Poor Irish Catholic migrants arriving in Australia in the nineteenth century were described by newspapers and politicians as ‘lawless savages’ and part of an ‘uncivilised race’. Their poor mental health and criminality were seen as a threat to colonial Australia’s social fabric. Yet by the early 20th century, they were widely understood to be part of the founding settler population of white ‘Anglo-Celts’. This project will analyse how this transformation took place and thus advance our understanding of how social inclusion of racialised migrant groups was and can be achieved. It will advance national and international scholarship on changing ideas about race and their effects on mental health and social mobility of disadvantaged people.

ARC Discovery Project 130101731.
Chief Investigators: Dr Dianne Hall (Victoria University) and Prof. Elizabeth Malcolm (University of Melbourne)

Race and The Irish in Australian Popular Culture

Assoicate Professor Dianne Hall

While today many Australians of Irish descent pride themselves on the fact that their ancestors were less culpable in the racist policies and practices of colonisation in Australia, the reality is more complex as Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, recognised this is one of his first speeches on an official tour of Australia in 2017. This paper analyses one element of that complexity by examining how Irish Australians were represented in popular media and culture when in the same frame as two racialized groups, First Nations people and Chinese Australians.