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.
2017 TALKS
February
After the Annual General Meeting Tony Earls gave a talk entitled “Hollywood’s Irish mother: An Irish Australian Tragedy” in which he discussed the life and career of one of Ireland’s finest actresses, Sara Allgood (1879-1950), who appeared in numerous Hollywood movies and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941.
March
The Aisling St Patrick’s Day Dinner was held on 24 March 2017 at Parliament House, Sydney. The guest speaker was His Excellency Breandan Ó Caollaí, Ambassador of Ireland to Australia.
April
Aisling member and Irish Air Corps veteran Myles Mooney gave a talk entitled “Missionaries, Mercenaries and Musicians: Africa the Irish Connection” in which he looked at the history of Ireland’s contact with the continent, including the role of Irish peacekeepers in the Congo in the 1960s, and spoke of his personal experiences there.
May
Aisling member and Irish Air Corps veteran Myles Mooney gave a talk entitled “Missionaries, Mercenaries and Musicians: Africa the Irish Connection” in which he looked at the history of Ireland’s contact with the continent, including the role of Irish peacekeepers in the Congo in the 1960s, and spoke of his personal experiences there.
June
Chloe Haywood-Anderson, winner of the Macquarie University Aisling Society prize for 2016, gave a talk entitled “From Home Rule to Republicanism: ‘Striking for Freedom’ in Easter 1916”
July
At the Mid-Year Lunch in the Grand Dining Room at the former St Patrick’s Seminary, Manly (now International College of Management, Sydney), Mark Tedeschi AM QC, NSW Senior Crown Prosecutor, spoke about his latest book Murder at Myall Creek which gives a detailed account of the murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at Myall Creek in 1838 and the prosecution of the perpetrators by Irish-born Attorney-General John Hubert Plunkett.
August
Dr Richard Reid spoke about Lord Belmore, governor of NSW 1868-1872, who was in office at the time of Henry O’Farrell’s attempted assassination of Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, at Clontarf, Sydney and who during his term travelled extensively around the colony.
September
Renowned Irish-Australian actor Maeliosa Stafford gave us a talk entitled, “Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: A Family Story” in which he spoke about his alma mater, St Ignatius College, Galway and some of its teachers and alumni, including William Joyce, aka Lord Haw Haw.
October
Professor Ronan McDonald, gave us a talk on the celebrated Irish poet Seamus Heaney entitled ‘Crediting Heaney’.
November
At the Christmas dinner Professor Peter Kuch, Eamon Cleary Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Otago and a former president of the Aisling Society, spoke on his latest book Irish Divorce / Joyce’s Ulysses.