t is a difficult task to f3erernialj Bekurnan the whole were of the very wq&t try to write briefly description'. Small wonder that, being about the first lrish si~ljogof Pimerick thus regarded, more than forty of them Catholic missionar- Famine years. were summarily flogged while the ship ies to Australia. They left from Cork too. The was still at sea. A lot has been writ- Freeman's Journal for 26 February, The tide of transportation became ten alreadv about 1791, tells us of how 'the Jailer from greater after the Rebellion of 1798, as those priests, notably in Father Eris Limerick set off for Cork with a number also did the contempt in which the O'Brien's The Dawn of Catholicism in of prisoners, where a large transport is unfortunate transportees were held. Australia, Cardinal Moran's History of preparing to carry all the convicts in the In 1801 the Governor of the Sydney the Catholic Church in Australia, Kingdom to Botany Bay'. area record~dthat a vessel from Water- Archbishop Ullathorne's Catholic Mis- Most of the early lrish emigrants ford brought 'one hundred and thirty- sion to Australia, J.F. Hogan's Thelrish were Catholic convicts. The first seven of the most desperate and in Australia, 'John O'Brien's The Men Irishmen are said to have been trans- diabolical characters that could be of '38, and other volumes. ported in 1791 and the first convict ship selected throughout the kingdom ... Still, there are a few more scattered to carry political prisoners from Ireland together with a Catholic priest of the references that can yet be assembled to Australia -the Marquis Cornwallis - most notorious, seditious and rebelli- into a fascinating study, in particular left from Cove in 1795. There must have ous principles'. relating to the Munster and indeed the been some lrish there however even This was Fr. Peter O'Neil, a native of Limerick connection with Australia. earlier than 1791. For, although it is not Ballymacoda, Co. Cork, who, even It is seldom realised that the bulk of widely known, it is a fact that a Kilkenny before being sent from Ireland, had lrish emigration to Australia after the priest, Father James Walsh, sought received two hundred and seventy-five Famine came from a midland area, permission to travel with the First Fleet lashes of the cat. Perhaps indeed he embracing Clare, Limerick, Tipperary to be with his countrymen, but was was a rebel, as some sixty or so years and Kilkenny. Many of the emigrants refused. after, his grand-nephew, Peter O'Neil had their passages paid for by lrish The first Catholic political convicts Crowley, a Fenian leader, was killed in landlords such as Lord Monteagle of were members of the Whiteboys or the uprising of 1867. Or which was the Mount Trenchard, Co. Limerick, better Levellers, who had sown the seeds of cause of which ...? known here as Thomas Spring Rice. rebellion in Tipperary as early as 1761, Fr. O'Wl was accompanied by two Prior to that, great numbers were and the Ulster Catholic Defenders. It other lrish fellow-priests. The three transported thither from Limerick port, was said of the Marquis Cornwallis that were the first lrish Catholic mis- from which the tall ships sailed with of the men on board "several ... were sionaries to Australia, celebrating their human cargoes like later on in the known by the name of Defenders, and Mass with a chalice made of tin by one - The Custom House andpart of the oldpott of Limerick, --S Sydney Cove: the earliest kno wn picture. of their fellow-convicts and wearing enlightened but autocratic Governor It is almost uneblievable but true vestments fashioned out of some cast- Macquarie had him returned to Europe, that, while a priest in the brutal convict away curtains. again leaving behind Catholics - settlement of Norfolk Island, (near the It was not too long before their minis- almost all of them lrish -without a pas- more famous Pitcairn Island), McEn- try was terminated, owing to the tor. Macquarie was probably influ- croe managed to write a book, entitled authorities' fear that their congrega- enced by the English Catholic Vicar- (perhaps suitably) The Wanderings of tions were gatherings for the subter- Apostolic of London, Dr. Poynter, the Human Mind in Searching the fuges of traitors. Two of them (one under whose religious jurisdiction all Scriptures, printed in Sydney in 1841. being Fr. O'Neil) were allowed to return the British colonies had been placed, Cardinal Moran wrote that it was prob- home in 1803, the other sent to Van and who was none too happy with ably the only work ever written in that Diemen's Land, or Tasmania as it is bet- O'Flynn's assignment. fearsome penal enclave. I have a feel- ter known. For nearly ten years after The Antipodes also saw other and ing that some spiritual writing in the 1808 Catholics in Australia were with- very different lrish 'characters' during lrish language came from the convicts out a priest, though there were at least the 19th century. One such was the in Australia, but whether from Norfolk six thousand of them there by 1816. Corkman - married to a Quaker - who Island I am not sure. The first priests were succeeded by a had eph shipped from Cork to keep McEncroe was followed in 1837 by rather extraordinary man, Fr. Jeremiah away-snakes! Another was Lola Montez, another group of priests and by still O'Flynn. Born near Tralee in 1788, he born a Gilbert in Co. Limerick, who another in 1838, after the establish- became a Trappist monk in England. entranced audiences in Melbourne, ment of All Hallows College. Among After a varied and colourful career, he Adelaide and Ballarat with her dancing. the latter was a Fr. Slattery from eventually went to Australia, to which The early missionaries of whom we Limerick. Having received a good edu- he had been appointed by Rome as Pre- have been speaking were followed in cation in one of the principal classical fect-Apostolic of Bottanibe (sic). He 1819 or 1820, first by Fr. John Joseph schools for which Co. Limerick was landed in New Holland in 1817. Therry, a native of Cork, who became a renowned, he was ordained in May- By all accounts he was a rather legend in his day. Then came the most nooth in 1837 and in January of thefol- uncouth individual. How effective he flamboyant of them all, John McEn- lowing year sailed for Sydney. was is open to doubt. Fr. Eris O'Brien croe, a native of Rathsalla, or Ardsalla, His first major appointment was in describes him as 'clumsy' and 'rash'. Co. Tipperary. Bathurst and the next in Western Vic- Nevertheless, O'Brien goes on to say Maynooth-educated, McEncroe had toria. Later on, the Warnambool Stan- that 'he was the only type of man who been recruited by Therry when he vis- dardwas to say of him: 'At thattime his could have succeeded in his mission. ited that college in 1815. Mcm-s;left mission extended from Colac to the An adroit and politic expert would have in 1822for New South Wales,where his- South Australian Border, and from the failed'. mission was fruitful and his memory is Ocean to the Dividing Range. With no Yet, aftey,.hnly a short time, the still fresh. roads, and settlements miles apart, his duties must have been of the most nature, but his indomitable courage and untiring zeal overcame all difficulties. Old residents can tell of his braving the storms of winter, often swimming his horse in the djirkness of the night across flooded rivers, and cheerfully undergoing the many other hardships incidental to an unsettled district, when oh his way to celebrate Mass or to bring consolation to a departing soul'. Around 1860, he became Dean of the Diocese of Mel- bourne (a separate See since 1848). The same paper went on to say: 'Dean Slattery was the pioneer of Catholicity in the Western district, and the result of his exertions may be seen in the number of priests, churches, and Catholic scholastic institutions now here. He took an active interest in local affairs and has always been ready and willing to aid the cause of charity, 'did good by stealth and blushed to find it fame', and many families have reason to bless the priest who so generously Hobart Town in the 1830s. assisted them in their necessities'. Dean Slattery died in 1882. great part to the presence there of became one afterwards and donated Catholic priests, one of whom, Fr. the then great sum of £10,000 to the Michael Brennan from Limerick, was building of a cathedral in Hobart. Itwas stationed at Yass and encouraged by there that Thomas Francis Meagher the people to build its first church,start- and other lrish political exiles after the ing in 1837. 1848 debacle resided. When, in 1834, an Englishman, Dr. Polding, was appointed the first Catholic Bishop in Australia (in Syd- ney), he turned his attention to Western Australia and in 1843, sent two priests and a catechist there to work among the Aborigines. One of the three men was Father John Brady from Cavan (of the 1838 group) and the catechist an lrish youth named Patrick O'Reilly. These were the first Catholic mis- sionaries ever to set foot in Western Australia. lrish priests were also to become some of the first bishops in Australia. Dean Thomas Slattery. Fr. Francis Murphy, who had arrived in 1838, went on to become the first Bishop of Adelaide in 1844.