APRIL 1999
www.celtic-connection.com
Page 17
'The Great Shame9 A Veil of Tears
HAND ENGRAVED CELTIC JEWELLERY
"Convicts embarked in Ireland, generally arrive in New South Wales in a very healthy state and are found to be more obedient and more sensible to kind treatment during the passage than any class. Their separation from their country is observed to make a strong impression on their minds."
— Report of J. T. Bigge, Special Royal Commissioner 1819
By DAVE ABBOTT
SYDNEY, Australia — "I think the Irish are Jews with booze," says author Tom Keneally, his mischievous Irish-Australian eyes twinkling. He looks like a noggin bottle you could fit in your back pocket. He's amused at my reaction as he expounds on his latest offering The Great Shame: an odyssey of the Irish in the Old world and the New (Publisher: Doubleday).
"The Irish were the underclass in Europe and America for years," says the roguish sixty-something 1982 Booker prize winning author of Schindler's List, that film director Steven Spielberg turned into an Oscar winning movie." This is one of the reasons I felt compelled to write about why the Irish population between 1841 and 1881 declined to a level above half of what it had been," Keneally says.
Tom has agreed to an exclusive interview for The Celtic Connection and Celtic Voices (Radio 96.1 FM) and we are meeting in the living room of The Hughenden Hotel, a restored Nineteenth Century Manor, popular with artists and writers
in fashionable Paddington, a suburb of Sydney.
The book covers 80 years of Irish history as seen though the eyes of some of Keneally's ancestors who served time as convicts in Australia. "I wanted to show some of the experiences of the Irish diaspora and better understand the causes of a catastrophe unique in Europe. For example, I used Hugh Larkin, from whom my wife Judy and my daughters are descended, and his brethren, to carry the message."
Like his quest for Oskar Schindler, The Great Shame traces the three causes of this depletion: the famine; the emigrations; and the transportation to Australia. Then he relates a story about Lady Wilde, mother of Oscar and friend of notable Irish prisoners, and the "Female Factories" pulling at his goatee and cackling with glee as he describes some of the women of the time.
"They were strong women, you know, but of course, there were also some great Irish leaders around then" he says "among them William Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, and John Mitchel leading Irish political movements like the Fenians, the Ribonmen and the Young Irelanders".
Tom sits back and fidgets impatiently, he's in somewhat of a hurry, he explains, as he's due that afternoon at the one-day cricket match between England and Australia.
He points to his schoolboy cap
Celtic Hospitality in Calgary
CALGARY — Barbara Jessiman recently opened a bed and breakfast in her home located in the Bowness area of Calgary. Jessiman, who can proudly claim Irish heritage on both sides of her family, said, "I was inspired to open my own bed and breakfast after visiting Ireland and Scotland and being very impressed with the warm hospitality I found there."
Her bed and breakfast is located minutes from the Irish Cultural Centre, close to the University of Calgary and Foothills Hospital and also near major highways and shopping centres. She provides modest daily or extended rates year-round.
Coming from a counselling background, Jessiman felt that she could provide a comfortable and supportive environment for her guests. She cautions people moving to Alberta in search of the current economic boom to be aware that the streets of Calgary are not paved with gold.
She said, "there are many jobs for the highly qualified, but I see an alarming increase in homeless and street people as a result of the current influx. I also feel that the government
BARBARA JESSIMAN
agencies are not coping very well with the present situation."
— Catholine Butler
For anyone wishing a friendly welcome to Alberta, call Barbara for a reservation at her bed and breakfast at (403)288-7272.
on which there are embroidered Kangaroos dancing, "I can't wait to see the Pommies being beaten!" It's a remark that's in character with one of the founders of the Australian Republican Movement, which "will be a political reality before the Millennium" he insists "because it's supported by 57 percent of my fellow citizens."
"The Irish have an astonishing history" he offers "and Australia influenced the fatally riven Irish politics of emigrant societies in the United States, Britain and Canada and I wanted to try to tell some of that tale as well." He has succeeded.
Dentry's Finds a Celtic Connection
VANCOUVER — Local readers of The Celtic Connection might be surprised to learn how widespread the "connections" of this newspaper are. Phil Dentry, owner of Dentry's Irish Grill in Vancouver, was surprised recently when he received a letter from the Northeastern part of the United States.
An article in the December 1998 issue of The Celtic Connection caught the eye of a 45-year old lieutenant in the Maryland State Police. He had read about the opening of Phil's restaurant on West 10,h Avenue and was intrigued by the name.
It was one that he had heard often. In fact, the name was shared by his father, mother, wife and two children. Tom Dentry, as it turns out, is an amateur genealogist and was delighted to find a western Canadian branch of the family tree.
Tom has collected several hundred documents pertaining to the Dentry clan and had an interesting anecdote to share with his Canadian cousin. The famous British publication The Spectator, published an article in its July 21, 1714 edition which mentioned a well-known tavern keeper called John Dentry.
That means that there was a Dentry's Irish Grill even before Arthur Guinness took over a small brewery at St. James's Gate in 1759 and began brewing Ireland's most famous export.
"I guess it really is in my genes," said Phil Dentry when he read the letter from Tom Dentry. "Maybe I should put a sign in the bar that says we've been pulling pints since Arthur Guinness was in diapers," he joked.
The news also put to rest a controversy among the regulars at Dentry's Irish Grill about how much Irish blood there is in the publican. Phil's American cousin's grandfather was born on St. Patrick's Day in 1913 and was proud of his Irish heritage.
Phil is sending Tom a Dentry's Irish Grill t-shirt and has promised to buy him a Guinness if he ever makes it to Vancouver.
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