Anglo-Celtic Australia: Colonial Immigration and Cultural Regionalism

For years the prevailing view among scholars has been that postcolonial Australia is "an undifferentiated composite of Anglo-Celtic culture," in which English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish components quickly fused into a singular culture. But based on extensive field research, this study questions that view: the authors' compilation of data from 13,271 tombstones revealing the birth place of the interred, from 565 graveyards throughout Australia, shows "point-to-point and shire-to-shire migration from the British Isles to Australia." As a result, they also uncover Australia's distinct regional clusters of specific groups from the British Isles—and the differences of religion, dialect, urbanization, and agriculture that accompany them.