Migration study strikes a chord with Perth media

'To Ireland My Letter Home'

Colette McKenna, a PhD student in her final year, has considerable local media attention in her search for original archival material for her documentary. To Ireland - My Letter Home is an image based production thesis, which looks at the primary and secondary post-war immigrant experience amongst the Irish Diaspora. For some it was Heaven, for others it was Hell.

Combing the archives it became apparent that there was a dearth of images related to the Point Walter Immigrant Camp, which was the first home to 30,000 families between 1949 and 1971. Though there was a very aggressive mass migration scheme culminating in two million immigrants arriving in Australia between 1949 and 1964, there were alarmingly few photographs to verify this. Apart from a few photographs of ladies sipping tea in 1923 Colette could not locate any photographs during the time the hostel operated.

Placing an advertisement into the 'Can You Help Me?' section of the West Australian newspaper resulted in an incredible public response. Calls came in for weeks and a number of radio stations became interested in Colette's area of research, inviting her on air.

During August and September Colette was invited on air for five radio interviews with the ABC and 6PR. Eoin Cameron in his Breakfast Show was amazed that whilst he played golf across the tee was an immigrant camp. Steve Norton's incredible Sunday night history program, 'The Way We Were' (6PR) knew well about the subject as he himself was a child immigrant in the 1950s, with his mother staying at Bonegilla. Hostel, in the Eastern States. Steve was very receptive. Callers who continued to share their stories well into the night followed the 25-minute interview.

Ted Bull from ABC Regional invited Colette on his show for the regional listeners and then again to be part of his Friday after talk show. His program reaches listeners from Broome to the Southwest.

The Irish community has been most supportive of Colette McKenna's research and she would like to thank those who have participated in her work, namely the Australian- Irish Heritage Association (IAHA), the Irish Club and the Irish Scene

More recently Colette has come upon Paula-Lee Magee's honorary thesis 'Separation, Isolation and Alienation'. Magee is a newly inducted Murdoch PhD student. Her work reflects much of Colette's own experience, which is not unusual as Magee and McKenna both come from Belfast, with their parents immigrating to Perth at the same time. Interestingly each has chosen to study the area but from within different disciplines. Colette is in the School of Media Communication and Culture, under the supervision of Dr Josko Petkovic.

If anyone has any images, super 8 movie footage, photographs, newspaper articles, brochures, old tickets or documents from their early immigrant experience, on the boat or in the hostel please call Colette on 9330 6852 or email her on cmckenna@ murdoch.edu.au.