Australian echoes of imperial tensions: government surveillance of Irish-Australians

Irish-Australians were under official surveillance from November 1917 following security awareness of local attempts to support anti-British activity in Ireland. The subsequent arrest and internment of seven Irish-Australians with links to the radical Irish Republican Brotherhood intensified authority and community concern. Surviving archival evidence reveals numbers of ordinary Irish-Australians made interstate contacts and exchanged material and ideas judged as subversive, sometimes outwitting authorities. The wartime atmosphere heightened suspicion, and some strongly pro-British individuals and organisations quickly judged all Irish-Australians—especially in the light of perceived inflammatory statements from Melbourne’s Archbishop Mannix—as disloyal and verging on traitorous. While an active Irish-Australian ‘underground’ existed—with greater potential for radical action than was realised—it was largely aimed at resisting Australia’s government-fuelled pro-British and anti-Irish atmosphere.