Ireland, Australia and New Zealand

Twenty contributors offer a fascinating range and diversity of explorations of Irish-Australian-New Zealand shared culture including material culture, folk culture, literature, music, dance, architecture, written and oral cultural transmission, cultural influences, intercommunal cultural transference, and cultural assimilation and dissemination. Often neglected political links are explored, with Carla King assessing the impact of Michael Davitt's Australian tour in 1895 on his subsequent radical politics. De Valera's only visit to Australia/New Zealand in 1948, as part of his 'anti-partition' world tour, analysed in the context of media both in Ireland. Ru n O'Donnell explores uncharted territory in reviewing perceptions of the IRA in mid-twentieth century Australia. Literary contributions range from Frances Devlin-Glass's reconsideration of Mary Durack's Kings in Grass Castles, to Brega Webb's engaging biographical study of Mary Anne Kelly, better known as 'Eva of the Nation' for her poetic contributions in the lead in to the suppression of the Young Ireland press in 1848. There is a balance between particular experiences of emigrants, and a reassessment of some traditional views. Academics, including Brad Patterson, Malcolm Campbell and Lyndon Fraser, explore many of these issues with new material and reconsiderations of traditional approaches. Irish history abounds with biographies, and the book contains some fascinating Irish personalities who contributed enormously to the making of Australia, ranging from an engineer, a lawyer, a musicians and a diplomat. The Irish have always impacted, of course, and Richard Davis provides a splendid historical survey of the influence of the Irish on Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania from Bushrangers to Celtic Tiger.