Irish-born immigrants and their descendants have been a feature of the Australian population since the arrival of the First Fleet in New South Wales in 1788. Their influence upon, and contribution to, Australia's ever-changing and evolving cultural, economic, political and social life was of central significance.
At the 2021 Australian census, 2,410,833 residents identified themselves as having Irish ancestry either alone or in combination with another ancestry. This nominated ancestry was third behind English and Australian in terms of the largest number of responses and represents 9.5% of the total population of Australia.
Australia and Ireland share a historical connection and remained part of the British Empire until their respective independence. Over 300,000 Irish settlers migrated to Australia to escape poverty in their homeland and over 2 million Australian citizens claim Irish ancestry.
Sydney, Melbourne and Perth – largest Irish-born populations.
The first convict transport to sail directly from Ireland to Sydney was the Queen, which in 1791 carried 148 convicts to Sydney. Between 1791 and 1867 about 40,000 Irish convicts were sent to the eastern Australian colonies.
Up to one-third of Australians are of Irish heritage – vastly more, proportionally, than in the US. The contribution of Irish migrants to Australian politics, the judiciary and the professions is immense and played a crucial role in modern Australia's journey to political independence.
From the First Fleet to the 1960s, Irish Catholics were a discriminated-against underclass, openly barred from employment in much of the private sector and accused of disloyalty for putting Australia before the British Empire.
The United States has the most people of Irish descent, while in Australia those of Irish descent are a higher percentage of the population than in any other country outside Ireland.
In the whole world, there are an estimated 1.2 million speakers of the Irish language. Of this number, only about 170,000 speak it as a first language. The great majority — about 98 percent — of Irish speakers live in Ireland itself.
A National Historic Site, the outport community on Fogo Island has survived relatively untouched for eight generations, and is so distinctively Celtic that the BBC called the area “Canada's little-known Emerald Isle.” The Irish Times dubbed it “the most Irish island in the world,” and “Irish on the rocks.”
Australia and Ireland have a close bilateral relationship, are like-minded on the world stage and bonded by historic people-to-people links.
Explore this intriguing minority
Only 12 per cent of the convicts transported to Australia were Irish. Yet people often automatically associate the Irish with transportation.
Australia was joined to Antarctica, New Zealand and South America, forming the last remnant of the great southern landmass called Gondwana. About 80 million years ago New Zealand drifted away from the rest of Gondwana. The Australian part of Gondwana was located close to the South Pole.
Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, the majority of Colonial Era settlers being British and Irish. About 20 percent of Australians are descendants of convicts. Most of the first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England, and Ireland.
Ethnic Groups:
English 25.9%, Australian 25.4%, Irish 7.5%, Scottish 6.4%, Italian 3.3%, German 3.2%, Chinese 3.1%, Indian 1.4%, Greek 1.4%, Dutch 1.2%, other 15.8% (includes Australian aboriginal .
The vast majority of Australians are white. Of these, most are descended from people who originated in the British Islands (especially England). However, there are many large non-British European ethnic groups, as well. For instance, Italians make up about 3.8 percent of Australia's population.
1. America. America is arguably the country most inspired by the Irish. With more than 30 million Irish-Americans living in the U.S., it is easy to find an Irish influence around most corners.
Irish is a Celtic language (as English is a Germanic language, French a Romance language, and so on). This means that it is a member of the Celtic family of languages. Its “sister” languages are Scottish, Gaelic, and Manx (Isle of Man); its more distant “cousins” are Welsh, Breton, and Cornish.
From as far back as the 16th century, historians taught that the Irish are the descendants of the Celts, an Iron Age people who originated in the middle of Europe and invaded Ireland somewhere between 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C. That story has inspired innumerable references linking the Irish with Celtic culture.
While people from Ireland, Britain, or Scotland tend to be genetically similar, genetic clusters show that even within countries, there are distinct regional differences, and this update captures some of that.
Edward “Ned” Kelly was a famous Irish-Australian bushranger and outlaw who was executed in November 1880. A martyr in the retelling of the British settlement of Australia, the story of Ned Kelly attracts a great degree of controversy as people disagree about whether he should be remembered as a hero or a villain.
If you were born outside Ireland, you may be entitled to Irish citizenship. You are automatically an Irish citizen if one of your parents was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth and was born on the island of Ireland. You don't need to apply to become an Irish citizen in this case.
In the last four months of 2020 and 2021 the number migrating to Australia fell to only 170 and 400 respectively, owing to pandemic restrictions. A total of 1,930 arrived there in that period in 2013, and 1,160 at the end of 2014.