A recorded history of Australia’s ‘Irish’ PMs BY LLOYD GORMAN
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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
