The Irish in Australia. "First Fleet to Federation: Irish Supremacy in Colonial Australia" by Jarlath Ronayne. [review]

Abstract

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, someone would write a book celebrating the achievements of the Protestant Irish in Australia. Books commemorating the part played by the Catholic Irish culminated in Patrick O'Farrell's ambit claim that they were responsible for just about everything we like to think of (or used to think of) as being distinctively Australian. Now Professor Jarlath Ronayne has given us his own hyperbolic response in the subtitle of this sumptuous publication. The best way to see the book is as a useful reminder that 'Irish' and 'Catholic' were not synonyms in colonial Australia.