St Patrick's Day: From Ireland to Australia

Part 2: 1914-2000

Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair

Despite simmering sectarian tensions, Melbourne's St Patrick's Day procession of March 1917 was not contentious. Both the Catholic Press and the Argus declared that the pageant was 'one of the most successful yet witnessed in Melbourne', with the crowd lining the parade route thought to comprise some 50,000 spectators. Archbishops Carr and Mannix were carried by motor transport in the cavalcade, followed by marching children from Catholic schools, as well as members of Irish societies with banners before them. The parade was headed by the Irish Pipers' Band and immediately after, in pride of place, marched a number of Australian soldiers who had been wounded in Gallipoli or France. The patriotism of the occasion was reiterated as the band stopped at the steps of Federal Parliament to play God Save the King. Two months later Carr died, and Mannix assumed leadership of the Catholic Church in Melbourne. This ascendancy of the outspoken Mannix, combined with a second failed conscription referendum, set the stage for a more dramatic St Patrick's Day in 1918.

The 1918 procession was familiar in terms of scale, but very different in style. For the first time it included 100 members of the Irish National Association (this group had formed in Melbourne only three months earlier), who marched behind a Sinn Féin banner, each one of them carrying a Sinn Féin flag. There was now an overt republican flavour in the procession, with other groups also taking up Sinn Féin colours and flags, such as the Robert Emmet branch of the Irish National Foresters. Least expected was the carrying of Sinn Féin regalia by Catholic Church groups, such as the parishioners of St. John the Baptist church and the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Just as controversial, when the procession paused for the usual playing of God Save the King in front of parliament house, Mannix did not uncover his head as the usual sign of respect. He was also reported to have uncovered his head in reverence to a mural acknowledging the republican 'Martyrs of Easter Week'. Predictably, empire loyalists (many of whom were also staunch Protestants) were horrified. In the Argus of 25 March 1918, the (non-Catholic) Council of Churches argued that the parade was 'aggressively disloyal and flagrantly contemptuous of British criminal law . . . it was a treasonable pageant'. A letter to the Argus even talked of 'enemy flags' being flown in Melbourne streets, as if Australia was at war with Ireland, not Germany. There were now calls for the St Patrick's Day march to be regulated or even banned so that 'disloyal' elements would not reappear.

At the national level, Hughes insitituted tough legislation against Irish-Catholic 'disloyalty'. In late March 1918, special regulations of the Wartime Precautions Act were gazetted, these making it an offence for anyone to be involved with Sinn Féin or to display its emblems. Also illegal were 'advocacy of the independence of Ireland', and expressions of 'disloyalty or hostility to the British Empire'. There was a particular urgency within the Melbourne City Council to respond specifically to the 'disloyalism' of the 1918 procession. The display of Sinn Féin symbols had embarrassed Melbourne's Protestant-dominated City Council, which was determined to exercise greater control over future parades. Lord Mayor Cabena sought assurances from the secretary of the St Patrick's Day Celebration Committee, L. Egan, that there would be no banners, flags, or any other emblems relating to Sinn Féin or Republican principles. Furthermore, in order to make the procession appear patriotic to empire, Cabena demanded that both the Australian flag and the Union Jack were to be carried unfurled at the head of the marchers, while 'God Save the King' was to be played at the beginning and conclusion of the parade. As it happened, a serious influenza pandemic put paid to the 1919 parade, which also defused controversy over the council measures. Under the circumstances, St Patrick's Day celebrations were held indoors. Making light of the situation, Mannix asked the audience where the Union Jack could be found on the premises, and if there were 'any anti-Irish germs' among the gathering. But, twelve months on, it would be no laughing matter.





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