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THERE ARE ABOUT 16,500 people living in the Greater Perth area of Australia who were born in Ireland, according to the country’s 2021 census.
There is not one particular narrative that tells their stories, however.
About 3,000 of them are over 65 years of age, with about the same number between the ages of 25 and 34.
Their tales of emigration may be based in recessions but the Irish push factors over the decades did not provide uniform experiences.
So when it comes to figuring out who will make up the crowd at the city’s Rectangular Stadium tonight for Ireland’s World Cup Group B fixture against Canada, the only clear assumption is that Irish fans will be in the majority.
“You’ll see a lot of people who might be kind of hibernating Irish… in the sense that they’re not outwardly necessarily Irish but when something like this comes on, they’ll be decked out tomorrow in green,” says Neil Sherwin, an Irish man and football writer living in Perth for the past 17 years.
The stadium has a 20,500 capacity and tickets are now like gold dust in the city.
Sherwin says that because of his links to football through his writing and playing for a local club, he has been inundated with requests for tickets.
“We have tickets as fans to take in the atmosphere and enjoy it – and a lot of people want to do the same thing,” he tells The Journal. “There’s that general curiosity.”
A woman manning the tourist information booth beside Fifa’s FanFestival area asked me if there were any Irish people left in Ireland given the number of questions she’s taken from my fellow countryman in the past two days.
The fanzone itself has sold out of pins featuring the tricolour and by Wednesday afternoon, a strong showing of men, women and children in all shades of green had gathered.
Part of the curiosity is, of course, that Irish people haven’t experienced a football world cup since 2002.
“Ireland in a World Cup – it doesn’t happen all the time,” says Padraig a few hours before kick-off in the fan area at Forrest Chase in the city centre. “It’ll be awhile before we see the men there again,” adds his friend Adam, who explains how he started watching the women’s team in Tallaght about four years ago before he moved to Australia.
Both men in their late 20s, they are joined by another Irish emigrant Conor who says that the achievement of qualifying for the World Cup got him more involved and interested.
“I’d always keep an eye out for results but I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to watch it beforehand. I’m very impressed,” agrees Padraig.
The trio took time off work from their plumbing and railway jobs and travelled to Sydney for the opening game.
They are expecting a significant crowd of Irish fans to create an atmosphere in The Shed end of the stadium.
“There’s a massive group out tonight for the game,” they say. “We’re the first here but there’ll be a lot more joining us.”
Oscillating waves of optimism and pessimism crash over fans as I ask them what they’re expecting tonight but the general consensus is hope for a big moment – a goal.
“My first World Cup was Italia ’90 so it’s been all of that with the men’s side – having those moments… Bonner’s save, Ray Houghton right up to Robbie Keane in 2002,” Sherwin reminisces.
“But all of that sort of stuff is moments that people can cling on to and I think given that this is the first women’s chance to do that, it will be a real shame if they go out of the tournament without one of them.
“People can hang their hats on those moments and say that in 10, 15, 20 years, I’m proud of these. That’s part of the reason I’m looking forward to the game. Because if Ireland win, or get an amazing goal, I’ll have been there.
“You know and when they talk about it in 20 or 30 years time – I might still be living in Perth – but when that happens, I was there. Like I couldn’t sit at home knowing that it was on 20 minutes down the road. And I think there’s quite a bit of that.”
The idea that this is a small part of Irish history being made is certainly not lost on those countrymen and women who have set up their lives so far away from home.
“We’re never going to see this again in our lifetime,” explains Dublin-born Sinéad Nolan, who is in Perth with her husband Barry and three daughters Ellie, Isabelle and Zaylee after travelling from Sydney where they have lived for the past 16 years.
“For the first game to be on against Australia and [our] girls playing football, and women in sports now, I just thought it was amazing. The atmosphere in Sydney… to see so many families, to see so many men coming out, it was just brilliant.”
Ellie, the eldest, wore her Australian colours on Thursday while her younger sister Isabella donned the green of Ireland ‘because she likes them more’.
Zaylee, not yet two, was more neutral in a Dublin jersey.
“Ireland is still home though,” says Barry. “It’s always home.”
That patriotism is another common theme amongst today’s ticket holders.
“We haven’t had that many occasions to be full on patriots – and that’s something people will celebrate,” says Sherwin.
Gemma Reynolds from Dublin who made the trip to Perth via Sydney from Melbourne says something strikingly similar when asked why she is here.
“I guess it’s that bit of patriotism. We don’t get that opportunity a lot being so far away from home.
“I’m just on the bandwagon,” she adds when talking to Stuart Gilhooley and Stephen McGuinness of the PFAI in the fanzone, two men central to the threatened strike action by the women’s team in 2017.
“Personally, I know very little about women’s soccer but I’ll support anything Ireland are involved in, especially when in Australia.”
Ireland take on Canada tonight at 8pm local time, 1pm Irish time. Sinéad O’Carroll and Emma Duffy are in Australia reporting for The Journal and The 42. Subscribe to The 42 here.
So ireland is importing millions of tonnes of soy to feed to cows to export 85% of beef and dairy produced abroad while being an overall net importer of calories and barely growing any of our own fruit and veg. Sounds a bit precarious.
@eoin fitzpatrick: zero linked up thinking.
@eoin fitzpatrick: Not true, I grew a few apples and had a great crop of rushes this year.
@eoin fitzpatrick: Lol! beautifully put. All so a handful of people can earn more profits.
What would happen to Irish milk production if all this imported feed wasn’t available?
If one was to believe the hype it’s all based on our “grass based system “. ….but grass alone won’t provide the nutrients that Irish cows need to produce the large volumes of milk the dairy industry requires …..this article highlights the shallowness behind the “grass based system” propaganda that the Irish public consistently hear from the dairy industry in this country…
@Padraig G: It is grass based as you call it. The bulk of what cattle eat is grass, be it fresh during the summer or preserved during the winter. But dried and fermented grass (hay and silage) during the winter does not provide everything. This is when animal feeds are used. After all, milk production runs 12 months a year, and proper fresh grass is only available for half that.
@Padraig G: BTW, I forgot to say, Maize and Barley, along with all the other cereals, are types of grass.
@Joe x: thanks for your feedback but most dairy farms I visit provide meal to their cows 12 months of the year….but your missing the point of the article, Ireland’s high intensity dairy model is totally reliant on overseas animal feed….there is no way the average dairy farm in Ireland could sustain the level of milk production we have at present on grass alone …Look at the wet summer we just had , plenty of farmers were providing meal rations to keep milk yields up ….
@Padraig G: But most of the animal feeds are grass based, which is what you were contending in the first place.
To me, the point of the article has nothing to do with what the animals are being fed anyway. By highlighting it in the title and being the first section they discussed, they turned it into a climate issue when nothing is further from the truth, especially when you look at how it is transported, as much as they can fit on one ship.
The real issue is why the farming sector has taken the route it did, which is simply down to cost. The dairy and beef sectors find it cheaper, and the tillage farmers can’t let it go any cheaper. Otherwise, none of them can make a living in modern Ireland
@Padraig G: We’re not meant to drink calves milk, we don’t have 4 stomachs.
I wonder if there is any mention in the article of the restrictions placed on beef farmers. An animal has to killed before it is 24 months otherwise there are big penalties. The beef barron and the factories have access to all the farmer data. The know how many animals are in the country and what age they are. Now if you want to have a beef animal factory fit for 24 months you have to feed grains. There is no alternative and yet farmers want the 24 month rule lifted and its not. It was bought in during the BSE scare back in the 2000s. The rule makes the factories richer and bad for the environment because we have to import feed. What is the difference between 24month and 34 month beef. There is no difference. Beef in Ireland is a monopoly. The same animal in the UK makes €400 per head more than in Ireland. Our farmers are being robbed by the processors and the only profitable sector left is milk.
@Washpenrebel: my point is that its not financially possible to finish our beef of just a grass based diet because the rules in place. Man made rules that are worse for the environment.
Funny how the first thing they concentrated on was the carbon footprint of importing the feed instead of asking why so much is being imported and not grown locally. Stating that it could be grown at home is stating the obvious, after all cereals have been grown on this island for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The problem is cost for both dairy farmers to buy it local as it is cheaper to buy it in, so that they can have a living wage and tillage farmers to sell it local as animal feed as they cannot afford to sell it any cheaper, otherwise they will not have a living wage either. It’s the cost of things in this country that affect everything else as usual. .
Give the farmers a break and treat them as if they were Data centers or even better the Aviation industry whose emissions are also overlooked as they are not considered in our national emissions targets.
Great article and FOI providing a great service to inform the public to make their choices. Our dairy cows are fed too much imported meal despite not yielding very much. Denmark produces 2/3 as much milk with 0.5m cows as we do with 1.7m cows. The answer is obvious.
@john mounsey: do you know that Ireland is one of if not the best place for milk in the world. We have some of the toughest restrictions in place which is why we produce a huge amount of the world’s baby milk. Grass is key to top quality milk and we grow grass better than anywhere else in the world. Its something we should be proud of but we have a group of people that love hammering farmers who work on average 14 to 18 hours a day.
@Washpenrebel: Our infant formula exports are dropping, was 620m euros to China in 2017, dropped to 266m last year. Hence poor milk proce for dairy farmers here.
@john mounsey: Dairy farmers all over the world are suffering because of the prices. There are many farmers in the leaving because its not paying enough. Same in Australia. Governments all over the world are making it harder for farmers and there will be a food shortage in the future. This is guaranteed. We live in the age of the internet and we can see what’s happening in other countries
@Washpenrebel: Its not the ‘player’ it’s the game.
Humanity, for what it is worth, is foolish in a particular way.
Climate is far too technical for most people, so retreating to the Earth science of biology is perhaps the best course to undo considerable damage to research by scientific method modelling.
Origin of Species attempted to use prejudice as a means to control perspectives of humans and who constitutes the title of superior and inferior ‘races’.
Just like carbon footprint, carbon emissions or some other buzzwords, natural selection/eugenics was once a major topic in society and found its full implementation in WWII as the Holocaust.
People are so distracted with the symptoms of modelling that they hardly are aware that scientific method modelling is the only issue.
So people with stature to deal with a serious topic just do not exist, and that is no insult but stated with deep dismay.
People want to consume dairy products and Ireland is one of the most climate friendly countries in the world to do this.
It is nonsense to say by supposed academic leaders that we should participate in solving this global problem by exporting dairy production to much less climate efficient countries.
The media climate B/S never ends,
Lovely emissions heavy feed, the best kind of feed
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