This volume focuses on Catholic Church history in Australia by lookimg at certain figures (Archdeacon John McEencroe, Lwesi Harding, Bishop Chalres Henry Davis, Cardonal Gilroy) as well as themes: Catholc Social Justice and parliamentary politics, humanae vitae and Tridentine clericalism, and the emergence of Catholic education offices.

Based on extensive archival research, this study shows how, in the age of ultramontanism, nineteenth-century Australian Catholicism was shaped by successive Roman interventions in local conflicts, sometimes ill-informed and harsh but tending towards a judicious balance of forces.

St. Benedict's Rule has been one of the great facts in the history of western Europe, and its influence and effects are with us to this day. This being so, it is surely strange that, as I believe, the Rule has never yet been made the object of an historical study setting forth on an extended scale its principles and its working. Commentaries there are, explaining it chapter by chapter; but so far as I know, there is no systematic exposition of what may be called the philosophy, the theory, of the Benedictine rule and life, no explanation of the Benedictine spirit and tradition in regard either to its inner life or its outward manifestations. The present volume is an effort to supply this want. It consists of a connected series of essays covering the most important aspects of Benedictine life and activities. It is addressed, of course, primarily to Benedictines; but it should appeal to wider circles--to students of the history of religion and civilisation in western Europe, as an account of one of the most potent factors in the formation of our modern Europe during a long and important phase of its growth: and also, in a special way, to those scholars and students who hold the Benedictine name in veneration. --from the Preface

Reissuing works originally published between 1973 and 1997, Routledge Library Editions: 19th Century Religion (18 volumes) offers a selection of scholarship covering historical developments in religious thinking. Topics include the origin of Catholicism in America, sexual liberation and religion in Europe, and the emergence of Atheism in Victorian England. This set also includes collections of sermons and essays from some of the most influential preachers of the nineteenth century.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"An ocean of consolation" was what one young Irish emigrant in rural Australia called a letter from his father in County Clare in 1855. Similar strength of feeling is often found in the intriguing letters that David Fitzpatrick has unearthed for this extraordinary collection. Oceans of Consolation offers historians and family researchers novel and sophisticated ways of reading old letters. It opens to us the daily preoccupations of ordinary women and men with little education and fewer material possessions, as they try to overcome the separation from family and friends created by emigration. Fitzpatrick includes the personal correspondence of fourteen families of Irish emigrants in the Australian colonies, giving equal attention to letters to and from Australia. He reproduces in full more than one hundred letters dating from 1843 to 1906, and includes a generous selection of contemporary engravings and photographs. Fitzpatrick's detailed commentaries offer biographical narratives for all of these emigrants, tracing their Irish backgrounds and Australian careers. Parting company with editors of comparable collections, he pays special attention to the words and idiom by which letterwriters expressed their everyday concerns and sought or offered reassurance and advice. He believes that personal letters provide not only unique evidence of the hopes and fears of emigrants but also an important avenue for exploring popular Irish culture.

Originally published in 1950, this book compares the impact of white colonialism on the indigenous populations of North America, New Zealand and Australia. Grenfell Price's sensitively-written account does not stint from outlining the failures and abuses perpetrated by white settlers, and the text is illustrated with a number of photographs showing scenes of contemporary 'native' life. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the impact of British colonialism and white views of indigenous populations.

The two shipboard journals recorded by Lewis Harding, Bede Poldings fellow passenger in 1835 and 1846, and here published for the first time, present endearing glimpses of Australia were via the Cape of Good Hope. In addition, he sailed several times to ports within his Province to Newcastle, Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Albany and Perth. When in Europe he regularly crisscrossed the Irish Sea and the English Channel. In his old age, in October 1869, he undertook a voyage intending to reach Europe in time for the opening of the Vatican Council at Rome in December. The steamer sailed via Melbourne and Albany into the Indian Ocean, thence into the Red Sea, heading to the Suez Canal, which was due to open in November. However, the Archbishop, sick and exhausted, turned back after reaching Aden, arriving in Sydney on Christmas Eve 1869.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.