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.
46 | THE IRISH SCENE
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
