Curator Richard Reid with an anchor from an immigration ship that carried Irish women
Ireland’s new Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald and a who’s who of Irish Australia have attended the official opening of a landmark exhibition on the Irish in Australia.
Not Just Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia has opened in the National Museum of Canberra. It contains exhibits collated from Australia and abroad, providing tangible evidence of the Irish legacy, from the first arrival of assisted immigrants through to today.
Minister Fitzgerald will spend the next two days meeting members of the Irish community in Australia, before travelling to Christchurch.
Education Minister Simon Crean, Health Minister Brendan O’Connor, NSW Labor Senator Ursula Stephens, Labor MP Deborah O’Neill, Optus CEO Paul O’Sullivan and respected author Tom Kenneally were all in attendance at the exhibition’s official opening.
Among the exhibits on show is a massive anchor from an assisted immigration ship carrying 180 Irish women which ran aground off Adelaide in 1855 and the largest map of Australia, commissioned by Victoria’s then Irish Minister for Land to help settle workers who had missed out on the state’s gold rush.
Richard Reid, the National Museum of Australia’s senior curator, said the exhibition offers a far broader view of Irish-Australia than that often presented by the Ned Kelly lexicon.
“What are the Irish all about in this country? Are they all about anti-authoritarian larrikin rebels or is there a much broader, wide-ranging story than that?” asks Reid.
The exhibition contains all four suits of the Kelly gang’s armour and Reid says the famous story is “an important iconic image of what has gone down in popular memory as an aspect of the Irish”.
“[Ned Kelly] is capable of obscuring the vastness of the story, which goes to ordinary immigrants.
“Only 12 per cent of the immigrants were convicts, the rest were free assisted immigrants, just coming out to make a new life for themselves and battling their way through on the land and in the city,” according to Reid.
Other exhibits include: a chair used by former prime minister, Ben Chifley, an Irish Australian political hero but also a symbol of mixed marriages of the era; a gold probe used to remove a bullet from the Duke of Edinburgh after an attempt on his life by an Irish republican; and the story of the Durack family’s pastoral empire, built over generations in Western Australia.
Emerging Irish artist Kiera O’Toole has also produced a unique piece to commemorate the exhibition.
Irish people who have lived in Australia for generations and the ‘modern Irish community’ will find significance in the new exhibition, said Reid, an Irish immigrant himself.
“I think every person of Irish descent in the country should have a look at it, clearly because it’s their story. It’s the story of the old Irish community here, that were here in 19th and early 20th centuries.
“The modern Irish community should come and see it too because this is what their progenitors in this country did.”
Reid has managed to assemble some modern Irish Australian icons which celebrate memorable moments over the past two decades.
These include Irish raider Vintage Crop’s win in the 1993 Melbourne Cup, Jim Stynes Brownlow Medal success and Tadhg Kennelly’s 2005 Premiership win with the Sydney Swans.
“There’s plenty about the modern Irish too. We’ve got Jimmy Stynes’ footy jersey, Tadhg Kennelly’s Championship medal and Swans jersey, the jockey’s silks from the 1993 Melbourne Cup. We’ve also got dresses worn by the three Australian women who have won the Rose of Tralee,” Richard says.
“The Irish are here in very successful guises – all over the place – as well as in some battling stories too, so it’s a mixture.”
By Luke O’Neill
