Pride of Erin
'Without doubt or question, colonial Ireland dies with me and with my like—the transitionals. Transitional to what? To a land of cultural chaos and the walking dead? To fragments and ghettoes of materialist minds? Or, are we to break the spell that immobilises the past, liberate its pioneering greatness from the shackles of its sins and negligences, and return it to life with us?’
So Patrick O’Farrell—the renowned philosopher-historian who died last Christmas Day aged only 70—concluded Vanished Kingdoms, his extraordinary amalgam of personal, family and social history. His great double achievement —to revitalise our Catholic past, transforming our understanding of it, and to create the field of Irish-Australian history—was only part of his story. He was also a stylist who could be elegant, lucid, wry and idiosyncratic by turns, one of our finest writers who wanted, for himself and his readers, to see both the big picture and what lay beneath it.
In her profound obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald, Professor Elizabeth Malcolm of Melbourne University referred to his The Irish in Australia and wrote, ‘It is not merely a history of Irish settlement in Australia; it is an examination of the development of an Australian identity and an assessment of the role that the Irish played in this process. I think it not an exaggeration to say that what Manning Clark attempted to do in six volumes, O’Farrell did in one and with more panache’.
And, as Australia metamorphosed, he was alert to the fact that it is open—as our future unfolds to other cultures and religions to exert their own influence on the new Australia. He was an historian alive not simply to the past—and certainly not the mere passé—but to the pressing need for ceaseless examination of our individual lives: the personal, the ethical, the spiritual.
John Carmody
Across the fence
Rural Australians for Refugees
In Albury it is 41 degrees. The man at the microphone is wearing a jacket, tie and a badge in his lapel—RSL or Rotary.
‘My Name is Ian Skiller and I’m a horticulturalist from Tooleybuc.’ He says to an audience of over 300 at the second annual Rural Australians for Refugees Conference.
A while back, he says, someone contacted him to see if he’d provide accommodation for a few Afghan blokes. Asylum seekers on TPVs (temporary protection visas). He said yes. Then he figured he might give the men some work. It all panned out well.