Join Patrick ‘In Conversation’ with Susan Tsicalas
of the Brunswick Valley Historical Society Inc. and Mullumbimby Museum
as he launches his new book
Conquer or Conserve
Goonengerry
& the Byron hinterland
A Local, Social and Reflective History
14 September 2024 @ 11am
Goonengerry Public School 125th Anniversary Celebrations (11am - 3pm)
With live music, BBQ, devonshire tea, children’s activities, the Wildlife Twins Show, giant raffle, old fashion classroom display and much more
Supplanting millennia of Aboriginal occupation …
Europeans conquered the Big Scrub in the upper tributaries of the Richmond River in the late nineteenth century. Much of the Byron hinterland saw the rise and demise of primary industries pave the way for a casual style of rural renaissance mixed with an uneasy, and at times volatile, coexistence. Revealed here is an engrossing narrative of historical power and passion and the creative tensions at play for over 150 years between settlers and with the state.
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Former Byron Shire Councillor Patrick Morrisey PhD was inspired by early settlers who shared old maps and books, to chronicle the history of the Parish of Jasper in the Byron hinterland within the grand sweep of Australian history, from deep time to the present day, for the first time.
Pioneering cedar-getters and dairy farmers conquered thousands of hectares of impenetrable scrub decades before Byron Shire was created. Here a feast of stories are told connecting their arrival by boat in Lismore and Ballina to creating discreet settlements in the headwaters of the Wilsons and Coopers Creeks, like Coorabell, Eureka, Federal and Repentance Creek.
In the middle of Jasper Parish on a table-top overlooking Cape Byron is a sweet spot, the most elevated village in Byron Shire - Goonengerry - marking the northern boundary of the Big Scrub as it melds with the Mount Warning shield caldera, giving rise to an amazing variety of ecological and social habitats.
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A wide ranging portrait and gripping chronology vividly depicting conquest, settlement, activism and Native Title told through the lens of forgotten and everyday people.
Interested in purchasing Conquer or Conserve?
AUD$32 plus $10 postage.
That’s great. Just purchase through the button below. Thanks.
A previous book by the author available is Australians of The Great Irish Famine - One Clan’s Story (pjmpublications.com.au) that was launched at the Graiguenamanagh Town of Books Festival, Ireland on 19 August 2022.
An article about his trip ‘50 days in Ireland’ was published by www.tintean.org.au in December 2022.
Australians of the Great Irish Famine
BY PATRICK MORRISEY PHD
Travelling back through Ireland’s ancient and medieval past, the author discovers his clan - a family of earth tillers and maids, subservient to Anglo-Irish landlords courtesy of Oliver Cromwell’s dark reign of terror. They lived through The Great Irish Famine, when over one million souls perished and well over another million emigrated to escape poverty, persecution or death. Famine became the clan’s catalyst to seek new lives in The Great South Land.
A gripping chronology of real life stories set in Ireland and Australia, as seven siblings emigrate to Sydney, Moreton Bay and the diggings before joining the world’s last great gold rush; The Klondike Stampede in Canada. Trauma, romance and adventure intertwine with world wars, secret societies and the law as six generations of a clan help shape Australia.
Interested in purchasing Australians of the Great Irish Famine?
AUD$32 plus $10 postage.
That’s great. Just purchase through the button below. Thanks.