Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair

This article is drawn from Cronin and Adair's book The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick's Day, Routledge, London and New York, 2002. This is the first study of the evolution of St Patrick's Day in Ireland and its development in key parts of the Irish diaspora – England, Canada, the United States, and Australia. Copies of the book are now available, and can be ordered at major retailers .

Part 2: 1914-2000

On 17 March 1914 Archbishop Carr told the Age newspaper that people who had marched in Melbourne's St Patrick's Day procession 'could tell their children that they took part . . . in the year that Ireland obtained Home Rule'. His colleague, coadjutor Archbishop Mannix, considered that with Home Rule imminent 'they were celebrating a new era of their old land'. The onset of World War I in August 1914 stalled the progress of Home Rule legislation, but Irish-Australians were still generally confident that the policy would be implemented. This was particularly so, it was felt, because so many Irishmen – both at home and abroad – had enlisted to to defend the British empire. Indeed, during Melbourne's 1916 St Patrick's Day procession, performed before throngs of spectators, support for the war effort was noticeable. The Age of 20 March 1916 reported 'a liberal sprinkling of khaki amongst the spectators', with 500 soldiers of the Australian Expeditionary Force also taking part in the procession. At the St Patrick's Night concert, Archbishop Carr emphasised that although the war was 'vile and ruinous . . . it had brought about a union of the Irish and British nation such as the most loyal never expected to witness to our day'. But this rhetoric of commonality was shattered a month later by the Easter Rising in Dublin.

A meeting of the St Patrick's Society of Melbourne viewed the Irish rebellion with 'surprise and indignation', declaring: 'We strongly adhere to the constitutional methods of the National Party in Ireland . . . for finally consummating Home Rule'. Subsequently, several Irish nationalist groups in Australia cabled messages to Redmond and British Prime Minister Asquith, pledging loyalty to empire and faith in Home Rule. By contrast, Sydney's militant republican group, the Irish National Association, offered the rebels its support. In this early phase, though, Irish Australians were generally not associated with support for Sinn Féin, nor with positions of 'disloyalty' to empire. Indeed, on 28 April 1916, the staunchly pro-British daily, the Argus, stressed that 'the great mass of Irish people were as loyal as any in the Empire, and as eager to see the perpetrators punished'.anti-conscription poster By May 1916, however, British government reprisals under martial law, including the arrest and deportation to Wales of some 2,000 suspected Sinn Féin supporters, turned around the opinions of many in the Catholic hierarchy. The most outspoken and strident clerical critic was Daniel Mannix who, while not exonerating the rebels, stressed that the British government was also culpable in the tragic affair. This did not endear him to ardent loyalists, and it fanned the flames of anti-Catholicism in Victoria.

Coincidentally, a 'test' of patriotic loyalties in Australia was imminent. On 30 August 1916, Prime Minister Billy Hughes announced that a referendum would be held to decide whether men would be conscripted to serve in the Australian Imperial Force, whose number of recruits had fallen considerably. Hughes, a single-minded politician, portrayed opponents of a 'yes' vote as disloyal to nation and empire. The subsequent defeat of the poll was blamed, in large part, on the alleged 'disloyalty' of trade unionists. Additionally, though, Hughes considered that an 'overwhelming majority' of Irish-Catholics had been influenced to vote 'no' by Sinn Féin and Mannix. The charismatic Melbourne cleric had been vocal in his opposition to conscription, but he was not nearly as influential as Hughes claimed. Indeed, Mannix's home state of Victoria actually carried a 'yes' vote.




next
This webpage © 2002 Simply Australia