The Irish in Australia/Front matter
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
An Australian Christmas Collection.
A Series of Colonial Stories, Sketches, and Literary Essays.
203 Pages, handsomely bound in green and gold. Price Five Shillings.
A very pleasant and entertaining book has reached us from Melbourne. The author, Mr. J. F. Hogan, is a young Irish-Australian, who, if we are to judge from the captivating style of the present work, has a brilliant future before him. Mr. Hogan is well known in the literary and Catholic circles of the Australian Colonies, and we sincerely trust that the volume before us will have the effect of making him known to the Irish people at home and in America. Under the title of "An Australian Christmas Collection," Mr. Hogan has republished a series of fugitive writings which he had previously contributed to Australian periodicals, and which have won for the author a high place in the literary world of the Southern hemisphere. Some of the papers deal with Irish and Catholic subjects. They are written in a racy and elegant style, and contain an amount of highly interesting matter relative to our co-religionists and fellow-countrymen under the Southern Cross. A few papers deal with inter-Colonial politics, and we think that home readers will find these even more entertaining than those which deal more immediately with the Irish element.
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We have quoted sufficiently from this charming book to show its merits. Our readers will soon hear of Mr. Hogan again, for he has in preparation a work on the "Irish in Australia,'" which, we are confident, will prove very interesting to the Irish people in every land. We know too little about the fortunes of our countrymen abroad. We are, unhappily, so engrossed in the mighty struggle which we are waging with wrong and oppression that we sometimes forget to think of those whom the fortunes of the strife sent forth from our shores, and anything which helps to foster that spirit of union, which is so characteristic of the Ireland of the present day, ought to be received as a boon for which we could not be too grateful. We must not forget, too, how nobly the Australian Irish have stood by us in the present struggle, and that time and distance have but strengthened their love and devotion to the land of their forefathers. In conclusion, we feel great pleasure in acknowledging how much credit is due to Mr. Hogan for devoting abilities of great promise to cement the union existing between Ireland and her exiled children in Australia.
The Nation, Dublin, February 19, 1887.