The Easter Rising in Australian History and Memory

Abstract

Famously Prime Minister Billy Hughes blamed the Irish Catholic vote and the influence of Archbishop Mannix for the defeat of his first conscription referendum in 1916. Australian historians since the 1960s have cast doubt on this claim. A more subtle effect of the tumultuous events in Dublin at Easter 1916 was suggested by Patrick O'Farrell: the Easter Rising brought to an end the Irish Home Rule movement in Australia, to be replaced not by republicanism but 'by nothing'. What then might remain of the Easter Rising in Australian history and memory? At the very least, it is suggested here, a long-term effect was its impact in driving Hughes to create new security legislation and a Commonwealth police. Alongside the work of tracing this legacy of the Rising in Australian institutions of law and security, this lecture traces also some contours of its effects in politics and memory.