Today will be a significant date for Australians in Ireland – it is Australia Day in a special year. 2021 marks 80 years Robert Gordon Menzies, our longest serving Prime Minister visited Eamon de Valera in Dublin, and 75 years since the establishment of formal relations between the Government of Australia and the then soon-to-be proclaimed Irish Republic.
The creation of diplomatic relations in 1946 was illustrative of the deep and very personal ties between our two island nations which have continued for almost two and a half centuries.
Much has happened in the last 75 years. We have seen the world evolve in an unprecedented way; witnessing the first missions into outer space, hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty, the proliferation of democratic institutions across much of the world, the establishment of the United Nations Security Council, of which Australia was a founding member and on to which Ireland now takes its rightful place as a member for the next two y
02 January, 2021 01:00
BELFAST-born Margaret Guilfoyle was a pioneering politician in Australia who opened doors for women that will never be shut again .
The first ever female cabinet minister to hold a portfolio, she remained the highest-ranking woman to serve in the Australian government until Julia Gillard became prime minister in 2010.
Born Margaret Georgina Constance McCartney in 1926, she was the second of three children to William McCartney, a civil servant, and Elizabeth Jane (Ellis), who worked as a teacher before her marriage.
The family moved to Melbourne in 1928 but the death of her father when she was 10 left her mother to raise her children alone.