As I near the end of my time here, maybe it is time to go back to the beginning. Koroit, is a rural town in South-western Victoria.
It has the largest concentration of Irish outside of the major cities, in all of Australia. Most of them came here to pick potatoes in the early 1850’s initially working for two main landlords and eventually owning farms of their own. They mainly came form Clare, Tipperary, Limerick and Cork. It has been a huge bonus for me to be among ‘my own people’. The community here have been unbelievably welcoming and kind to me. It is quite moving to think of the hardships the ancestors of this community went through, especially in the early days and how well they have done in their new home. Through it all they kept their Irishness. For example, today in school someone brought me in a photo taken of a gravestone in a local graveyard, It was written as Gaeilge, sa chló Rómánach. Andrew Lynch from Clare who when he passed away in 1914 was described as ‘Fíor Ghael a d’éag’. The person’s face lit up when I was able to translate. In Trim we have children from about 19 different nationalities, here there is only one child who is not of Caucasian descent. The majority have Irish surnames but it is not so long ago when they ALL HAD. The photo below was taken in the mid-sixties and as you see, the names are all familiar Irish ones. Sorry about the poor quality of photo but I did not want to dismantle the frame!
It has the largest concentration of Irish outside of the major cities, in all of Australia. Most of them came here to pick potatoes in the early 1850’s initially working for two main landlords and eventually owning farms of their own. They mainly came form Clare, Tipperary, Limerick and Cork. It has been a huge bonus for me to be among ‘my own people’. The community here have been unbelievably welcoming and kind to me. It is quite moving to think of the hardships the ancestors of this community went through, especially in the early days and how well they have done in their new home. Through it all they kept their Irishness. For example, today in school someone brought me in a photo taken of a gravestone in a local graveyard, It was written as Gaeilge, sa chló Rómánach. Andrew Lynch from Clare who when he passed away in 1914 was described as ‘Fíor Ghael a d’éag’. The person’s face lit up when I was able to translate. In Trim we have children from about 19 different nationalities, here there is only one child who is not of Caucasian descent. The majority have Irish surnames but it is not so long ago when they ALL HAD. The photo below was taken in the mid-sixties and as you see, the names are all familiar Irish ones. Sorry about the poor quality of photo but I did not want to dismantle the frame!
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