Search Results for paul irish

Aboriginal people have watched the ancient landscape of Sydney and Paddington evolve over thousands of years and generations. The rich archaeological and historical record of the harbour allows us to recreate something of how Aboriginal people used Kogerah – as Read More

Author: Paul Irish An unassuming terrace house once located at the back of the State Library of NSW was home to the Aborigines Protection Board (APB) at the peak of its brutal intrusions into the lives of Aboriginal people from Read More

Author: Paul Irish Darlinghurst Gaol began construction in 1822 and was opened in 1841 to replace the ageing and overcrowded Sydney Gaol on George Street near Circular Quay. It took 50 years to complete, with new buildings being added to Read More

Author: Paul Irish The dense forest of houses below St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst obscures the landscape that existed there for nearly a century after the arrival of Europeans in Sydney. Rushcutters Creek, which flowed through pools and cascades down to Read More

Author: Paul Irish Speakers’ Corner was established in the eastern end of The Domain near the Art Gallery of NSW in 1878. Aboriginal speakers were active there from the late 1930s, including civil rights campaigners such as Jack Patten, Tom Read More

Author: Paul Irish From the 1820s to the 1920s, a red brick cottage existed on Bent Street between Macquarie and Phillip streets. The house was built by the family of Francis and Frances Cox. From the 1850s until the 1890s Read More

Author: Paul Irish Most of the harbourside bays of Sydney’s eastern suburbs contained Aboriginal settlements at different periods throughout the 19th century. Bayside reclamation works since that time have removed or covered over many of the physical traces of this Read More

Author: Paul Irish When Australia’s first two Catholic priests arrived in Sydney in 1820, many Aboriginal people around Sydney had already been exposed to the ideas of the Christian religion. One of the priests, Father John Joseph Therry, quickly got Read More

Author: Paul Irish During the 1970s, the Australian art world and the broader public became aware of the contemporary practice of painting and other artistic expressions of traditional Aboriginal culture, particularly among the desert artists of central Australia. Drawing on Read More

Author: Paul Irish In January 1988, an Aboriginal Tent Embassy was set up at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair (at Mrs Macquaries Point / Yurong) in protest against the planned bicentennial celebrations of European settlement in Australia. For Aboriginal people, the arrival Read More

An exhibition and walking tour called This is Where They Travelled: Historical Aboriginal Lives in Sydney will be held during NAIDOC Week 2016. This project was put together by historian Paul Irish and a team of researchers from the La Perouse Aboriginal Read More

Author: Paul Irish Woolloomooloo is the name given to the Yurong Creek valley located immediately east of Sydney Town and the Domain, which later became Sydney’s first suburb. In 1793, when Commissary General John Palmer was granted 100 acres at Read More

We all Stand on Sacred Ground: Learn, Respect and Celebrate To celebrate NAIDOC Week 2015, we are launching a series of 19 essays on Barani featuring a diverse collection Sydney’s Aboriginal archaeological sites. Archaeologists Paul Irish and Tamika Goward provide fascinating insight into Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Blackwattle Creek was originally a tidal watercourse that flowed from swampy lands that are now within the grounds of the University of Sydney. The creek flowed from this swamp through a valley thick with Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Goat Island is a small rocky landmass in the waters of Sydney Harbour. It was inhabited by early colonial Aboriginal identity Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and was said to have belonged to Bennelong’s Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward An Aboriginal campsite was discovered in 2014 beneath the car park of the Moore Park Tennis Centre. It was unearthed during archaeological excavations brought about by the proposed construction of a light rail line Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward All people depend on fresh water to live, and so it is usually the case that reliable sources of water known to Aboriginal people were later used by Europeans. The most permanent of these Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In the late 1970s, the NSW Maritime Services Board began to redevelop the Moores Wharf area at Millers Point on the end of the eastern shore of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour). The board decided Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward On a slab of sandstone just outside Centennial Park there were once some Aboriginal engravings. Rock engravings were produced when Aboriginal people carved them onto level sandstone platforms, ledges or small rock exposures. They Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Yurong Point is known today as the site of Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, a seat carved from stone in the 1810s so Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth could enjoy the view of the harbour. It Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1925, a stone axe was found more than five metres below the surface during construction work at the corner of William and Riley Streets in East Sydney. Almost eighty years later in 2003 the Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward An Aboriginal stone axe head, also called a ‘ground-edge hatchet’, was found in a road cutting behind St Mary’s Cathedral in 1876. The hatchet would have started its life as a large flat river Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2003, archaeologists discovered a large Aboriginal campsite in the western part of central Sydney. It was named the KENS Site after the surrounding streets (Kent, Erskine, Napoleon and Sussex). The earlier building had Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1997, an Aboriginal campsite was discovered at Junction Lane in Woolloomooloo during archaeological excavations ahead of the construction of the Eastern Distributor motorway. Underneath around a metre of recent ‘fill’ (historically deposited material Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1998, some Aboriginal stone artefacts were found during archaeological excavations ahead of the redevelopment of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on Macquarie Street. The excavations were being undertaken to investigate an area of Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward During archaeological excavations associated with the construction of the Wynyard Walk pedestrian link in mid-2014, a small Aboriginal campsite was located. The campsite consisted of several Aboriginal stone artefacts located in natural soil underneath Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2009 archaeologists found an Aboriginal campsite, or ‘midden’, on the eastern side of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) in an area known as the Darling Quarter, west of Harbour Street, between Bathurst and Liverpool Read More

Paul Irish talks about his research on Aboriginal urban communities in Sydney and the origins of the Aborigines Protection Board on Friday 13 September 2013 at History House, 133 Macqurie Street, Sydney at 5-7pm. In the late 1870s Aboriginal people from south coast Read More

The Barani website has been developed by the History Team at the City of Sydney with assistance from the City’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Panel. The Barani website was first published in 2001, winning a NSW Premier’s History Read More

Cora Gooseberry was wife to King Bungaree and was an identity in Sydney for 20 years after his death. Her Aboriginal name was recorded as ‘Carra or Kaaroo’. She was known as ‘Queen of Sydney and Botany’ and ‘Queen of Sydney Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward The Aboriginal name for the peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove is Tar-Ra. It is also known as Dawes Point because it was the site of an observatory built in April 1788 Read More

Author: Paul Irish Town Halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs provided large civic spaces that Aboriginal organisations used to gather and socialise for leisure activities and political meetings. Paddington Town Hall was the venue for the first Aboriginal Debutante Ball in Read More

Author: Paul Irish The Governor’s Domain has been a public space since the earliest days of the Sydney colony, and continued to be used for many years by Aboriginal people. It was proclaimed by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1812 to Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Sydney’s first Government House overlooking Sydney Cove was built for Governor Arthur Phillip in 1789. The building and its grounds were an important place of early contact and cross-cultural exchange between Sydney’s Aboriginal population Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward The Rocks area is mainly known as a place of early European history, but it was also used by Aboriginal people for many years before colonial settlement. Traces of an Aboriginal campsite have been Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward At Beaconsfield in the 1890s, workers on the Alexandra Canal began cutting through the sediments of Shea’s Creek and made some remarkable discoveries. The sediments were several metres deep and contained layers of shell, Read More

Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Central Sydney is built in the Tank Stream valley. The Tank Stream now runs underneath the city, but its fresh water was one of the main reasons why Europeans set up camp in Sydney Read More

Further research The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council is the custodian of Aboriginal culture and heritage within the Sydney region. For more information, visit Metro’s website. For Aboriginal cultural attractions, tours and events in Sydney, visit the City of Sydney’s Read More