From Linda Dowling Almeida
"Almeida, Ed (Exchange)"
Subject: Irish-Australian fiction

Dear Colleagues,
Can anyone recommend a few titles of 20th century Irish-Australian fiction?
I'd like to introduce and/or compare some of the Irish ethnic literature of
Australia and England in an undergraduate Irish American literature course.
All suggestions welcome. Thanks.
Linda Dowling Almeida
New York University

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Further to our item about the Conference at the Carroll House...

[Irish Exile and Resettlement Conference
Carroll House
Annapolis

Mianna Jopp, Conference Coordinator
miannaj410[at]aol.com

"ANYWHERE SO LONG AS THERE BE FREEDOM:
IRISH EXILE AND RESETTLEMENT, 1600-1800"
CONFERENCE - OCTOBER 19-21, 2001]

...it seems that a tract of the Irish Midlands is now marketing itself as
O'Carroll Country...

The web site includes an extract from a book by Ronald Hoffman...

P.O'S.

See...

http://mercury.virtual-pc.com/elyocar/welcome2.html
Lying just south of the heart of Ireland, Ely O'Carroll Country embracing
parts of Offaly, Tipperary & Laois offers the visitor an amazing array of
breathtaking inland scenery. Vast tracks of bogland, rolling hills,
meandering waterways and the wonderful tapestry of Irish farmland and
forestry form the mosaic that is 'Ely O'Carroll'.
For more information follow the links under the following topics:

http://mercury.virtual-pc.com/elyocar/history7.html
Extract from
Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland
A Carroll Saga 1500 - 1782
by Ronald Hoffman in collaboration with Sally D. Mason


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

>From Linda Dowling Almeida
"Almeida, Ed (Exchange)"
Subject: Irish-Australian fiction

Dear Colleagues,
Can anyone recommend a few titles of 20th century Irish-Australian fiction?
I'd like to introduce and/or compare some of the Irish ethnic literature of
Australia and England in an undergraduate Irish American literature course.
All suggestions welcome. Thanks.
Linda Dowling Almeida
New York University


Dear Linda,

This is an intriguing idea...

First thoughts...

1. My very first thought is that one of the Australian universities must
have a course on Irish-Australian literature... With a reading list... But
I don't know of any... Australian colleagues?

2. Often you have to go outside a country, to find scholars who look back
with perception. There USED to be 'Australian and New Zealand Studies in
Canada' - whose archives are preserved on the Web. You could browse there.
See for example...
http://www.arts.uwo.ca/~andrewf/anzsc/anzsc11/heiland11.htm
History and Sublimity in Kenneally's The Rainmaker
Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada 11 (1994)
Donna Heiland

3. 'Irish-Australia' has at least two world class writers, Kenneally and
Carey. Both have written specific novels which address Irish-Australian
themes.

Thomas Kenneally is one of the best English prose writers of the century.
Bring Larks and Heroes, 1967, is most probably his most 'Irish' novel -
unless you count The Great Shame as a novel... See...
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/keneally/keneally.html

Peter Carey's latest, True History of the Kelly Gang, is (yet another) Ned
Kelly novel - there must already be hundreds. But it is intriguing that a
writer of his stature has gone down that road. See...
http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/cul/kellygang.htm

'Much of Carey?s early career was devoted to penetrating Australians?
culturally dependant relationship with America. This began with short
stories such as American Dreams and culminated with the novel Tristan Smith.
However he is also fascinated by the British Imperial period, exploring the
colonial experience in Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs.'

When I used to teach my course on drama (before I decided I could no longer
afford to subsidise the British university system) I would teach Timberlake
Wertenbaker, Our Country's Good, in tandem with George Farquhar, The
Recruiting Officer - following a tradition created by the stage director Max
Stafford-Clark, who would stage the two plays together with the same cast.

Many of the students would go on to read the novel, The Playmaker by Thomas
Kenneally - the basis of Wertenbaker's play. Which is about the performance
of The Recruiting Officer by a convict cast in Australia.

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: Tracy Ryan
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction

PS Whoops, I just found the earlier message and
realised that it did indeed ask for 20th c.

Criena Rohan would of course still count.

Miles Franklin wrote well into the 20th century although
_My Brilliant Career" was really end of the 19th.

I will put my mind to more recent stuff.

Tracy.

For information...

P.O'S.


From: John Ellis

The North American Association for the Study of Welsh Culture and
History is
pleased to announce the electronic publication of a new issue of the
NAJWS,
accessible at

http://www2.bc.edu/~ellisjg/journal.html

North American Journal of Welsh Studies
Vol. 1 No. 2 (Summer 2001)

Addresses:
Geraint H. Jenkins, "Terminal Decline? The Welsh Language in the
Twentieth
Century"

Articles:
Richard C. Allen, "Wizards or Charlatans - Doctors or Herbalists? An
Appraisal of the Cunning Men of Cwrt Y Cadno, Camerthenshire"

Paul Hancock, "The Labor Movement in the Vermont/New York Slate Valley"

Roger Owen, "The Play of History: The Performance of Identity in Welsh
Historiography and Theater"

John Ellis
NAJWS Editor
ellisj[at]greenmtn.edu

From: Tracy Ryan
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction

There's also a lesser-known writer (probably
lesser-known because she died young and only wrote 2
novels), Criena Rohan, whose real name was Deirdre
Cash, and who by the way was related to the
better-known but now retired Australian tennis player,
Pat Cash.

The novels are hugely readable and warm and comic, and
it's a shame she's underrated or underread. They are
_The Delinquents_ (which was made into a movie with
Kylie Minogue, though I haven't seen it and I suspect
it is very different from the book!) and _Down by the
Dockside_, which is set among the Irish-Australians of
Melbourne. Gritty and engaging stuff, I reckon. Both
books were published in the sixties, as I recall, and
I think they have been reissued through Penguin.

BTW, the first novel published on mainland Australia
(I think there was an earlier one in Tasmania) was by
an Irishwoman, Anna Maria Bunn, and called _The
Guardian_. Bunn was certainly the first _woman_ to
publish a novel here. _The Guardian_ is not such a
great read, but it has historical interest -- it was
published in 1838.

Our great novelist Miles Franklin (Stella Maria Miles,
but she wrote under a "male" name) was of an Irish
family on one side, and addressed this side
specifically in at least one of her novels (_All That
Swagger_). People probably know her best for _My
Brilliant Career_ which was also made into a film in
the 1970s, with Judy Davis in the lead.

Last but not least, there was also an Irish connection
to Henry Handel Richardson.

There are so many more that I feel I'm doing an
injustice just mentioning these few. I don't remember
whether the original query asked only for
contemporaries but maybe this provides at least some
background.

Tracy.

PS There are/were a good number of
Irish-Australian poets too, but I think the topic was
only fiction...?

From: "Molloy, Frank"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction

Linda and colleagues,

Just to add to what's already been said: Thomas Keneally would be the most
"Irish" of the novelists, and yes, Bring Larks and Heroes, set in the early
years of white settlement, has Irish characters, and an Irish-English
conflict; also interesting is a later book, A River Town (1995) set around
1900 in coastal NSW and featuring an Irish family who have migrated. So,
both these novels are historical. Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard
Mahony, a trilogy from the 1920s, has as its central character an Irishman,
but the writer makes little of that, and when Mahony thinks of "Home", it's
really England he has in mind. Carey's Ned Kelly is more about an
Australian hero than an Irish one, and Carey's other work has no Irish or
Irish-Australian contexts that I can recall.

So, there might be 100 years to pick from, but there's not a great deal that
could be called Irish-Australian fiction!

As for a course in Irish-Australian lit, I'm not aware of one. There are
courses in Irish Literature, including one that I teach here at Charles
Sturt University that will mention Irish Australian elements in passing -
but mainly
19th century - ballads, Celtic Twilight poets and the like.

If I think of anything else, I'll pass it on.

Frank.

- -----Original Message-----
From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
[mailto:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, 10 July 2001 16:00
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction



>From Linda Dowling Almeida
"Almeida, Ed (Exchange)"
Subject: Irish-Australian fiction

Dear Colleagues,
Can anyone recommend a few titles of 20th century Irish-Australian fiction?
I'd like to introduce and/or compare some of the Irish ethnic literature of
Australia and England in an undergraduate Irish American literature course.
All suggestions welcome. Thanks.
Linda Dowling Almeida
New York University

From: Tracy Ryan
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction

Linda et al

I would recommend asking Murdoch Uni here in Western
Australia; I don't know that they have any specific
I-A courses, but Irish-Australian conferences have
been held there...

And don't let the Keneally-Carey monopoly put you off
reading the ladies :) ... I still recommend Criena
Rohan (Deirdre Cash) and though Franklin, like
Richardson, doesn't make much of the Irishness,
despite that one novel _All That Swagger_, I still
think both their oeuvres, or parts thereof, could be
fruitfully looked at in this connection.

If you're interested in the poetry at all, Lizz Murphy
edited a book called _Wee Girls_ which has
Irish-diasporan women writers (not just from, but
including, Oz). There's an Irish-Australian poet
called Colleen Burke who wrote a biography of Marie
Pitt, and is compiling an Irish-Australian poetry
anthology. There's also a striking contemporary poet,
Gig Ryan (no relation to myself).

Finally, but not to blow our own trumpets, both my
partner John Kinsella and I are fiction
writers/poets/playwrights of Irish-Australian descent.
(As are so many of our fellow writers here.)

Cheers,
Tracy.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Thanks to Tracy Ryan and Frank Molloy...

There is basic information about the Irish-Australian Conferences at

11th Conference 2000
Centre for Irish Studies
Murdoch University
http://wwwsoc.murdoch.edu.au/cfis/call.html

10th Conference
http://www.his.latrobe.edu.au/histres/digbook/pastconfs/irishaust/irishaust.
html
and some information about past conferences.

But I cannot recall having seen this theme covered.

We should also remember the novels of our own Jill Blee, whose web site is
at
www.pchost.com/jillblee

Her themes are very much Irish Diaspora themes. The Pines Hold Their
Secrets is set in the penal colony on Norfolk Island - and touches on the
convict origins of Australian serttlement, a theme which Australian writers
return to again and again. The second novel, Brigid, engages with memory of
the Irish Famine - using the device of the ghost, which is becoming a
feature of fiction-writing about the Famine.

(Mind you, I think nearly everyone who works with the Irish Famine material
develops an eerie sense of being haunted...)

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "Anne-Maree Whitaker"
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction

Dear Paddy

I can't believe no-one has mentioned Ruth Park's 'Harp in the South' and
'Poor Man's Orange', nor Darcy Niland's 'Dead Men Running', nor Mary
Durack's 'Kings in Grass Castles'. Or are they fiction rather than
literature?





Dr Anne-Maree Whitaker FRHistS
P O Box 63
Edgecliff NSW 2027
Australia
ph (+61-2) 9356 4929 fax (+61-2) 9356 2065
mobile 0408 405 025
email ahcwhitaker[at]hotmail.com
website http://foveaux.freeservers.com

From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Dymphna=20Lonergan?=
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction 7

This correspondence has been very useful for me for my
research into Irish language words in Australian
Writing.I'm relieved to see that I haven't missed out
on any of the major works. My study ranges over all
kinds of Australian novels, not specifically those
with an Irish Australian theme. Early European writing
in Australia often contained Irish characters. I've
already offered Ruth Park's 'Poor Man's Orange' and
The 'Harp in the South'privately as good examples of
Irish Australian writing that would still be in print
as they are High School texts. Others I've found
useful are: Tim Winton's 'The Riders', David Malouf's
' Conversations at Curlew Creek', David Foster's 'In
The New Country' and Ann Clancy's 'The Colonial Girl',
all recent publications (recent, in the last 5 years
or so). A minor writer in the 20s was Marion Miller
Knowles - 'Pierce O'Grady's Daughter' and Pretty Nan
Hartigan' but they would only be available in
libraries.

Dymphna Lonergan
Flinders University of South Australia
Dymphna_1[at]Yahoo.com

From Jill Blee
jillblee1[at]bigpond.com

Dear Paddy,

Thank you for the promotion. I have just finished my third novel, the one I
have been writing as part of my PhD. It is called The Liberator's Birthday
because it is set on the centenary of the birth of Dan O'Connell in Ballarat
which for those who don't know was a magnificent goldfields town in Victoria
in the nineteenth century. It is celebrating it's sesqui-centenary this
year.

The novel is really about the Catholic Church and how it succeeded in
bringing about a devotional revolution of it's own in the Australian
colonies, and of isolating its flock behind the separate education system it
set up to counter the 'godless' state schools. It does not yet have a
publisher, as my agent still hasn't got around to reading it, but it has
become the first of a trilogy about the Church over the period between
Vatican I & II. They will be called The Lucas Girls ( set around the
conscription debate in WWI) and Billy Butterfly which will feature the
splitting of the Labor Party during the 1950's

Jill

www.pchost.com/jillblee

From: "Anne-Maree Whitaker"
Subject: TOC: Australian Celtic Journal

The latest issue of the Australian Celtic Journal (volume 6, dated 1998/99
but published 2001) contains a number of articles of Irish interest:

Mavis Brown, 'Mary's Two Fathers: Father-Daughter Relationships in Kate
O'Brien's "Mary Lavelle"'

Cath Filmer-Davies, 'Marketing the Celts'

Bobbie K Gledhill, 'The Stereotyped Irish Man'

Mark Phillips, 'Were the Early Celtic Christian Saints Druids?'

Anne-Maree Whitaker, 'Lexicography as Cultural Genocide: the Irish Influence
on the Australian language'

Copies of the journal are AUD$20 and may be obtained by contacting Roger
Thomas, Convenor, Celtic Council of Australia, Roger Thomas, 178 Davistown
Road, Yattalunga NSW, Australia 2251, ph (+61-2) 4363 1073, or email
thomas[at]fastnet.com.au




Dr Anne-Maree Whitaker FRHistS
P O Box 63
Edgecliff NSW 2027
Australia
ph (+61-2) 9356 4929 fax (+61-2) 9356 2065
mobile 0408 405 025
email ahcwhitaker[at]hotmail.com
website http://foveaux.freeservers.com

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Messsage below, forwarded on behalf of Clare Hutton...

Ir-D Members will know that we are also in touch with Anne McCartney,
who is editing Vol. 5, The Irish Book in English
1800-1900, and discussing Irish Diaspora elements of that volume.

P.O'S.


Forwarded on behalf of
Clare Hutton

I am the co-editor of volume 5 of the History of the Irish Book
(1891--2000), which will be published by the Oxford University Press in
2005. Almost all of the 27 sections in this volume are now under commission
but two have proved difficult to fill from this side of the Atlantic.

These are:
Reading Ireland Outside Ireland, 1891--1939 (6000 words) &
Reading Ireland Outside Ireland, 1939--2000 (6000 words)

which might cover what the Irish emigrants to the English-speaking nations
read; what people read about Ireland overseas more generally; and the
critical reception of Irish literature in the twentieth century. Countries
which might be considered include the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I would be grateful if those interested in contributing, or supplying names
of others who might be suitable, could write to me (off list).

Yours,

Clare Hutton

=====================
Dr. Clare Hutton
AHRB Research Fellow,
Institute of English Studies,
University of London,
Senate House,
Malet Street,
London, WC1E 7HU
Tel: 020 7862 8645
=====================

From: "Molloy, Frank"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk '"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction 8
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 21:16:01 +1000


Paddy,
Anne-Maree has beaten me to it with Ruth Parks's The Harp in the South. I
did forget it yesterday, and yes, it has not been favoured by the critics.
Too sentimental, I suppose, and certainly "un-feminist", if I can use that
term. But it has been in print since first published in the alet 1940s, so
is popular with readers. This and many other boks mentioned are in
paperback, mostly Penguin, so should be available overseas.
Frank

Dr. Russell Murray
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford

Just to let you know that Paddy is off on a much-needed holiday in Crete
(i.e. he'll get himself all stressed out there instead of in Bradford) and
I'm standing in as moderator of Ir-D for the next couple of weeks. Forgive
the clumsiness, I should get the hang of the system eventually!


Dr. Russell Murray
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 06:07:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tracy Ryan
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish-Australian fiction
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
In-Reply-To:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Isn't the Durack (Kings in Grass Castles) really
family history rather than fiction, strictly speaking?
(albeit with generic traits of fiction).

Also (someone tell me if I have this wrong!) Ruth Park
was not Irish-Australian, though her husband I think
was. But I may have this wrong -- and she surely
conveyed a strong sense of at least people's _idea_ of
one kind of Irish-Australia in her well-known novels.

Cheers,
Tracy.




Dr. Russell Murray
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I have not quite set out for Crete. I am still in that state of anxiety and
depression with which I approach any journey, and still at the stage of
packing and quarreling with my children...

But Russell Murray has, I see, already kindly taken on the work of
moderating the Ir-D list.

Messages sent to
Irish-Diaspora list
will be distributed by Russell in the usual way.

Messages sent to
Patrick O'Sullivan
will be dealt with when I return.

You must imagine me now disconsately wandering about the house, looking for
my favourite old straw hat...

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

My apologies to those who have posted to this group recently - I can't get
the system to work properly! It'll let me mail from myself, but when I try
to pass on your messages- even though that is done in the form of a mail
from me - they come back to me (as moderator) with a message from the
system that I'm an improper person.

But I refuse to let myself be beaten by a mere array of bits and bytes.
Watch this space!
Dr. Russell Murray
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Irish-Australian Literature
X-Sender: elmalc[at]myriad.its.unimelb.edu.au
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"


I noticed that in the recent emails on Irish-Australian literature
there was no mention of Gerard Windsor, the Sydney novelist and
essayist, who has written a good deal about Irish catholic Australia
and about Ireland itself - and is a former Jesuit. I think he's
published about 6 novels and memoirs, and I've just got his latest
collection: 'The Mansions of Bedlam: Stories and Essays', University
of Queensland Press, 2000.
In this he reproduces some material, under the ironic title 'Fun and
Games', from his history of St Ignatius College, Riverview, one of
Sydney's leading catholic schools. The book was written in the late
1970s for the school's centenary, but suppressed by the school
because they thought it too critical - creating something of a
scandal. This is followed by the entertaining article, 'Handling the
effects: pedalling Flann O'Brien in Australia' (1993), about buying
Irish books in Ireland and Australia. (This article struck me
especially at the moment as I'm having troubles with Australian
customs and excise for trying to import early 20th-century Irish
lunacy and prison inspectors' reports. I've had to employ an agent to
do the paper work and pay exorbitant fees and taxes in order to get
them into the country. The main seller of Irish books here tells me
he has similar problems. So I've realised that in this country at
least, there's not only the problem of finding and buying the books
you want, but of importing them as well!!!)
I should add that I've invited Gerard Windsor to speak in Melbourne
in October in the series of Irish seminars that I'm running.
I know poets have not been included in this discussion, but one can
hardly ignore Vincent Buckley - a poet yes, but also an important
critic and essayist and writer about Ireland (viz. 'Memory Ireland')
and Irish Australia.
Elizabeth Malcolm

Professor Elizabeth Malcolm Tel: +61-3-8344 3924
Chair of Irish Studies FAX: +61-3-8344 7894
Department of History Email: e.malcolm[at]unimelb.edu.au
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria, 3010AUSTRALIA




Dr. Russell Murray
Honorary Visiting Research Fellow
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford