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Around 40,000 Irish convicts were transported to Australia between 1791 and 1867
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The large immigration of Irish to Australia was during the Gold Rush in 1851-1861 when Australia’s population trebled to 1.2m, with approximate 1/3rd of the population coming from Britain and Ireland.
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As late as the 1860s, Fenian prisoners were being transported, particularly to Western Australia, where the Catalpa rescue of Irish radicals off Rockingham was a memorable episode
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The number of Ireland-born in Australia peaked in 1891, when the colonial Census accounted for 228,232
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The number of Ireland-born had dropped to 184,035.
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During the 1960s did migration from the south of Ireland reduce significantly.
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By 2002, around one thousand people born in Ireland — north and south — were migrating permanently to Australia each year.
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For the year 2005-2006, 12,554 Irish entered Australia to work under the Working Holiday visa scheme.
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At the 2006 Census 50,256 Australian residents declared they were born in the Republic of Ireland. Cities with the largest Irish-born populations were Sydney (12,730), Melbourne (8,950) and Perth (7,060).
