This book is filled with biographical vignettes linked to Trinity College Dublin that serve as a prism through which Irish colonial susceptibilities "down under" may be viewed.
The Eureka Stockade Rebellion in 1854, for example, was a seminal incident in Australian history, acknowledged a century later by that scion of empire, Liberal prime minister Robert Menzies, as an earnest attempt at democratic government.
Led by Peter Lalor from Co Laois (younger brother of the redoubtable prophet of revolutionary land reform, James Fintan Lalor), it was an attempt by the gold miners of Victoria to assert basic rights within a draconian legal environment: their main grievance was the exorbitant cost of mining licences, which many found impossible to pay. "Licence hunts" by police were frequent occurrences, with fines and imprisonment in the event of default. The police were entitled to half the fines collected.
The "rebellion" was crushed when the troops and police took the miners by surprise and wreaked havoc - bayoneting the wounded and shooting innocent bystanders. When 13 leaders were subsequently tried for high treason, it was a very Irish affair: the judge for most of the trials was Redmond Barry and the prosecutors were William Stawell and Robert Molesworth; Richard Davies Ireland was a leader of the defence team, assisted by Joseph Henry Dunne. Each of these lawyers was educated at TCD and seven of the defendants were Irish. Despite the evidence against them not one of the "diggers" was found guilty.
Barry was again the trial judge 26 years later when the legendary Ned Kelly, son of Tipperary-born John and Ellen Kelly, was tried and convicted for murder. Kelly's defence counsel was the son of a Trinity-educated judge.
Both judge and defence counsel, Ronayne says, "hold responsibility for the outcome, and the creation of an Australian folk hero who is cast in a role that echoes the struggle between the landlords and the landless in Ireland". Barry, who later became a judge of the Victoria Supreme Court, had for many years been a standing counsel for the aborigines, representing them before a system of law they did not understand. A Trinity-educated attorney-general was the first to successfully prosecute whites for the murder of aborigines.
The links between the Australian colonies and the Irish university developed spectacularly during the second half of the 19th century. But the first Trinity man to set foot in Australia was a doctor, Thomas Jamison, in 1788, 20 years after he graduated.
Ronayne takes as pivotal the fact that there were Irish at the pinnacle as well as the base of the social pyramid in Australia. He argues that because the Irish at the top were so much a part of the colonising process, historians supposed "these Trinity-educated Irish" were merely part of the English majority - with their achievements subsumed among middle class well-to-do immigrants who could be expected to take leadership roles in the colonising process. The Trinity-educated Irish, he insists, held onto their Irishness. They had attitudes of mind and social and cultural values that set them apart from the English and Scottish immigrants. Some of the most distinguished were Trinity-educated Catholics.
Colman Cassidy is an Irish Times journalist