Australian Echoes of Imperial Tensions: Government Surveillance of Irish-Australians

James, Stephanie

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51520-5_8

Stephanie James³

326 Accesses

Abstract

Irish-Australians were under official surveillance from November 1917 following security awareness of local attempts to support anti-British activity in Ireland. The subsequent arrest and internment of seven Irish-Australians with links to the radical Irish Republican Brotherhood intensified authority and community concern. Surviving archival evidence reveals numbers of ordinary Irish-Australians made interstate contacts and exchanged material and ideas judged as subversive, sometimes outwitting authorities. The wartime atmosphere heightened suspicion, and some strongly pro-British individuals and organisations quickly judged all Irish-Australians—especially in the light of perceived inflammatory statements from Melbourne’s Archbishop Mannix—as disloyal and verging on traitorous. While an active Irish-Australian ‘underground’ existed—with greater potential for radical action than was realised—it was largely aimed at resisting Australia’s government-fuelled pro-British and anti-Irish atmosphere.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 69.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 89.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 119.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
See Brenda Niall, Mannix (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2015), 16, 99, 100, 172, 175 and 176.
2.
Patrick O’Farrell, “The Irish Republican Brotherhood in Australia: The 1918 Internments,” in Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750–1950, ed. Oliver MacDonagh (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1983), 192.
3.
Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1983), 26, 198.
4.
Legislation for Home Rule, an Irish parliament, had previously failed to pass in 1886 and 1893.
5.
“Home Rule Demonstration,” Advocate (Melbourne), 9 May 1914 (figures given in the Melbourne Age and Argus of 5 May 1914 were less); “Premier and Ministers Lead Great Irish Meeting in Sydney,” Catholic Press (Sydney), 18 June 1914; “Home Rule Demonstration,” Freeman’s Journal (Sydney), 18 June 1914, 8; “Home Rule,” Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 1914.
6.
Ten state and ten federal MPs attended in Adelaide, six state and twenty-two federal members in Melbourne, and in Sydney fifteen local MPs attended.
7.
Southern Cross (Adelaide), 11 September 1914 reported an inter-church patriotic meeting in rural South Australia, 18 September refers to “The spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for enrolment of volunteers; the patriotic funds…so generously supported by all…,” and 25 September 1914 the departure of the “SA Expeditionary Force.”
8.
The Melbourne Advocate editorial of 20 March 1915 rebutted claims of Irish-Australian disloyalty.
9.
“Catholics and Loyalty,” Register (SA), 8 October 1914.
10.
“New Presbytery, Glenhuntly,” Advocate (Melbourne), 29 August 1915.
11.
Quoted in L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger 1914–1952: William Morris Hughes, A Political Biography, vol. 2 (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1979), 60–1. Emphasis added.
12.
See Stephanie James, “‘Deep Green Loathing’? Shifting Irish-Australian Loyalties in the Victorian and South Australian Irish-Catholic Press, 1868–1923” (PhD thesis, Flinders University, 2013).
13.
Patrick O’Farrell, The Irish in Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1988), 254–8.
14.
Cain, Political Surveillance, 26.
15.
Ibid.
16.
See Circulars (includes instructions for surveillance of Sinn Fein activities), 1917–1924, 17 November 1917, D1915, SA29, Pt. 1, National Archives of Australia (hereafter cited as NAA), Adelaide.
17.
Ibid., 4 January 1918.
18.
James Loughlin, “Irish Republican Brotherhood,” Oxford Companion to Irish History, ed. S.J. Connolly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 284. The Fenians were founded in Ireland and America in the late 1850s; their tactics involved violence in an effort to gain Irish independence from Britain. They provoked intense international fear.
19.
Ibid., 189.
20.
Annie Ryan, Witnesses: Inside the Easter Rising (Dublin: Liberties Press, 2005), 30.
21.
O’Farrell, “The Irish Republican Brotherhood,” 188.
22.
Ibid., 191–3.
23.
Papers Relating to the “Irish Republican Brotherhood,” 11 September 1918, CP406/1, BUNDLE 1, NAA, Canberra.
24.
O’Farrell, The Irish in Australia, 274; Cain, Political Surveillance, 27.
25.
Rory Sweetman, “Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week? Antipodean Irish Catholic Responses to the 1916 Rising,” in The Impact of the 1916 Rising: Among the Nations, ed. Ruan O’Donnell (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2008), 71.
26.
At the YIS meeting of November 1917 there were no contemporary politicians moving resolutions. All Irish-Catholic papers published accounts of demonstrations, dispersing content across the Irish-Australian community.
27.
“Unwarranted and Unscrupulous Attacks on Archbishop Mannix,” Advocate (Melbourne), 8 April 1918. The Age and Argus of 3 April 1918 state 20,000 were in attendance.
28.
Sinn Fein Victoria. Raids – Melbourne 25-3-1918 – Names and Addresses of Correspondents, 1919–1923, A8911, 218, NAA, Canberra.
29.
Tuomey, Rev. Dr Patrick, 6 September 1918, A8911, 234, NAA, Canberra; Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 23 December 1918, 18, 28 January 1919, D1915, SA29 Pt.1, NAA, Canberra.
30.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 30 May 1918, D1915 SA29 Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide. See Censor report of 12 May for Purton’s letter to Dryer; see Thomas Fitzgerald, Secretary Irish National Association, Sinn Feiner, 28 May 1918, A8911, 229, NAA, Canberra; see Censor Report of 22 April for Fitzgerald’s letter to Dryer expressing pleasure about SA.
31.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 22 August 1918, D1915 SA29 Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide. Queensland Brother Athanasius encouraged Purton to write for a short-lived radical Melbourne publication, Australia: Review of the Month.
32.
Cain, Political Surveillance, 53. Cain refers to the file as “Summary of Ryan’s Disloyal Associations 1915 to 1918.”
33.
See Ernest Scott, Australia During the War, vol. 11, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, 9th ed. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1943), 144–8.
34.
Sinn Fein South Australia: General Reports of Organisation, 4 June 1918, 27 May 1918, A8911, 219, NAA, Canberra; Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 24, 27, 28 June, 25 September 1918, 31 March 1919, D1915, SA29 Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide. For charges against Irishman Tuomey (who was found guilty and fined £30), A8911, 234, NAA, Canberra. “Under the War Precautions Act” and “The Triumph of Failure” in the Advocate (Melbourne) on 1 and 22 December 1917, respectively, show details of security raid and fines for proprietor and editor.
35.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 1, 3, 8 July 1918, D1915, SA29 Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide.
36.
See Stephanie James, “The Empire for the British. ‘No Foreigners Need Apply.’ German and Irish-Australian Encounters with ‘British Fair Play’ during the Great War,” in Revisiting World War 1: Interpretations and Perspectives of the Great Conflict, ed. Jaroslaw Suchoples and Stephanie James (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2016), 29–62.
37.
“Young Ireland Society,” Tribune (Melbourne), 7 March 1918.
38.
“St Patrick’s Day Disloyal Emblems,” Argus (Melbourne), 21 March 1918; Sinn Fein Organisations: Raided March 1918, A8911, 251, NAA, Canberra.
39.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 8 June 1918, D1915 SA29, Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide. His contact was Prendergast.
40.
“Young Ireland Society,” Advocate (Melbourne), 27 April 1918.
41.
Ignatius O’Sullivan, Victoria, 18 June 1918, B741, V/276, NAA, Melbourne.
42.
“The Irish Situation,” Advocate (Melbourne), 10 November 1917.
43.
Ignatius O’Sullivan, Victoria, 27 June 1918, B741, V/276, NAA, Melbourne.
44.
“The Interned Irish,” Argus (Melbourne), 12 August 1918; “Magnificent Irish National Demonstration at Richmond,” Advocate (Melbourne), 17 August 1918.
45.
See Sinn Fein South Australia: General Reports of Organisation, 1 June 1919, A8911, 219, NAA, Canberra for critical censor comment on Patrick senior’s letter to Ireland.
46.
Ibid., 25 February 1918.
47.
See Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 2 and 8 May 1918, D1915 SA29, Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide reporting likely Keighery family links to “Irish Revolutionary Party.” “This family is evidently Sinn Fein.”
48.
Ibid., 11 May 1919.
49.
Ibid., 18 June 1918.
50.
Ibid., 24 June 1918.
51.
Ibid., 3 September 1918.
52.
Ibid., 29 May 1918; “New Irish National Association,” Southern Cross (Adelaide), 31 May 1918. In July 1918, his circulation of Sinn Fein badges (banned under WPA regulations) led to hostile file notes when agents found they could not prevent this.
53.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 29 July 1918, D1915 SA29, Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide.
54.
Ibid., 30 May, 3 July 1918, 20 January, 3, 10, 12, 17 February, 18 March, 14 April, 12 May 1919, 6 January, 22 March and 27 September 1920.
55.
See Hanrahan’s letter headed “Irish-Ireland in Australia” in The Leader: A Review of Current Affairs, Politics, Literature, Art and Industry (published in Dublin), 6 April 1918, 204–6.
56.
Sinn Fein South Australia: General Reports of Organisation, 16 September and 11 November 1918, NAA, Canberra.
57.
O’Farrell, “The Irish Republican Brotherhood,” 187, 190.
58.
Artie Hanrahan to mother, 5 June 1918, Hanrahan Papers, Vol. 7, 318, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide (hereafter cited as SLSA).
59.
Irish National Association – Correspondence and Reports, 1918–1925, 18 November, 9, 18, 22, 23, 30 December 1918, 6 January 1919, D1915, SA29, Pt.1, NAA, Adelaide.
60.
Artie to Ethel Hanrahan, 8 December 1918, 333–4, Hanrahan Papers, SLSA.
61.
Sinn Fein and Irish National Association – Proposed Searches and General Reports (WA), 23, 25, 26 March, 8, 13, 16, 17, 20, 31 May 1918, A8911, 221, NAA, Canberra. He wrote as “D. Power.”
62.
Ibid. The report of 16 September referred to “O’Leary’s removal to Albany.”
63.
Michael McKernan, Australian Churches at War: Attitudes and Activities of the Major Churches 1914–1918 (Sydney: Catholic Theological Faculty and Australian War Memorial, 1980), 91.
64.
The Record. Seditious Western Australian Roman Catholic Paper 1918, 1, 8, 9 and 12 April, A8911, 253, NAA, Canberra.
65.
Sinn Fein and Irish National Association – Proposed Searches and General Reports (WA), 18 July 1918, A8911, 221, NAA, Canberra.
66.
Ibid.
67.
Ibid., 4 June 1918.
68.
Ibid., 18 July 1918.
69.
Rohan Rivett, Australian Citizen: Herbert Brookes 1867–1963 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1965), 64–9.
70.
Ibid., 61–2.
71.
M.L. Shepherd, Prime Minister’s secretary, to H. Brookes, 27 May 1918, Papers of Herbert and Ivy Brookes, MS1924, Box 17, Folder 6, National Library of Australia, Canberra (hereafter cited as NLA). The letter was written on behalf of the acting prime minister. See also Nick Fischer, “The American Protective League and the Australian Protective League—Two Responses to the Threat of Communism, c 1917–1920,” American Communist History 10, no. 2 (2011): 133–49.
72.
See Neville Meaney, Australia and World Crisis 1914–1923 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009), 230–40.
73.
Notes of Herbert Brookes, October 1918, Papers of Herbert and Ivy Brookes, MS1924, Box 16, Folder 238, NLA. See also MS1924, Box 21, Folders 228 to 232 and 262 to 265 for examples of his extreme anti-Mannix and Catholic views.
74.
All British Sentinel 1, no. 1, 1 December 1917, 1. The Port Adelaide branch was established in January 1915, the Adelaide branch on 16 June. Governor Sir Henry Galway became its patron.
75.
Ibid., 22.
76.
See All British Sentinel of 1 January, 1 May, 1 June, 1 July and 1 August 1918 (“The German Sinn Fein League”).
77.
See All British Sentinel of 1 July 1918, 18, for claim that the Adelaide branch had 11,000 members in its first year, and issue of 1 April 1920, 11, for a more realistic total membership of 4,000.
78.
O’Farrell, “The Irish Republican Brotherhood,” 193.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Stephanie James

Authors

Stephanie James
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephanie James .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

University of Newcastle , Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
Kate Ariotti
University of Newcastle , Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
James E. Bennett

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

James, S. (2017). Australian Echoes of Imperial Tensions: Government Surveillance of Irish-Australians. In: Ariotti, K., Bennett, J. (eds) Australians and the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51520-5_8

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51520-5_8
Published: 30 August 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51519-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51520-5
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics