Australia Day or Invasion Day ?

Audio Version on Irish in Australia page

‘Out on the patio we'd sit,

And the humidity we'd breathe

We'd watch the lightning crack over canefields

Laugh and think, this is Australia’

Gangajang ‘Sounds of then’ aka This is Australia

On January 26th, most Australians celebrate Australia Day. The day marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of Great Britain’s First Fleet of ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales where the soon to be New South Wales Governor, Arthur Phillip, raised the British Flag at Sydney Cove.

In that year, the indigenous population was around 400,000. By 1920, it had dwindled to 60,000, largely attributable to frontier land battles, at least 51 massacres and introduced diseases such as small pox. Most of this history was never taught in schools until recent years.

Australia’s Indigenous population call the day Invasion Day.

 ‘I came from the Dreamtime

From the Dusty red soil plains

I am the ancient heart

The keeper of the flame

I stood upon the rocky shores

I watched the tall ships come

For 40,000 years I’ve been

The First Australian’

The Seekers ‘I am Australian‘

Today, Aboriginals comprise just 3% of Australia’s 25 million people. The upheaval of their way of life 233 years ago still echoes. 30% live below the poverty line. They are significantly over represented in school absenteeism, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, suicide, imprisonment and deaths in custody. Aboriginals live around 9 years less than the non-indigenous population.

Australia’s 1988 Bi-centenary celebrations along Perth’s picturesque Swan River are still etched in mind. In sweltering heat, half a million of us partied in unison. Days before, I’d received a letter confirming approval of my residency application. I celebrated a welcoming country, one full of opportunity.

Soon, Sydney beckoned. With my car as freight, I took the Indian Pacific train 4,300 kms across the Nullarbor. Some 200 kms short of Adelaide, I was awoken by a train official calling out names which ominously included my own. Overnight, cars were damaged by falling rocks, so we were told. The windows of my Nissan Bluebird were smashed. Sensing something missing from the explanation, I queried the story with other railway officials. I learned Aboriginals, angered by the celebrations, had hurled the rocks onto the train. It was not the first time it had happened.

This was my first realisation all was not well in my new homeland.  

 ‘This land was never given up

This land was never bought and sold

The planting of the Union Jack

Never changed our law at all’*

The protests inspired the Labor PM, Bob Hawke, to promise a Treaty with the First Australians, but the political will wasn’t there to follow through. 

‘Well I heard it on the radio

And I saw it on the television

Back in 1988

All those talking politicians

Words are easy, words are cheap

Much cheaper than our priceless land

But promises can disappear

Just like writing in the sand’*

*Yothu Yindi ‘Treaty’     

 Meanwhile, I settled into my new life with a Dublin friend in Sydney’s harbour side suburb of Kirribilli. From there, I’ve witnessed many Australia Day celebrations include armed navy carriers and screaming air force jets. This display still seems utterly inappropriate to me.

Australians love their sports and their gifted Aboriginal sporting heroes.

At 14, Evonne Goolagong the daughter of an itinerant sheep shearer, caught the attention of a Sydney tennis trainer. Soon, she attended Sydney’s Willoughby Girls, a public school where both my daughters were to attend decades later. In 1971, at just 19, Goolagong beat fellow Australian, Margaret Court, to win Wimbledon. She was named Australian of the Year. Today, Indigenous Queenslander Ashleigh Barty is the World Tennis No 1 and Young Australian of the Year.

Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics. The nation stopped to watch Cathy Freeman in her high tech, green and gold body suit run and convincingly win the 400 metres final. Like Goolagong, Freeman left her country home at 14 to attend a Brisbane school. On her victory lap, she held aloft Aboriginal and Australian flags.

Recognising Aussie Rules best, Sydney Swan’s great, Adam Goodes, won 2 Brownlow medals. He played 3 Internationals against Ireland. Goodes was 2014’s Australian of the Year. Racists targeted him at games and on social media. Goodes took leave of absence from his beloved game and retired.

Days before Christmas in 1977, my father Brian , well known in rugby circles at the time, took me to a wintry Donnybrook to watch the 3 extraordinary Ella brothers weave their magic with Australian schools against Leinster. Unbeknownst to me then, a decade later in Sydney Club Rugby, I was feeding line out ball to Dom Vaughan, who’d played as scrum half alongside the Ellas on that memorable day! Recently Kurtley Beale notched up 92 tests for the Wallabies. His precocious sporting talent had secured Beale a scholarship to a private Sydney Catholic school, St Joseph’s, away from Blacktown, a disadvantaged Sydney suburb.

Growing awareness of indigenous history has fueled calls to change the date of Australia Day and the anthem. The anthem refers to Australians being ‘Young’, seen as grossly offensive by the first Australians who’ve lived here for thousands of years.

Ireland is familiar with controversy over anthems at sporting events. Ireland’s Call has been played at rugby internationals since 1995. 

On New Year’s Day 2021, without any consultation, Australia’s Conservative Liberal Government changed the lyrics of the national anthem . One replaces Young which was deemed to be more inclusive. One also reflects Australia’s vibrant cultural diversity, with 26% of Aussies being immigrants.

Changing the Australia Day date and the entire anthem remain contentious issues. A song written by the original Seekers frequently beats the current anthem on many straw polls, most recently in a Twitter poll by Australian Republican advocate, prolific writer and former Wallaby, Peter FitzSimons.  

‘We are one

But we are many

And from all the lands on earth we come

We’ll share a dream

And sing with one voice

I am, you are, we are Australian ‘

The Seekers ‘I am Australian‘

In 1999, Australians marginally voted NO to becoming a Republic. While changing one word in the anthem may be gesture politics, it may also eventually lead to a Republic, the Treaty promised 33 years ago, a new flag and an entirely new anthem.

As the proud grandson of a 15 ½ year old 1916 Uprising participant from Dublin‘s impoverished Liberties, I hope Australians make most of these rightful changes in my lifetime.

 Jack Murphy , Kirribilli, Sydney, the traditional land of the Cammeraygal people. 

Declan Rice's 2nd Gen Irish Allegiance Quandary

This week ‘Irish’ soccer’s commentariat had their say about teenage soccer sensation Declan Rice. But what do they really know about how a teenager feels about his Irishness?    

Declan was born in England to Irish parents. Nothing remarkable in that. It’s been an ‘Irish’ thing for centuries! The dilemma for Declan and many second generation Irish, the 2GI’s as I call them who’ve come into the public spotlight, is how to respond when asked ‘Where are your real loyalties?’ Whilst Declan’s already played in an Irish jersey at junior level, he must now decide whose senior jersey he pulls on and committing the rest of his international career to.

It’s understood the English coach recently had a word in his ear. No doubt the two Irish qualified lads, both named Harry, part of England’s 2018 World Cup team, Captain Kane and striker Maguire were part of his ‘pitch’! I’m sure these two ‘Irish’ Englishmen have a soft spot for Ireland!

The Republic’s 4 – 1 drubbing by Ryan Gigg’s Wales this week may add to Rice’s doubts. Interestingly, Wales recently departed coach Chris Coleman always said his Dublin born father had little influence on him and that he only ever wanted to play for Wales. He wasn’t ‘feeling’ Irish enough.  

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Back in 1976, when word got around the Irish Soccer squad was training at our senior school, I recall the excitement scurrying up to see them at 11am school breaks. Paper and pen in hand as we waited patiently for a break to get their autographs! Many sporting heroes were there – Liverpool’s Steve Highway, Man United’s Gerry Daly, Arsenal’s Dave O’Leary & Liam Brady. Former Leeds United great Johnny Giles was manager. I was surprised to hear English accents call out for the ball as they practiced their routines on Irish ‘rugby soil’.

So, the Irish team wasn’t and isn’t quite ‘Irish’. What of it? Were we cheating somehow? Getting an unfair advantage? I learned about the ‘Granny rule’ and still smile about how one soccer wit rebranded the Irish Soccer Association acronym F.A.I. (Football Association of Ireland) as Find Another Irishman! In the '50’s, and again after the '70’s oil crisis, we lost another a generation. So, no we weren’t cheating!  

The late 70’s was also the time of Punk Rock and alternative bands living under Thatcher’s rule. The ‘break the unions and ignore civil human rights in Northern Ireland days', as part of the Empire edged ever closer to ‘Anarchy in the UK ‘. As young teenagers, we listened to Radio Luxembourg and many pirate radio stations like Radio Dublin 253, ARD 257 & Big D on 273. The Irishness of the Sex Pistols British flag waving Johnny Rotten or Morrissey, the song writer and lead singer from The Smiths , was never mentioned. Nor was the lineage of the audacious and outrageous ‘Boy George’. Elvis Costello ‘came out’ earliest, as he proudly associated with The Pogues in their early days.

“‘Irish blood, English heart, this I’m made of
There is no one on earth I’m afraid of
And no regime can buy or sell me’”

— Morrissey

All these 2GI’s were Brits! All feeling different levels of ‘Irishness’. The Irish blood of a 3 GI, singer songwriter Sting, was largely unknown until he outed it in ‘Broken Music’, his autobiography dedicated to his beloved Irish Granny. More recent times Dido and Ed Sheeran were more than happy to share their Irishness, the latter unleashing this last year, even re-recording one of his songs ‘as Gaeilge’ !  What of Irish born singers with British parents? I wonder how Irish U2’s Dublin raised The Edge felt (Welsh parents)? Not to mention English born Adam Clayton!

With the next massive emigration wave in the late '80’s and early 90’s, Gaelic, Soccer & Rugby clubs all lost huge numbers of young men who left in search of work, adventure and a better life style. I was one who caught that wave, settling in Sydney.

I remember being so surprised to see Aussie Brian Smith being picked for Ireland in 1989. 12 months earlier we shared the same training pitch down at Manly Rugby oval with the likes of Willie O. The Lynagh/Horan/Little combination blocked Smith’s long term Queensland & International aspirations. Smith looked further afield but soon Granny Smith came to the rescue ! This apple had rolled back under the tree. It’s believed the former Manly & Wallaby coach Alan Jones paved the way for Smith through his strong connections to both the rugby fraternity and Oxford, where Smith went to study and play rugby. I know several Irish players were greatly angered by this decision to parachute him in. Awful for team morale. The fact Smith never made an effort to live in Ireland during his international career will always be held against him.

Skipping forward a decade and the decision to move back to Ireland by Glenageary, Dublin born Keith Gleeson was far more successful. Gleeson emigrated with his family at 8 years old and went on to captain the all-conquering Wallabies Under 20’s team in 1991. Jesuit educated, the same Kirribilli, Sydney school as Wallabies Pat Mc Cabe & Bernard Foley, Gleeson’s NSW game time was limited ahead of the 2003 Rugby World Cup. In the now fully professional era, he had to make a decision and so he did in 2000 to head ‘home’. Gleeson was always honest about his Wallaby ambitions but Ireland beckoned and he said he never regretted his decision.  

Ross O ‘Carroll Kelly podcasts

On September 29 2018 , the creator of Ross O’Carroll Kelly was a guest on our show. Paul Howard knows the English born, Irish parents dilemma. Being treated as Irish in England and English when his family returned to Ireland as a young fella! Pete Mc Carthy, English writer and comedian (Mc Carthy’s Bar) told readers how unnerved he was by the suspicion of Irish people with his English accent when visiting Ireland. You just can’t win!

I’ve interviewed several people on our show over the years who were taken back to the land of their parent(s) birth. Naturally, at first, many felt like outsiders. Sadly most were bullied. The same thing happened in reverse i.e. Irish kids settling in at school in Australia were also pressured to feel ashamed about their Irish accent, their Irish ways.   

So, what about Declan Rice? Let this 19 year old lad have time to work out where he wants to be. He needs time to reflect, as the decision will have a big impact on his sporting future. He doesn’t need the commentariat or current squad players who don’t know him giving their opinions publicly. Let’s hope he finds the answer. Hopefully it's that he has both Irish heart and Irish blood!

Even if ‘Deco’ dons the white jersey instead of the green, he’ll still be, to most  Irish, ‘one of us’. Although we will be watching his lips to see if he's singing 'God Save The Queen' !   

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