Dynan, Loretta Mary (2021) Forging an identity on Central Victoria’s colonial landscape: Patrick Cooke and the Irish influence 1845-1903. Research Master thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This thesis analyses the impact of life experience on Irish settlement patterns in colonial Victoria. It represents the first scholarly analysis of a settler farmer in the Pyalong district. The thesis focuses on how Irish settler Patrick Cooke adapted successfully to life in the Antipodes and how he forged a relationship with the land on which he settled. The significance of the study goes beyond one individual’s experience of late-nineteenth colonial settlement. With emphasis on the spatial connection between people and place, it provides new insights into the relationship of individuals to the geographical space they inhabited during settlement in inland Victoria. The thesis draws on extensive Irish and Australian research data, to locate Cooke’s life in the context of Australia and Ireland, the places in which he lived. By focusing on an underresearched rural district in central Victoria it furthers historical understanding of colonial settlement and shows how Irish immigrants redefined themselves and gave meaning to their lives in their new land.

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