History
Early Days
The idea of an Aisling Society was born in 1954, when Mary Hegarty, Brian McGrath and Fr Nicholas McNally – three giants of the Society – met for dinner at Pfahlert’s Hotel in Margaret Street in the city. They shared Irish family backgrounds, a love of Ireland, and a love of literature and history and learning generally. Critically, they also shared a desire to place Ireland and her culture, and her relationship with Australia, at the forefront of Australian consciousness.
Later in that same year, in August 1954, a dinner for a wider group was held at Pfahlert’s. According to the first Annual Report in 1955:
“The group of Irish and Irish-Australian people present agreed to launch a Society which should seek to make people of Irish stock in Sydney more conscious of the value of their heritage. …”
A formal opening Meeting was held on 8th November, 1954, at which subscriptions (£2/2/0) were received, a draft constitution discussed, and suggestions made for 1955 activities.
On 16 March 1955, the inaugural meeting of the Aisling Society of Sydney was held, a Constitution adopted, and office-bearers elected. Those first office-bearers included Brian McGrath as President, Mary Hegarty as Secretary and Nicholas McNally as one of the inaugural Vice-Presidents, along with Ena Sullivan as Treasurer. By that first general meeting in March 1955, there were 83 members.
The objects of the Society, as set out in the Constitution, have never altered. They were and are:
(a) The promotion of cultural relationships between Australia and Ireland;
(b) The fostering of the study of the history, life and culture of Ireland;
(c) The study of the effect of our Irish heritage on Australian life.
‘Aisling’ – the name
“Aisling” is an Irish word meaning a dream or a vision. An Aisling was a type of poem or song, especially important in the “hidden Ireland” of the eighteenth century, which kept alive the spirit of the people in the penal days. It was a marvellously appropriate name to be adopted by people of Irish descent or humour living in far-off Australia. It honoured the ancestors. It signified and resonated with pride, dignity, courage and (at the same time) romance. It captured something of the idea of otherness, of there being an alternative to the establishment’s conventions about what it was to be an Australian. Visions of otherness, other places, other times, other people, other ways of thinking and doing things, have helped to keep alive that Irish cast of mind, that Irish genius, which now, many years later, is generally recognised – thanks to Patrick O’Farrell and others – as having been so vital in Australia’s progress.
Recordings and manuscripts of Talks
Since 1974, we have recorded most of the Talks presented both at our monthly meetings and at our St Patrick’s Day Dinners and Mid-Year Lunches. In addition, for some Talks we have a manuscript kindly provided by the speaker. For more information about the recordings and manuscripts available, go to PAST TALKS.
Annual Reports
The first Annual Report was for 1955, the year of the Society’s inception. Apart from 1956, 1958 and a handful of years in the 1960s, for which sadly the Reports are missing, the Annual Reports for every year from 1955 are available here. They are a rich repository of all the many and varied activities and accomplishments of the Society and its members since its foundation.
The Annual Reports, as well as the Society’s minute books, the manuscripts of Talks, and many other historical records of the Society, have all been deposited with the State Library of NSW.
Oral History
In 1999 – 2000, oral historian Jilli Streit was commissioned to conduct an Oral History of the Aisling Society. Ms Streit interviewed fifteen longstanding members, including two foundation members, Roma Drew and Fr Patrick O’Rourke and longtime treasurer Maureen McLoughlin.
The recordings of those interviews, originally made on cassette tapes, were digitised to CDs in 2012. Ms Streit also provided typed logs of each interview, noting in summary form the various topics covered by each interviewee. Members who would like to have access to any of those recordings or logs should contact the Secretary: contact@aislingsociety.org.au.
University prizes
Since the mid-1980s, the Society has made available an annual Aisling Society prize for the best essay on an Irish or Irish-Australian theme, first at the University of New South Wales and subsequently extended to the University of Sydney, Macquarie University, the University of Wollongong, Western Sydney University and the Australian Catholic University. Many of the winners of those prizes have presented Talks to the Society on the subject of their winning essay.
Chair of Irish Studies (UNSW) and Chair of Celtic Studies (Sydney)
The Society wholeheartedly supported the establishment of both the Chair of Modern Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales and the Chair of Celtic Studies at the University of Sydney. Although the exigencies of university funding have more recently resulted in reductions in scale in both cases, Irish Studies and Celtic Studies have a continuing presence at UNSW and USyd respectively. Since their inception, Aisling members have been prominent on the teaching and research staffs of both universities.
2005 – PASSING THE TORCH
In 2005, as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations, the Society published Passing the Torch, a selection of Talks from those first fifty years, and hosted a day-long seminar at UNSW during the course of which our book was launched by Deirdre O’Farrell, widow and colleague of the great Irish-Australian historian Professor Patrick O’Farrell. The Table of Contents, and the Introduction, are available here.
Collaborations with other Irish bodies
The Aisling Society has always had close and rewarding ties with the Irish Embassy in Canberra, the Irish Consulate-General in Sydney, the Irish National Association (INA), the Gaelic Club, Aer Lingus, Bord Fáilte and many other Irish and Irish-Australian bodies. See Useful Links.
Two of the more recent examples of our collaborations with some of those bodies are:
- On Easter Monday 2016, with the assistance of the Irish Government, the Consulate-General and others, the Society curated and presented a commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising. The day began with a dramatic reading of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic by the distinguished actor and Aisling member Maeliosa Stafford, on the steps of the GPO in Martin Place, and was followed by a programme of historic films at the State Library of NSW.
- On 2 February 2020, the Society again joined with the Irish Government, the Consulate-General and the State Library of NSW to present “Aisling 2020 Vision: Twenty Irish-Australian Women who Shaped Australia”. A handsome booklet was produced honouring those twenty women (who included two great Aisling members – Mary Hegarty and Maureen McLoughlin), along with an exhibition and a day-long programme of oral presentations and panel discussions.