Beaumont:  Travels In Buenos Ayres (1828); Wilson:  Travels In South America (1796); Pinkerton:  Travels (1808), Captain Weddell:  Cape Horn and South Atlantic Surveys; Major Gillesple:  Buenos Ayres and Provinces; Mrs. Williams, on Humboldt’s Travels (1826); Captain Master:  At Home with the Patagonians (1891); Hadfield:  Notes of Travel in Brazil and La plata (1863); Hinchcliff:  South American Sketches (1862); Captain Burton:  Highlands of Brazil; Ross Johnston:  A Vacation in the Argentine Alps (1867); MacCann:  Travels in the Argentine Provinces (1846-1849); Hutchinson:  Argentine Gleanings and South American Recollections; Major Seaver:  Crossing the Andes; Crawford:  Across the Pampas; V. MacKenna:  Life of O’Higgins; Life of Diego Rimagro; History of Santiago; History of Valparaiso; MacKenna:  Archives of Spanish America, 50 vols.; Miller:  Memoirs; Lives of Belgrano and San Martin; Mulhall; English In South America.

THE IRISH IN AUSTRALASIA

By BROTHER LEO, F.S.C., M.A.

Should one be called upon to give in brief the history of the Irish in the land of the Southern Cross, he could do nothing more to the purpose than to relate the story of the “Holy House of Australia.”  The episode, indeed, is characteristic, not merely of the Irish in Australia, but of the Irish in every land and clime where they have striven and conquered.

On the fourteenth of November, 1817, there landed in Sydney an Irish Cistercian Father, Jeremiah F. Flynn.  He had heard in Rome of the spiritual destitution of the Irish Catholics in Australia, and he secured the permission of his superiors to minister to the needs of his compatriots in the Antipodes.  Shortly after his arrival he celebrated Mass in the house of an Irishman named William Davis, who had been transported for making pikes for the insurgents in the days of ’98, and then, on the first opportunity that presented itself, he sought the authorization of the colonial governor to exercise the functions of his sacred ministry.  Far from hospitable was the reception accorded him by Governor Macquarie.  The priest was told, with the bluntness characteristic of British officialdom, that the presence of no “popish missionary” would be tolerated in the settlement, and that the profession of the Protestant form of belief was obligatory on every person in the penal colony.

With the example of the “priesthood hunted down like wolves” before him, Father Flynn saw but one consistent course to pursue.  His fellow Catholics, his fellow Irishmen, were in sore need of his help; that help they must receive, even though the civil powers refused their sanction.  So for several months he went about as secretly as he could, hearing confessions, offering the Holy Sacrifice, and breaking the bread of good counsel.  During this trying period, Davis was his host and defender and friend.  Eventually the presence of the priest was detected;