Author captures plight of Irish
By ELLEN FITZGERALD
News Writer
Chronicling stories of Irish who were sent to Australia in famine times, Australian novelist Thomas Keneally discussed his new book, "The Great Shame and the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World," Wednesday night in the Hesburgh Library Auditorium.
"I was keen to write about the Irish phenomenon because it fascinated me," he said. Keneally, who also penned "Schindler's List," explores stories of Irish convicts who were sent into captivity in Australia by the British.
Keneally has mainly written fiction, but after writing "Schindler's List," which is based on actual Holocaust events, he began to think about his own Irish ancestors and decided to write their story. This resulted in "The Great Shame."
"[The book] deals with the hope of peace in Ireland and a hope of an end to the shame and end to the great division," said Keneally, who explained he felt the duty to tell the story of the anonymous and degraded Irish.
The great shame of the Irish by the British began in the 19th century. "Ireland continued to hemorrhage from the treatment it received from Westmin-ster," said Keneally.
During this era, Young Ireland, a nationalist group that he said identified with the underclass, emerged. Many of these nationalists were sent as prisoners to Australia or fled to the United States. "The Great Shame" follows such men and women and chronicles their experiences in Australia and the USA.
The book begins with the story of Hugh Larking, an ancestor of Keneally's wife. Larking, like many of the underclass Irish, turned to crime because of the potato blight and the treatment by the British. He, in fact, was only condemned for acting out against his British landlord.
This is representative of the rest of Keneally's tales, many of which tell of Irish women who beg to be sent to Australia to join their convict husbands and of Irish who escaped exile by fleeing to the United States.
There was more than crime that drove the Irish from Ireland, however.
"The potato blight was the trigger which sent many people to the Americas," he said. The Irish who immigrated to the U.S. were almost immediately taken in to the American culture, according to Keneally.
They became very involved with politics, especially the Democratic political machine because they looked at it as "a platform of intervention to Ireland."
After the Civil War in the United States, the Finneans, an Irish republican brotherhood that embodied such ideas, emerged. The group felt that American power was a means to help the suffering Irish. They unsuccessfully attempted to campaign in Ireland and to capture Canada and trade it to the British for Ireland, he said.
John Keneally, the author's great uncle, was a member of this group and a devout Democrat who bought a ship to rescue six Irish convicts who remained in Australia.
Keneally believes crimes of the Irish are small compared to those of the British Government, he said. "The Irish sent to Australia were not criminals at all," he said. "But the mothers of the nation."
Keneally is the author of 20 novels and is also a leading member in the Republican movement in Australia to cut ties with the British monarchy.
All News Stories for Thursday, October 7, 1999
