Ireland might be beautiful with endless greenery, but Australia has Ireland beat when it comes to the weather.
Ireland is famously known as the Emerald Isle: green, beautiful, and lush. Trouble is, everyone who has spent any time in the country knows that the green beauty is a result of the weather. Warm westerlies bring the most changeable weather imaginable, as well as rain – so much rain.
Whether it is misty, spitting, drizzle, summer rain, pouring, bucketing or lashing, what you know for sure is that wet weather is probably just around the corner.
On the other, on the far side of the world is another island whose climate is famous, but for quite the opposite reasons. With the scorching summer sun and cool short winters, Australia is perceived as the land of barbecue, surf and sunshine. It’s no wonder many Irish people consider emigrating halfway around the world to the land down under.
Victoria – the Irish were originally transported as convicts
Originally, the Irish did not travel to Australia in search of a better life. In fact, most of them really did not want to be there at all.
Like many of the earliest settlers to arrive in Australia, they were transported there as convicts. Notorious gang leader Ned Kelly was the son of one such Irish convict.
He, his brother, Steve Hart, and Joe Byrne, became the infamous Kelly Gang. They hid out in the hills of North East Victoria, rounding up other people’s horses and carrying out other ‘bushranger’ activities.
Kelly is said to have spoken with a broad Irish brogue. The gang’s descendants settled in the area and spread out across the state. Perhaps they got as far as Flemington, where the Melbourne Cup takes place every November.
The Irish are known for their love of horse racing, and while they may not have planned on exporting this passion, they ultimately did.
Horse racing is the most popular event on which to bet in Australia. Australians spend $2.8 billion a year betting on horses.
However, it is not just horses. Australians are pretty sport crazy, whether it’s rugby, soccer, cricket or swimming. And they love to have a flutter on those sports too. Retail and online betting in Australia is worth $626 million a year.
The Gold Coast – lineage traced to Ned Kelly
In 2013, it was reported that there were families living on The Gold Coast who could trace their lineage directly back to Kelly. When a memorial service for Kelly was planned 130 years after his execution, three Gold Coast residents travelled to Wangaratta to act as pallbearers.
Up until 1914, the Irish and their descendants constituted around a third of the non-native population living in the country. Between 1854 and 1914, the Irish were the largest immigrant group in the country behind the English.
The majority of Irish immigrants worked on the land, and many were driven to emigrate due to poverty and poor conditions at home. Australia now has the largest diaspora of people of Irish descent in the world.
Sydney, Melbourne and Perth – largest Irish-born populations
The 2011 census revealed that 2,087,800 people were part of that diaspora. This was 10.4% of the total population at the time. In 2006, 50,255 Australian residents reported on the census that they had been born in the Republic of Ireland, and 21,291 reported that they were born in Northern Ireland.
Like the Irish people who came before them, these newest immigrants now live right across the country. Unlike the earlier immigrants, the more recent arrivals in Australia have headed for the cities rather than the rural areas.
The cities with the largest Irish-born populations are Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. In 2006, 12,730 of Sydney’s residents were Irish-born, 8,950 of Melbourne’s and 7,060 of Perth’s. The patterns of all Irish Australian settlements are not very different from those of the general Australian population.
A third of them live in New South Wales and a quarter of them in Victoria. The difference is that only 18% of the general population live in Queensland, but 22% of the Irish Australians reside there. Relatively fewer Irish Australians live in Western Australia.
Who knows why these are the most common settlement patterns. However, circling back to the weather, maybe it makes sense that the Sunshine Coast is a draw for those from damper climes.
