Sifting through the past

A Murdoch University historian is turning our rose-tinted ideas of Australia’s history on its head with a new study about the early history of Irish convicts.

Professor Michael Durey has recently begun a three-year Australian Research Council Discovery Project on Irish convicts in Australia, aiming to develop a fuller picture of early settlers’ lives.

“During the years 1797-1806, Ireland was a place of massive social and political upheaval. Efforts to gain independence from Britain resulted in a rebellion in 1798 and the unsuccessful rebels were dealt with very firmly,” said Professor Durey.

“Many were sentenced to death, others were conscripted into the army and approximately 1000 men and 175 women were deported to Australia between 1799 and 1806. About 40% of the men and a few women were transported for political offences.”

Basing his research on official records, criminal petitions and records of criminal charges (these last being discovered by him), Professor Durey is carefully piecing together the lives of Australia’s early Irish convicts in both hemispheres.

“There is a myth that most convicts committed very minor offences, but actually the vast majority of Irish men and women transported to Australia had been charged with more serious crimes. There is evidence that the men were frequently involved with murders and violent assaults and the women were multiple offenders often working in crime gangs,” he said.

“We have always assumed that the Irish created their own community in Australia, but early results seem to be showing that the Irish integrated more into mainstream colonial society than we originally thought. Interestingly, it seems that the leading political prisoners such as the priests, doctors and lawyers returned to Ireland as soon as they could, rather than stepping into leadership roles for the Irish settlers.

Professor Durey hopes to collate his findings into a book over the next few years, and, having already published widely on the Irish political prisoners who either were banished to the United States or were sent as soldiers to the pestilential West Indies, expects eventually to build a complete picture of the Irish diaspora during this era. To an extent he is now following in the footsteps of two other Murdoch researchers, Assoc. Professor Bob Reece and Dr Michael Sturma, both of whom have contributed significantly to an understanding of early convicts in Australia.