
Dancers from the Kavanagh Studio at the Easter Feis.
82 | THE IRISH SCENE
O’Brien Academy dancers at the Sweets of May Feis.
Irish Dancing AIDA WA EXECUTIVE 2022 President: Teresa Fenton TCRG Vice President: Katherine McAndrew TCRG Secretary: Megan Cousins TCRG Treasurer: Martina O’Brien TCRG Registrar: Jenny O’Hare TCRG National Delegate: Siobhan Collis TCRG
SCHOOL CONTACTS: CELTIC ACADEMY East Victoria Park & Karragullen www.celticacademyperth.com Siobhan Collis TCRG 0403 211 941
Dancers from the O’Brien Academy at the Sweets of May Feis.
KAVANAGH STUDIO OF IRISH DANCE Mt Hawthorn www.kavanaghirishdance.com.au Teresa Fenton TCRG 0412 155 318 Deirdre McGorry TCRG Avril Grealish TCRG THE ACADEMY MID AMERICA & WESTERN AUSTRALIA Subiaco, Wangara & Pearsall Samantha McAleer TCRG Dhana Pitman TCRG
Dancers from the O’Brien Academy at the Sweets of May Feis.
Trinity Studio dancers at the Easter Feis.
Kalamunda Lara Upton ADCRG 0409 474 557 O’BRIEN ACADEMY Joondalup www.obrienacademy.com Rose O’Brien ADCRG 0437 002 355 Martina O’Brien TCRG 0423 932 866 O’HARE SCHOOL OF IRISH DANCING Doubleview, Wembley Downs & Craigie Jenny O’Hare TCRG 0422 273 596 SCOIL RINCE NA HEIREANN Rockingham irishdance@iinet.net.au Megan Cousins TCRG 0411 452 370 SCOIL RINCE NI BHAIRD Fremantle & Lynwood Tony Ward TCRG 0427 273 596
Celtic Academy Dancers at the Easter Feis.
Celtic Academy Dancers at the Sweets of May Feis.
Stephen Dawson MLC Minister for Emergency Services; Innovation and ICT; Medical Research; 12th Floor, Dumas House 2 Havelock Street, WEST PERTH WA 6005 Email: Minister.Dawson@dpc.wa.gov.au Telephone: (08) 6552-5800
TRINITY STUDIO OF IRISH DANCING Morley, Midland & South Lake trinitystudiowa@gmail.com Eileen Ashley ADCRG 0413 511 595 Katherine Travers TCRG Nell Taylor TCRG WA ACADEMY OF IRISH DANCING Malaga Glenalee Bromilow ADCRG 0410 584 051 Sue Hayes TMRF 0412 040 719
THE IRISH SCENE | 83
i g ww Startinof counting. Will I ever go back? Very unlikely. I probably have a better chance and I don’t even play that! Next on list great would betowhy aretherefusing to enter government DUP are refusing to enter government atat Stor here aremy so many topics write the DUPwhy about in July. We have the up-and-coming in Northern Ireland and the impact that Northern Ireland and the impact that isStormont having. Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and is having. how theagain N. Ireland team might That is not Well this topic isfare. very political. Those readers who are interested in this co Well again this topic is very political. Those readers Ulster you might say. You have a point! We have who are interested in this could well google it. the “Twelfth” July and all the history behind google it. ofThose readers who are not interested would stop reading this article r Those readers who are not interested would stop that. I have mentioned that before and although reading this article right here. So, what is left? the “atmosphere” nowadays has greatly improved, So, what is left? I will leave that topic behind as well. Over the last 15 years, I have always wanted last elections 15 years, I have always wanted to write an article include to write an article which included those which three WhatOver about the the recent in the province? Liam Ne You might well ask that question, but I am counties from “the South”, one of which is Actually three counties from “the South”, one of which is the most Northernly. Welcome reluctant to enter that area having not lived there the most Northernly. Welcome to Irish logic. Hollywo forlengthy some fortytime, years orImore After that lengthy I have found logic. After that have found one. Oftime, course, it willone. beOfcontentiou look up and still counting. Will course, it will be contentious but in a pleasantly I ever go way. back? pleasantly argumentatively argumentatively way. c
T
provin the infa Which personalities are the most famous from each county? OK, you can write peoplea oc Dem know which one or ones you might have chosen from the many possibilities. Be In CA alphabetically order. Well, why not. Didn’t they do that at every school? I alway Mullag rtai Next on my Allen was a great surname list and Zorkin was not. All right I never met anyone ce with award would be Very unlikely. I probably have a better chance of winning lotto and I don’t even play that!
surname. How about Young?
Which personalities are the most famous from each county? OK, you can write and let me know which one or ones you might have chosen from the many possibilities. Beginning in alphabetically order. Well, why not. Didn’t they do that at every school? I always thought Allen was a great surname and Zorkin was not. All right I never met anyone with that surname. How about Young?
that o Chan of sh Of co was men
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84 | THE IRISH SCENE
ith A
Ulster Rambles Starting with ANTRIM, I have chosen Liam Neeson.
Liam Neeson is one of our most famous Irish actors having starred in films such as Love Actually and Taken. Born in Ballymena, he has gone on to star alongside some of Hollywood’s ms such as Love having starred in fil Jammieou rs to ac is sh biggest names, including Mel Gibson and an Iri s ac to r from Holyw some of idealthough r mostDfa gs alon one of ou ood star tothe (not onup Best he was from eeson isAnthony ow ne Hopkins. You might like to look to go n. s be ha Yo he t lik u a, m ighed en ay have seen hi y Hopkins. Yoco mus u nf llym weithto in Ba Hollywoo ornia) in Co lifor on ken. Bornwith Belfast (near enough as m th Calif in Helen Mirren on the Graham An ,Ca d, d d th and Th o an y and Tainterview e o Fi on w ft bs y e Gi lly g. Sh To o el in H M ad gu ur tri ng is Belfast t innes w includi dpresent mbos ;would ieittrhilogy or morore recenina) se tlyininCo owto mes,most Atov fum show; intriguing. t. Graham Norton shwe ggest na e cosay). ood’s biNorton m e t r re o e o e FE th ce (n y th RM g nt on d in o ly en ilo in Belfast irr ANAGHfrisofa wo persthough lymy n aI dliveed len M okin heSh H movie tr on w sDornan m iew with He sdfoofr th rvARMAGH For I have chosen Paisley. o.rNotm ywJamie y ou act mNot ethis p the inte Fift anIan gr every is Pa ea ring ey t ia ie isl du in m ri an n te Ja ici Ia popular with the im lit r h O en po l sc n os e ar ch rs se Wilde. have when I livedoin kind theyprovince, H Iperson controve h AGof as ahe For ARM aras.veHe wbut . Yer uyears. Iriilsh masses. thmeaye de. ow nov rW seemed to mellow over the melDlo ost well-knowan
e m writer Osc e of th he seemed to st d was on ouri ce, but He e greaistun or. d) anthe hgethTat w th T r e d Jamie from n fo a s was a controversial politician during in r of th u us o r fo m rry fast known as the fo andeactor GHisisbe Troubles (so ANsAhe M amous infamous Rrh Holywood (not to be FE ap Troubles (sorry for using that word) Pe . et an pl this on of timeone his was confused with Hollywood, California) the most well-known Irish people e duringand as born in ). UPthis who wYou torDown. rty acCo Pa Ja ie isinan sh st Iri in may have the Fifty s ioni his time(Don ou during planet. .Perhaps he is best m ed fa r cratic Un ac he totor fr confHus ’t seenmhim beom yrne Anot werenor Br (not u O’ yo olmyw n (if ia or lywooind Belfast Br Hon. TV ed Shades movie trilogy more recently A ct m le FT D known as the founder of the Democratic Unionist fro o r ow BA a to es ac on ad w Yo an Sh is u He ty . ie AVAN I have se m mn Arts e Fif Jaio have seen h to Virginia him in thay se en vis clo le se ite and The Tourist. Te ve qu d ha Party (DUP). n an w ay m to m Fil and The Touris wn. You gh, a small Irish t. British Academy of FERMANAGH Do of) aO’Bryrne. c ist.the great writer eOscar eviationBrian is famous abbr In CAVAN Ian have selected Another The Tourfor great writer Os d as an w r th at th FE t s foA ha ouRM . m ue fa in w Bl N is y A m H Bo G fro AG H tle e is AN Lit ar s born in Mullagh, a famous Wilde. Oscar isuregarded FERM as one of serie Y If yo famous actor was amawho DERR the dr role inIrish Y or LONDON RRwon d for hissmall n for DE r so la the most influential writers ck pu Ja Irish town quite close to Virginia. He po e ica Th on . M rls eGi oirs past Sa sitcom DeinrryIrish history. He tismknown I can’t goBAFTA m thethat ss frowhat TV or (if you certain lead actre chosenaLirs Sorry, no y kind theweren’t is e me. Sh e fahis n. am sio ldwidfor ua or N w eeson. epigrams, his novel to s was an abbreviation of) a British Academy of Film ar other pe -st co and her four her award The Picture of Dorian Gray, propelledArts and for his role in the drama owTelevision nnel 4 sh He ern Ireland. of North circumstances his rry,the Blue. deand on nd Lo Oscar n, so w how. series Little Boy is da re as stle ga 6) laws Caas (200to rnrdined aí bo ch imprisonment due as on an w Se e ey d of an an th He 3) e I can’t mos (2t00 amusgo past epigrams, his no (2013)Jam anild act inmflu or fro ourse Se , Byiee-isCh Hol enyw tial oodw (no t to against homosexuality. rite rs be own for edstwith Hollywood, Cal in con Irisfus Pi n. ur known for Stay vel TheDow Saoirse-Monica is kn h hi e nia You maD e of . Hifor y hav orIr ry y.isHhehis ) in Co oriae nseeGnrahim to is in the a writer and actor,due to laws against and ct kn Fift ya y ow Sha y, En des . an n in mo re fo d vie he rs sonm of the people r hi th trilogy or more recfent ceneticiafamous Jackson for DERRY prifas homosThe oimost rite . or Tou ch rc lw um exEn vioous stan obOne ua insBel litrist cecrcs uofm t y.is. anth in my last articOlene ceprs isoonhislyim ya influehas n a st hi so st , s ntionedLONDONDERRY ty lti im m of Ce un e n th from Ireland got to be Ardal Co l er e ci FER f If you ica od m MA e o isn fam my, and th ment gra neGH rin oNA sop ous on been a mus ostrefagm a ou foree s pi d r the ay s e fo w pe gre al G at rd s wri a ow n ha ter le a kn ac L Osc , ri fr GA to ar an o om Wil r best kn D lode. O’Hanlon. Ardal is an best known as Dougal DONE are from that other Irel musici The Picture ofan sc Irish so ,asanDdou g actor al ritaer nr is wow -se besstgo t llin r, songO to be l Ag isy.thde ha ve ya Mw Ardal O’Han nolNe ’Hanlon. Ard cG e",frEn uire lO nan is a sin hisga siShe aA McGuire from sitcom Father s, tcge rd om m persuasion. is the A om ra ricia Bren lo e of M lit b ig si n. en y a p tc H ue e to om xu rd er e t "Q al rr Fatherela go isean mo.se Ted. He also aes al inencotiaml w ed as thoe whichwra hoU2 rdthe dinhHcomedy dflu stnd ga in abe om Ir Tend. starred usic. DRe angl fr 20 so st o estmaos from s m ls in o 00 ge mactress t ea a fr la ar hi to e th in re le H to 20 p . d d New-alead al th o e d 06 in Pa er e u e of . p d ov co T e ra M g well as ost famous sitcom My dillin medey mnain errded as on se as ro, le thga re which an nd best-se om ly ran from isplre co rFa tcOs he seils Derry Girls. ca Eamonn in Der uireorfreHero dha ay omcesint edofthDoria Gray ed ur story, an pPila ctye th e of the m eeai from the Coun Onty ist in hisitcom m Th lh ry cG tl veye n gi n M no ro rl l r s ce s a le e hi g an se re s, st in u oo m d a o 2000 to 2006. More recently he re ch ra la m D ig o st to of The popular Channel y.epM asHAN. MoOwNnAG as himself ai m ua 06ly iny.Task land lf lit 20an osex sete he tomain taho ed in 0. So im est kn Of nsTa as 0the bi r tbob sskhmm 20re ag ous an sla th w ct m ly se, aIam e Ire la as o st or r m to fr m played role in Death in ea e fro m r. n ly (n d du le 4 show propelledcour H ab st ra n e op a lfa h in pe pr clyud ic r. irls O ous gBe whlfe f, I sc asDfro ar ost famrd eeroa go errym mys henwin NOpe m thefour th M H m sitco CO DO One of omsh steDllalarathre n el m Paradise as well as Eamonn ines.mis regaug tc re efroof Be Chamsito asuion Clo Enagh fam herW co-stars g fro arnke sou inou orisge e McG se pi Hm Ge20 om aled askn on is sher r. be m Irm eth an e ay w Do isand th m s ip h acto olf20 Ir as d a is ith n in an l gto e h w ep a00 r ow pr oy la n rs ig d 11 cIr of pu ra io 06e. M st ha ra M es , m po ss be a re vi ry si r no s, . ry P ng fe pr on Ro to ve N hi nin es ac e, ro Derry Girls and lastly as himself is A al st s pl pl 20 p en H no ar go an th ay worldwide fame. Sorry, not my kind of show. m h am G re a rnof MOteNdAEurope in th ve ing capt ishichlferar.n H exha fro de nthin Do ym D . Fo mie filou e lwTh Ja.ch omen m a,rhe is anroIrw nedgiow gh s su one Pi arry edu s ur rkmrfrom 20 n s gone enaitin M Csitlaco oarure De Loty de inect een Ry e CDas . At ony)to CuyepHeto uEap th inrn Taskmaster. hails laemw m5ontinm DarrHe sa nvewasdbo 5di syd r. om16 stpr asCns ag ti e ould ar es frborn w lf elelrai e R o al w es ils w g on Of course Seamus Heaney was in a as an t a h ud ho gs se th d in e id ugghMas m w in ra D e u noin os as un Pa e so E.lit exNua p One thTeN. el Gibson and m , of incl the County ga h in ro atCO Eu ondDe YRO in MONAGHAN. I mustHe TYHA nte NAG UmNthTYenCo senn U of of urseeIreland. OON ty CM preof th co un If A Londonderry, Northern TY f re e in ny yontuho , O RO m n 1 H Cl os o 1 N op fe n 0 t en E. el 2 ki fa MirrenCastledawson, rr fro a ns in m Da g in ils cl ou . n r. ha in D ined, wYo uatogolfer. ip s peop on th u (2013), ndsh igLl ht rn ac pio clude a golfe Glik raeha t inow course, Iw must Darren atom r be ean as boinclude tod teOf ae writer and actor, known for Byeoylik stus ,Im nriCtehm n kn eStay or e urse mm p ted E to co rr osN O en n a n Of es t e sh D in ll as pr th ow hi re . yo D , n Ian Pawas m 6 ou ur ; 11 1 m Co bri os 20 Clarke ab outIrish in 20 the lM lecG untyas ip won isley.(2003) yourprofessional sh trriig ind.in .yiOtnmentioned ewce is an golfer. He pion taan sien Nan rin ch pteui tcfoom Child (2006) in otdmand am ng r thnga Ch fo ce gwca y en ehi M as bornu kiSeanchaí nd ruth la theoiOp vote fo m er ofyo chbr e yai -p ooitic rle ce Darre peur w unH tion onoi . yo rsnon r theChampionship yo 16 ch w overmy t 20 ra y w in o ce u2r n he b ch fr le u a n vo Open in 2011, represented Europe pt Osc om thelast br I ca fa ar liv ce im it g is y y reg yeararticle. h in ed s rl ard yollunopa in the ne ay ed inxt pl te as n-D tharinlyPa thed e itone of the mo e swm rtea ndtial rticwula als.wHay icIris asaya yo ul p. aIas ra inflauen uurse ostyd cour Ll yo iorin. ntro wri vo.di tyfa to terseand U ri ve ince using thDONEGAL te nt b epi in the Ryder Cup 5 times was the non-playing el rs gra il h le hist l w ms ia w th G as ory , , ill in l his od te en po d He Ea r nov d tr at word) anhas e is go el ha lit y an m kno th ve The in ic r wn yd wuithfe a musical County, tehis lloJ hails fo a gothe innclduring Picture ofteDor hafor yo te el ia fr od d walways u. ritoedtowLlo om Grave wuha d vo y,Darren d, oun as onebeen and th gw yo esin te aCo cli Ifosdue circ in ve um ve rility inanian el of thehere. to law captain 2016. was born in Dungannon rne sta a fe w nce h ty s against r Ju of net. Perh n yo of O his vo ly e m If . imp dent hom M an th riso ty an ose O l t n d e nm soap Enya is an obvious choice Enya Patricia NAteGfoH xua ti w u as rit n el o w . l-k s he is best know no urwCn Irish in COUNTY ty. Or yo ition. Ue mosOt finco Co,un d in e urse ur st yo On xt o e TYRONE. e of on. n the m I m mo n e e ed us st as th fam lik xt t in lik the foand Brennan is a singer, songwriter, s inpeople from Ireland has theclne ude a iti un oiceous demusician, golf oices in roof ch r ch got th ur thuewn to acteor etoen yoCh yo benn OLloyd Ard bes n pe tio alam t kno O’H ti anl m n as on. d Dou . Ard an m gal u al If you feel inclined, write and tell him u. Mc is pi d an yo Gui yo n known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age on re from sitcom Father Ted a sitcom ship in 2011, re O’Bryrne. Ano witvihd Mac d go with o Da Gosta d gran oich Connell your . He G no m Her uro Enya th scelebrity rre wh er famouas aynyo d in play w yAge”, comedy althe ay from 200 inalso about your for like most maMy gelyou Regarded of ca 0 tochoice s Irthe ysNew aho pt 2006. Mo ish “Queen ai lw n a ac l re in rec to ent ose to Vmusic. Dea r nn ly w th he in Co pla Par yed w thecelebrity se Mac as boadi as well as main 20 ginibest-selling role16 a. He won aIrish in. Darre rn David inEam your County. Or write and vote for the onn in in isirthe solo artist in history, and Der ry girl s and BA last ly as himself in Taskmast FTA TV or hai ls from the County of MO ion of) asecond (if er. He you weren’t NAparticularly GHAN. Britishbest-selling you favour. I will tryu and your behind U2. If yo Academy ofoverall feel mention course, I must include a inhave clined Film and TeleOf ,good es Little Boy Bl w golfer.inDar rite to Lloy choices the next edition. Until then a ren vi Cla si rke on lik is an A e Irisos rtsionship in 201 m Comingue from I am probably h pro Open . CO DOWN myself,the Champ t infesyo sion alCo gol fer. ur He 1, repres un ent ty whatever in July and as always may your God go a Jacksomore ed . Europe Owo r wn rite a n for D Rydtier Cup 5 times and wa than biased So manynon to-pla choose from. anindthe ying cap ERRY tain in 2016. Darren wa men or LOhere. on s the yo N ur s D bor with you. O n ch in N Dun oi D gan ER ce d actresFor non in COUNTY TYRONE. s in the nex If youGeorge McIroy andRY maybe s frexample, ar al om the siRory w e DAVID MACCONNELL ay fr om s m ay tc om Derry Girls your God go w you feel inclined, write to er four co-stars . TheIf po ith you. Lloyd and tell him about pular to worldwide fa your choice for the cele most in you r Cou nty me. Solike brity you . Or write and vote for the rr y, no tm celebrit y kirnd and mentio y youIRISH particuSCENE n you THE larly favour|. I 85 choices in the next edition will try in Castledawso . Until then have a good always may your God go whatever in n, Lo
Bill Daly Originally from Tallow in West Waterford, Bill spent 30 years in Cork as a Senior Manager in the Electronics Manufacturing industry with such companies as Apple, EMC and Logitech. He has now been working on his own as a Consultant/Contractor for the past 20 years in Lean Manufacturing and Materials principles. Bill has been resident in Oughterard since 2009, and for the past few years, working as a Local Archaeologist, has been undertaking a project with the Oughterard Heritage Group to research the prehistoric roots of the village.
Bill Daly
The West Waterford Word Weavers T
Originally from Tallow in West Waterford, Bill spent 30 years in Cork as a Senior Manager in the Electronics Manufacturing industry with such companies as Apple, EMC and Logitech.
27th October 1956
ion Rural Electrificat
tive visit An ESB representa lwaterm Ki – re the Knockano st we pa e th g rin district du inin rta ce as of e os rp the pu llin wi ts number of residen ca rifi ct ele l ra avail of the ru tio en m e ov ab s ct the distri carried An earlier canvass tisfacto sa was reported as out, it ed int previously po ail of t av to all of interests installe to have electricity ilding bu homes and farm t occ no ay m opportunity
He has now been working on his own as a Consultant/Contractor for the past 20 years in Lean Manufacturing and Materials principles. Bill has been resident in Oughterard since 2009, and for the past few years, working as a Local Archaeologist, has been undertaking a project with the Oughterard Heritage Group to research the prehistoric roots of the village. his is a nostalgic tribute to Willie Neville and John Parker – our great local Reporters for The Dungarvan Leader, a regional newspaper in County Waterford since 1938. Both Willie and John have gone to their eternal reward, and I would like to remember them in this article for their great contributions in keeping the people of the parishes updated through news items that were sometimes serious and at other times humorous. At all times they were very professional writers and we should be proud to have known them, and also because they lived amongst us during good and bad times in our recent history.
I didn’t know Willie very well as he was beginning to become elderly and his eyesight was failing when I was a young boy. I remember him as a kind looking man whom we used to meet on our walk to Kilwatermoy Mass each Sunday. He was also the Hon. Secretary for the Shamrocks Hurling Club when it was formed in 1953. I came to know John quite well and he lived just a little bit up the road from us, and he got me interested in writing at an early age. Both Willie and John were extremely intelligent and brilliant local Correspondents and if grants for Secondary and Third Level education had been available in their time, I have no doubt but they would have had very successful careers and different lives. The following extracts are just a small selection of their reports taken from the archives of The Dungarvan Leader from 1943 to 1968, and they are really just the tip of the iceberg. Willie would mostly have reported in the 1940’s and 1950’s and John in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
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44 uary 19 1st Jan
oy Chr m r e t a A Kilw ere c
ses w as Mas nci Christm oy comme m r e large Kilwat ded by roa n e t t a were m app of who Commu many ly ive Ho rt to rece all ove e wher s e ls e e h t s f a o indful were m by millions i d endure ry altar on C e v e m o fr ffered were o s r praye livera safe de ing for the ss le r the b . The and fo ld r rn wo o t r a wa w as Day Christm g-like. rin and sp
30th May 19 64
Postman In d
Mr. Patrick Tierne who is on th e out of Tallow Po st Offi present ind ispose Ardkeen Ho spital, We wish Pad dy, w general favo urite, a recovery.
n
ted moy eek for ng the ng to ation in oned. out ory. As is in the this chance ed in their gs. The cur again.
s ristma
t ated a celebr ’clock and 9o ing at ns, egatio r g e con ar rails the alt rish, ached this pa In . n io un eople ntry, p e being u o c e th t ar gs tha sufferin nds, and so r la ing, in othe s morn eace a m t is Chr e of P e Princ rald Isle, d to th e m f our E ance o ce to a ea gs of p r on he t a e ew ild tifully m u a e as b
disposed
ey, Lismore , tdoor staff fice is at ed and is in , Waterford . who is a a speedy
The West Waterford Word Weavers 4th June 1955
Ballymote Pump
ter llymote to supply the wa pump was erected at Ba a o ved ag rs pro yea ver o ne tw t mp ou Ab from the pu of that area. The water tter. The needs of the residents been made on the ma ve ha s ort rep ain ag e tim d an the e mp Tim satisfactory. yee is sent to pu a County Council emplo t tha is g – and ted tin op tes ad for ure proced water is taken , then a sample of the urs ho six to e fiv for . ter wa fit for use cludes that the water is d as invariably the report con next day it is just as ba the a go for the water are the of for le ter op wa pe ing the When remain pump with any business to do refore ever. And can anybody y be corroded and the ma mp pu the d nte Gra y? da ry to eve may happen any five to six hours for a few minutes, this ed mp pu be to pe ve ha y the water ma with iron rust. Let us ho Ballymote Pump is red the ter m wa fro ng ter usi wa e are Th . pump t the residents before the streams tha ne ta do no – be l ote wil llym ing Ba eth at som mp that is needed pu a is it all, er Aft . up from start drying monument.
6th January 1962
Post Office Staff did a Great Job We wish to congratulate the officials and outdoor staff of Tallow Post Office for their expeditious handling of a very heavy mail over the Christmas season. Whilst this is so, we wonder why the Department of Posts & Telegraphs does not employ extra outdoor staff for the pre – Christmas delivery of letters and parcels. It is a sad reflection on a Government Department in this day and age to see their employees endeavouring to push a heavy tyre cycle, laden with a cart load of mail and parcels, for a distance of eleven miles over rough country roads and boreens. Surely the Department is not so woe bygone that they could not afford a van delivery of at least parcels for the week before Christmas and thereby ease the lot of the unhappy postman.
30th Januar y
1943
Presentatio n to ex – NT
Mr. Con Cro nin, Ballinve lla, was rece presentatio ntly the reci n from the pient of a lo past and pre on the occas vely sent pupils ion of his re of the Knock cent retirem presentatio anore Paris ent from Kn n included h ockanore S a chiming cl has been th chool. The ock and a se e Principal t o Te f cu ac tlery. Mr. Cro long period her for over he had end nin thirty years eared himse and during efficient an lf that to d painstakin yo u n g an d old alike. g, he was b of his retire Courteous, eloved by h ment was re is pupils, an ceived with Knockanore d the news feelings of d alone, but al eep regret, l over the D ocean wide. not in ecies, as wel Where ever l as far acro a pupil of fo opportunity ss the rm er days resi of wishing h des – they h im many ye well – merit ave this ars of healt ed retiremen h and happ t. iness in his
The West Waterford Word Weavers 10th Septem ber 1960
This Week’s Story
Doctor: I’ve examined yo u quite thoro ughly Jim an dI can’t find an y case for yo ur illness. How ever, it mig ht be due to drinki ng. Jim: Well I ca n understan d that all righ t Doctor, I’ll come back some other time when you’re sober .
1st January 1944
New Tenants
During the past few recently weeks the houses Ballymote e th on d complete divided Estate, which was re some time ago, we w tenants. ne e occupied by th ty ar he a em We bid th t and ids m r ou to e m welco ings, uld wish the Allen’s, Go y er ev ’s bin Keanes and To the in y rit pe os pr d success an years ahead.
I
hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane, and it has certainly brought back memories for me also. Michael O’ Connor, or ‘Mickeen’ as he was affectionately known was one of our neighbours, a gentleman and a true character – and if anybody would have brought a hunting horn to Croke Park, it would have been Mickeen. Paddy Tierney was a very intelligent Postman who also spoke fluent Irish, and will we ever forget how he would have to be driven around on Christmas Eve after partaking of one too many ‘drops’ on his bicycle round. We take electricity for granted now and people of my generation have never known what it was like to be fuelled by candles and oil lamps. It was also interesting to see how the provision of a telephone line in the parish was newsworthy, especially when we consider where we are today in the digital age. I remember drawing water from
88 | THE IRISH SCENE
13th January 1968
Shamrocks GAA Club AG M
The Annual General Meetin g of Shamrocks GAA Club wa s held in Our Lady of the Wayside Hall in Kilwatermoy last Sunday . There was a fairly large attendance. Rev. Charles Scanlon CC, Chairman, pre sided and welcomed all present. Fr. Scanlon said he intended to form a sch ool team in the United Parishes and this was commended by all presen t. Other matters discussed were the changing of the colours of the jerseys from green to white with a green shamrock on the breast. This was agreed to. Mr. James Tob in, Treasurer, gave a detailed account of the expenditure of the Club during the year which amounted to £79 – 5 -6, leaving a small balance on hand.
the Ballymote Pump when I was a young boy and the water quality seemed fine, pressure from Willie Neville’s words may have got them to fix it eventually. I was a member of Fr. Scanlon’s first school team in 1968. We were only young lads of 11 or 12 and we had to wear the one and only set of jerseys of the ‘big men’ folded and wrapped around us, still mud stained and bloodied from their battle on the previous Sunday! Both John and Willie would have liked to be around now as the Parish Magazine has become an annual and very popular publication, and how they would have loved to weave their words once more by way of contribution. They would also be delighted that the writing tradition is being kept very much alive in the parishes and will continue for many years to come. Ar Dheis De go raibh a n-Anamacha Dilis
Darkness into Light
O
n Saturday 7th of May, the Pieta Darkness into Light walk returned to Sir James Mitchell Park after a two year pandemic break. The morning was a comfortable and dry 12 degrees and the sunrise put on a beautiful display of vibrant purple and orange colours over a calm Swan River. Darkness into Light is the Irish suicide prevention charity’s flagship fundraising event each year, involving tens of thousands of supporters in Ireland and around the globe symbolically walking 5km from darkness into light. It started with approximately 400 people walking the 5km course
in Dublin’s Phoenix Park in 2009 and has grown to become an international event with 200,000 people participating in 2019. There was over 24 International locations with over forty international partner charities this year including the local charity partner, The Claddagh Association. A crowd of over 600 people gathered in Perth in darkness at sunrise and continued through to dawn to symbolise the journey from despair to hope. The emotion of the morning was clear to be seen as many a tear was shed as the participants crossed the start line.
THE IRISH SCENE | 89
Darkness into light Darkness into Light is vital for fundraising, for raising awareness and for bringing people together across the globe in the spirit of solidarity, comfort and compassion. Pieta provides free counselling to those who are engaging in self-harm or have suicidal thoughts and provide free bereavement services to those who have been touched by suicide. The funds raised from Darkness into Light will be felt not just by Pieta clients but also by the people supported by the charity partners working in the area of mental health globally. The need for public support is greater than ever especially now when so many people are feeling anxious after prolonged periods of isolation. The Claddagh Association is the 2022 charity
90 | THE IRISH SCENE
partner for the three Australian locations, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The Claddagh Association has been offering support to the local community since 1997. They offer crisis care and support, promote wellbeing as well as financial assistance to people experiencing hardship. They have been supportive of the Perth committee in running successful walks each year including previously providing free Mental Health First Aid training to the committee. Thank you to all participants for their valued ongoing support, the generous sponsors, the amazing volunteers and the hardworking committee for hosting a truly wonderful symbolic event. More information at www.darknessintolight.com
THE FOURTH TUESDAY BOOK CLUB BOOK CLUB THE FOURTH TUESDAY fourthofTuesday of thewith month, with exception of December. At 7.30pm Meets fourthMeets Tuesday the month, exception of December. At 7.30pm May 24 ‘Phosphorescence’ by Julia Baird, to be presented by Trish Dooey July 26 To be most members may be out of the state on holidays June 28 confirmed TBA as to be presented by Cecilia Bray Venue Irish Club Committee Room, 61 Townshend Road, Subiaco Aug 23 To be confirmed Admission Free. All welcome. Light refreshments provided. Tea and coffee from the Bar $2 Venue Irish Club Committee 61 Townshend Road, Subiaco Contact Convener Room, Mary Purcell, m.purcell@telstra.com Admission Free. All welcome. Light refreshments provided. Tea and coffee from the Bar $2 Contact BLOOMSDAY Convener Mary -Purcell, m.purcell@telstra.com James Joyce Literary Competition presentations
Mary Durack Memorial Lecture Launched in 1995 the annual Mary Durack Memorial Lecture honours the pioneering work in Australia on many fronts by the Durack family and our founding member and first patron Dame Mary Durack AC DBE Australian author and historian, (1913 - 1994). This year’s lecture will be delivered by Patsy Millet, writer, journalist and archivist, daughter of Dame Mary Durack. The Subject is ‘The Irish Partners – Connor and Doherty’. The story of the two men who became the partners in To mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, the AIHA will hold a celebratory event on the firm of CD&D –thcattle agents andworld-wide more to as theBloomsday, Kimberley.after Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. At the event, the , officially known June 16 Patsy Millet shortlisted recently published “Inseparable Elements. DameasMary Durack: A Daughter’s Perspective”, Fremantle Press, entries from our competition will be staged readings, drama, music and visual presentations by solo or groups. overall winneron willrequest be chosen by popular vote on the night and will receive a cash 2021. A review is included onThe flyer, available prize. Venue Irish Club We thank our Theatre adjudicators Frank Murphy and Frances Devlin-Glass Date Sunday 14 August at 3pm. $20/$15 members. Bookings available from July Thursday June 16 atQ&A 7.30pm Includes Date Irish afternoon tea, moderated segment open to the audience Venue Admission Prizes Bookings
Irish Club Theatre, 61 Townshend Road, Subiaco (to be confirmed) AIHA members $20, Non-members $25, includes light refreshments Best Edwardian dressed male or female. Plus special Irish raffle
https://www.trybooking.com/BZAVU
AIHA Website Check our website https://irishheritage.com.au/news-blog/ for a selection of exclusive interviews conducted by committee member Gill Kenny and other articles of note. If you click on the interview with Aine Tyrrell you will arrive at our YouTube channel. Aine is really interesting - victim of domestic violence, successful singer, living in a bus and rearing 3 children. She has great perspectives on life and had a real Irish chat with Gill. Easter Monday Annual Catalpa Commemoration was professionally videod this year. The link will Check our website https://irishheritage.com.au/news-blog/ for a selection of exclusive interviews conducted by commitbe on our website as soon as available. Gilland andother Patricia Brattonoffor this new tee memberWe Gillthank Kenny articles note. You member can viewfeature. this year’s Easter Monday Annual Catalpa Commemora-
AIHA Website
tion which wasThe professionally videod. Check out our Irish Heritage Trail under About/Heritage Trail. It is split into North JOURNAL and South ofMembers the Swan river. You can identify the location of 18 sites on the maps and by clicking the arrows on the of AIHA receive 4 editions of the Journal each year. Latest edition for March 2022, Vol 31, No 1 is bottom left of the maps read a summary of theofrelevance and of index each of site. available. Weyou nowcan have a library of 30 years Journal and areimportance compiling an every article title, author and subject detail to be made available on our website from May this year. We anticipate almost 2,000 titles in the index. Contributors can email editor Julie Breathnach-Banwait on journal@irishheritage.com.au ofNon-members AIHA receivecan 4 editions the Journal purchaseofcopies at $10 each year. We have now compiled an index of over 2,000 articles
The JOURNAL
Members from 30 years of Association Journals by article title, author, subject and editor. This data has a search feature and will be Up shortly. Contributors can email editor Julie Breathnach-Banwait on journal@irishheritage. made availableComing on our website Annual Mary Durack lecture to be delivered by Patsy Millet, daughter of Dame Mary Durack, AC DBE com.au Non-members can purchase copies at -$10 . Date is subject to confirmation by Irish Club in July or August Australian author and historian, (1913 1994).
Coming Up Planning and Review session Saturday 9 July. We welcome input and ideas Illustrated Talk on Irish Famine Orphan Girls, details being confirmed
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL Due 1 January, 2022 Family membership $65 Concession (Centrelink and unwaged students with ID) $55 Distant (200 kms from Perth) $45 Membership fee includes tax deductible donation of $20 Members enjoy discounted rates to dinners and functions, exclusive events, quarterly Journal, voting rights, and opportunities to participate in activities which promote an awareness of Australia’s Irish Heritage 90-page Journal publication is issued free to members quarterly and available for purchase at $10. Non Political-Non Sectarian-Emphatically Australian PO Box 1583 Subiaco 6904. Tel: 08 9345 3530. Secretary: 08 9367 6026 Email: secretary@irishheritage.com.au or admin@irishheritage.com.au mailto:aiha@irishheritage.net Web Page: https://irishheritage.com.au/. Look us up on Facebook
@GAAINWA
GAAWA Irish Scene Report July/August 2022
O
n April 1st last, our newest Club Na Fianna Catalpa GAA played the Mandurah Makos AFL Club in an International Rules scratch match in Mandurah. The match was a well contested affair and Na Fianna wish to express their thanks to Mandurah Makos for the game and their hospitality off the field on the night which included presentations in the club house. The 23rd of April saw the running of the annual GAA WA 7’s competition for the Tim Hickey and Neil McCague Trophy’s. A beautiful sunny day saw a huge crowd show up to RA Cooke Reserve eagerly anticipating some great 7’s hurling and football action after an absence of 3 years. After some massive battles St Finbarrs carried off the Men’s & Ladies Football titles while Sarsfields emerged victorious in the Hurling and Western Swans in the Camogie. The Executive of GAAWA wishes to express their sincere thanks to the Hurling & Football Sub-committees for all their efforts in making the 2022 7’s a massive success. Early May saw a visit from the Australasian GAA Secretary Gerard Roe and Coaching Director Glen Carpenter who led a refereeing and underage coaching course in Leederville & Tom Bateman Reserve. Both courses were heavily supported by all our Clubs and Junior Academy. A big thank you to all those involved in facilitating the running of the courses. At Australasian Convention in March 2022 Gerard announced his retirement as Australasian GAA Secretary after 38 years in
92 | THE IRISH SCENE
the role. Western Australia made a presentation to Gerard in recognition of his service to the Association while he was in Perth and wish him a long and happy retirement. As I write this both the Hurling, Camogie and Football leagues are in full swing. Saturday June 18th sees the 2022 Hurling League Final take place between Sarsfields & Perth Shamrocks. Western Swans face off against St Gabriels in the Camogie decider. Both matches take place in RA Cooke Reserve followed by a Race Night in aid of Western Australia Hurling in the Mighty Quinn Tavern. Like and follow all our GAA WA Clubs to keep up with all the goings on in Hurling and Football across the State. Finally, on behalf of our President John Whelahan and everyone involved in GAA WA can we extend our best wishes and thanks to all those people who are moving back to Ireland from Western Australia. In particular can we make a special mention of our outgoing Vice-President Alan Burke & Public Relations Officer Sarah Donnelly as they head back to Mayo & Tyrone respectively. Both Alan & Sarah have made a huge contribution to Gaelic Games in Western Australia on and off the field and we wish them both and their families all the very best and our sincere thanks. Tom Murphy Secretary GAA WA
GAAWA
CLUB DETAILS FOOTBALL CLUBS GREENWOOD Mens Senior Football greenwoodgfc@hotmail.com
MORLEY GAELS Mens & Ladies Senior Football morleygaelsgfc@hotmail.com
SOUTHERN DISTRICTS Mens & Ladies Senior Football southerndistrictsgaa@gmail.com
ST. FINBARR’S Mens & Ladies Senior Football stfinbarrsgfc@outlook.com
WESTERN SHAMROCKS Mens & Ladies Senior Football westernshamrocks@hotmail.com
HURLING CLUBS ST. GABRIEL’S Mens & Ladies Senior Hurling & Camogie stgabrielsperth@gmail.com
WESTERN SWANS Mens & Ladies Senior Hurling & Camogie westernswansgaa@gmail.com
PERTH SHAMROCKS Mens Senior Hurling perthshamrocks@gmail.com
SARSFIELDS Mens Senior Hurling
sarshurlingperth@gmail.com
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Tom Bateman Reserve Corner Bannister & Nicholson Rds (entrance off Wilfred Rd) Canning Vale
THE IRISH SCENE | 93
W
ith the senior competitions in full swing we’re planning the season ahead for the Junior Academy. With the new junior season, parents in Perth will have options with the very welcome addition of Na Fianna Catalpa and their junior training. The two clubs will aim to run the season over a similar timeframe with Na Fianna in Rockingham and the Junior Academy in Claremont (at JohnXIII playing fields as per last year). We’re all looking forward to some competitive games between the ‘neighbouring parishes’ and hopefully the start of a friendly rivalry. The Junior Academy season will run from the second half of August to the end of November. This format worked well last year, largely avoiding the Auskick and Nippers seasons (although there was a bit of inevitable overlap). A strong focus this year for the academy will be the development of our girls’ teams with a separate come and try day for the over 6s and current plans for girls training alongside but separate to the boys. This is in response to feedback from girls and families about last years’ experience.
skills transfer that gaelic football provides for AFL. Similarly, more than one parent has commented on the benefit of hurling and camogie to sports such as cricket, floorball and hockey.
Our annual Jim Stynes compromise rules tournament will take place in October in Joondalup. Again, building on the successful introduction of a girls’ competition last year, we hope to expand this over the next few years to have equal numbers of girls’ and boys’ teams in the future. The success of the Junior Academy team over the years has confirmed the excellent
We will have information and updates on our facebook page GGJA of WA. Please feel free to contact us via the page with any queries or suggestions. We are always delighted to welcome any new coaches or volunteers. If anyone is interested please message us early as we will have to arrange Working With Children checks before the season starts.
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Our season will wrap up with our second WA Scor competition. Following last years inaugural event, we hope to see some more competitors showcase their cultural talents. If you as much as whistle a tune at training, you may well be signed up, whether under protest or not. This will take place around the first weekend in December and we look forward to the continuing support from Comhaltas Perth, the Torc Ceili Club and the various dancing schools and musicians who participated last year. In the new year the Australasian GAA have arranged a Junior Feile to be held in Adelaide. Together with Na Fianna we hope to enter girls and boys teams from under 8 upwards to participate in what will be a landmark event for the Academy. As the season progresses we will have more information and a clearer picture of team makeup and format.
facebook.com/ggjawa Call/text: 0415 048 425 Email: infoggjunioracademy@gmail.com ggjunioracademy@gmail.com Web: ggjaofwa.teamapp.com SPONSORED BY
THE IRISH SCENE | 95
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