Laments in Transition: The Irish-Australian songs of Sally Sloane (1894-1982)

Abstract

Irish music in Australia has a strong tradition though it is less thoroughly documented and less frequently the subject of scholarly inquiry than in Ireland, the British Isles and North America. From the earliest days of white settlement in Australia, the Irish represented a significant proportion of total immigrants. One in three convicts transported to Australia from Great Britain after 1798 was Irish. About 20 per cent of these were connected with political and agrarian unrest in England and Ireland and many who survived transportation and incarceration continued rebellious activities directed at the ruling class in Australia. Irish immigration continued to increase in the nineteenth century as a result not only of the famine of the 1840s, but also because of growing persecution from English landlords who raised rents to levels resulting in mass evictions. After 1840, emigration became a vast, relentless national phenomenon. Between 1789 and 1921 about half a million Irish people set sail for Australia. Those leaving Ireland turned towards an unknown future half a world away beyond perilous oceans, not expecting to see their homeland again. Oliver MacDonagh, in his book 'Sharing the Green: A modern Irish history for Australians', asks.