From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Irish Australian
Ned Kelly . Redmond Barry . Joseph Furphy . Ben Chifley Julian McMahon . Peter Lalor . Jim Stynes . Lisa Gerrard
Total population
72,050 (Irish born, 2006) 1,803,741 (self-declared Irish ancestry, 2006)
Regions with significant populations
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
Languages
Australian English
Religion
Roman Catholic, Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
Irish people, Anglo Celtic Australians, Scottish Australians, Welsh-Australians

Irish Australians are the third largest ethnic group in Australia, after Australian and English. In the 2006 Census, 1,803,741 residents identified themselves as having Irish ancestry either alone or in combination with another ancestry ^[1]. However this figure does not include Australians with an Irish background who chose to nominate themselves as 'Australian' or other ancestries. The Australian embassy in Dublin states that up to 30 percent of the population claim some degree of Irish ancestry. ^[2] The 2006 Census recorded 72,050 people born in Ireland: 50,256 born in the Republic of Ireland and 21,293 in Northern Ireland.

[edit] History

Around 40,000 Irish convicts were transported to Australia between 1791 and 1867, many for political activity, including those who had participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the 1803 Rising of Robert Emmet and the 1848 skirmishes in the midst of the Famine. Once in Australia, many of these prisoners continued to plan escapes from British military custody — for example, the 1804 Castle Hill convict rebellion, and continual tension on Norfolk Island in the same year also led to an Irish revolt. Both risings were soon crushed. In these decades, the Irish language was the main language of Irish prisoners, and many Irish were flogged or killed by fellow convicts for speaking what was seen as a conspiratorial tongue ^[3]. As late as the 1860s, Fenian prisoners were being transported, particularly to Western Australia where the Catalpa rescue of Irish radicals off Rockingham was a memorable episode.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Irish Australians — particularly but not exclusively Catholics — were treated with suspicion in a sectarian atmosphere. The life story of Ned Kelly is often viewed romantically as the sort of treatment Irish Catholics in Australia could expect: in reality, however, most of the Irish were urban workers who experienced less official discrimination in Australia than they had at home in Ireland, and many Irish Australians — Catholic and Protestant — rose to positions of wealth and power in the colonial hierarchy. Many Irish Protestants, for example, entered the judiciary and politics, while in Ned Kelly's time 80 per cent of the Victorian police were Irish-born, and half of those had served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. In major cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, Irish social and political associations were formed, including the Melbourne Celtic Club, which survives today. The Irish settler in Australia - both voluntary and forced - was crucial to the survival and prosperity of the early colonies both demographically and economically. 300,000 Irish free settlers arrived between 1840 and 1914. By 1871, the Irish were a quarter of all overseas-born.

The number of Ireland-born in Australia peaked in 1891, when the colonial Census accounted for 228,232. A decade later the number of Ireland-born had dropped to 184,035. Dominion status for the Irish Free State in 1922 did not diminish arrivals from Ireland as Irish people were still British subjects. Though this changed after the Second World War, migration from the south of Ireland did not, as those born in Ireland before 1949 remained British subjects eligible for assisted passage. Only during the 1960s did migration from the south of Ireland reduce significantly. By 2002, around one thousand persons born in Ireland — north and south — were migrating permanently to Australia each year. For the year 2005-2006, 12,554 Irish entered Australia to work under the Working Holiday visa scheme.

[edit] The Present Day

At the 2006 Census 50,256 Australian residents declared they were born in the Republic of Ireland. Cities with the largest Irish-born populations were Sydney (12,730), Melbourne (8,950) and Perth (7,060)^[4].

At the 2006 Census 1,803,741 Australians declared they had Irish ancestry either alone or in combination with another ancestry; only Australian and English ancestries were more frequently nominated^[4].

According to census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004, Irish Australians are, by religion, 46.2% Roman Catholic, 15.3% Anglican, 13.5% other Christian denomination, 3.6% other religions, and 21.5% "No Religion".

Irish Australian settlement patterns are not significantly different to those of the Australian population as a whole — that is, a third live in New South Wales and a quarter live in Victoria — except that around 22 per cent live in Queensland (compared to only 18 per cent of the general population). Relatively few as a proportion reside in Western Australia (7.6 per cent of Irish Australians compared to 9.9 per cent of the general population).

The 2001 Australian census recorded that persons reporting an Irish Australian ethnicity accounted for 10.7 per cent of the population in the Australian Capital Territory (42,540 responses), 10.2 per cent in Victoria (469,161 responses), 9.9 per cent in New South Wales (622,944), 9.7 per cent in Queensland (433,354), 7.8 per cent in Tasmania (42,552), 7.6 per cent in Western Australia (171,667), 7.5 per cent in the Northern Territory (18,325) and 6.7 per cent in South Australia (119,063).

918 persons at the 2006 Census reported using Irish at home^[5].

[edit] List of notable Irish Australians

[edit] References