Writing the Irish-Australian Self: Life-Writers and Irish Stereotypes, 1870-2000

Abstract

This article surveys the history of Irish-Australian autobiography and memoir as a form of writing particularly well adapted to exploring the tensions and compromises of Irish-Australian identity. It draws on selected works published from the early colonial period to the end of the twentieth century written by men and women across a wide social spectrum, from archbishops, politicians and academics to bushrangers, barmaids and poets. It focuses on the process of self-construction at work in the writing, with particular attention to the ways in which contemporaneous Irish stereotypes are invoked, often rejected, and sometimes embraced as part of this process. The tentative suggestion is made that a balanced appreciation of this form of writing may have been hindered by a bias evident in much recent Irish-Australian historiography towards interpreting the historical relationship between the Irish diaspora and the dominant Australian culture in conflictual terms, and that the strong impulse towards friendly assimilation, an equally important part of the historical record, deserves equal recognition.