Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/54

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THE IRISH IN AUSTRALIA.

are piled up in its vicinity. It is the chief port of the metropolis, with which it is connected by railway. There are two very fine piers running out some distance into the bay, and capable of accommodating the largest vessels. This is a favourite Sunday afternoon resort for the inhabitants of the city, and in summer the trains convey thousands of excursionists to the neighbourhood. It has a population of 15,000, who are mostly employed in those multifarious pursuits incidental to a large and prosperous seaport. Advantage has been taken of its proximity to the sea, and the facilities thus afforded for safe and speedy transit, to establish some large manufactories that give constant and abundant employment to numbers. The Irish-men here are not so proportionately numerous as at Emerald Hill, still, they form an influential and appreciable element. One member of parliament is allotted to the district, and Dr. Madden, the old St. Patrick's collegian and leading barrister already referred to, sat for the place until he voluntarily retired in order to devote the whole of his time to the practice of his profession.

Quite recently a Carmelite house has been established in Sandridge by the Very Rev. Prior Butler, whose name enjoys an Irish as well as a colonial reputation. As a pulpit orator he stands in the front rank, as a controversialist he has proved his power, and as a lecturer he has presented to the popular mind some of the most instructive pictures of the past.

St. Kilda forms one of the aristocratic southern suburbs of Melbourne, and contains the residences of many well-known, influential, and successful Irish-Australian colonists. Here is a Presentation Convent, established in 1873 as an affiliation from the parent house in Limerick. Nowhere are