Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/15

 CHAPTER I.

A SURVEY OF THE SOUTH.

" Ireland in America" is a familiar phrase to Celtic and Saxon ears, but a "New Ireland in Australia" will perhaps be a rather novel expression to many. Yet the words in the latter case convey the idea of an accomplished fact, equally as well as in the former. For more than thirty years two great streams of emigration have been flowing from Ireland, the larger shaping its course across the Atlantic and discharging its human freight on the shores of the Great Republic of the West, the smaller in volume turning to the South, and, after traversing half the circumference of the globe, striking against the sunny shores of Australia. As a consequence of the comparative proximity of America to the Old World, no difficulty whatever has been experienced in arriving at a true estimate of the position and prospects of the Irish transplanted to the West. Friends and foes alike have been enabled to closely follow their 1