Jeff Kildea on Sectarianism and the Irish in Australia | “Exclusiveness and Exclusion”

When did Australia become a multicultural nation?

On Afternoon Light #152 Georgina Downer speaks with Dr Jeff Kildea to unpack how ‘White Australia’ was never quite as homogenous as many now assume. As tensions between the Protestant majority and an Irish Catholic minority produced sharp, longstanding, but never quite universal divisions.

Jeff is an honorary professor in Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales. He has written extensively on the history of the Irish in Australia, most recently releasing the remarkable story of Sister Liguori: The Nun who Divided a Nation.