Past Talks
Since its foundation in 1955 the Society’s principal activity has been the presentation of talks by members or invited guests on topics relating to Ireland and Irish heritage in Australia. In that time several hundred talks have been given. From 1974 many of those talks were audio recorded and we hold copies of those recordings from 1974 to 2008 and from 2014 to 2017, numbering in all 198 talks of variable quality. Since 2020, when during Covid we began to livestream our meetings via Zoom, the talks given to the Society have been video recorded, accumulating at the rate of about seven per year. In addition, we hold copies of manuscripts of some 56 talks, some dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. Access to these recordings is available to members and to researchers upon application to the Honorary Secretary. A list of recorded talks held by the Society is available here.
Summaries of talks and events back to 2011 can be viewed below.
2016 TALKS
February
After the Annual General Meeting Tony Earls spoke about the Society’s plans for a program of events on Easter Monday this year. There will first be a reading of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, on the steps of the GPO in Martin Place, followed by a screening in the State Library of three films – two archival and one more recent – about aspects of the Rising and its aftermath.
March
At the St Patrick’s Day dinner at Parliament House, Sydney on 4 March Professor Ronan McDonald gave a fascinating talk on Yeats’ poetry, including expositions of “Easter 1916” and “An Irish Airman Foresees his Death”.
April
Noel Leggett of the Irish National Association (INA) spoke on the founder of the INA in a talk entitled “The World of Albert Dryer, Australian-born Irish Patriot”.
May
Professor Jonathan Wooding the Sir Warwick Fairfax Professor of Celtic Studies at the University of Sydney gave a talk entitled “Abstaining from the heroic: the character of the Otherworld traveller in early Irish literature”
June
Rebekah Poole spoke on “Teaching Irish history in Australian schools through the use of political murals”.
July
The annual Mid-year Luncheon was held in the Grand Dining Room at the former St Patrick’s Seminary, Manly (now International College of Management, Sydney). His Excellency Noel White, Ireland’s Ambassador to Australia, spoke about his time in Australia as his term comes to an end.
August
In a talk entitled “An Olympic Vignette: Ireland’s First Gold Medallist”, Kevin O’Connor AM spoke on Dr Pat O’Callaghan, from Kanturk, County Cork, a gold medallist at the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games, the first athlete from post-independence Ireland to win an Olympic medal.
September
Dr Anne Jamison, Lecturer in English at Western Sydney University, spoke on “‘The enjoyment of a good story’: Irish school readers and children’s literature in nineteenth-century Australia”.
October
Dr Perry McIntyre gave a talk entitled “Building a Memorial and sustaining the rage” in which she examined the history and legacy of the Monument to the Great Irish Famine, which was unveiled at the Hyde Park Barracks in August 1999 and explored questions such as whether in a modern technical world a physical presence is necessary and whether we need to gather and remember past victories and tragedies?