# The Luck of the Irish

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/babette-smith/the-luck-of-the-irish

![The Luck of the Irish](https://quivercdn.com/covers/allen-unwin/babette-smith/the-luck-of-the-irish_978-17-4237-812-1.jpg?v=2026-05-22%2022%3A44%3A32)

- Authors: [Babette Smith](https://www.bookquiver.com/babette-smith)
- Language: en_GB
- Published: 2015-03-05

## Description

The luck of the Irish was chronic bad luck, as their sad history attests. That’s how it looked for 250 Irish convicts when their ship, the Hive , sank ignominiously off the New South Wales coast in 1835. Miraculously all survived, guided to safety by local Aboriginal people. They landed at a time when the so-called slave colony was at its height, ruled by the lash and the chain gang. Yet as Babette Smith tracked the lives of the people aboard the Hive , she discovered a very different story. Most were assigned to work on farms or in businesses, building a better life than they possibly could have experienced in Ireland. Surprisingly, in the workforce they found power, which gave rise to the characteristic Australian culture later described by DH Lawrence: ‘Nobody felt better than anybody else, or higher.’ The Luck of the Irish is a fascinating portrait of colonial life in the mid-19th century, which reveals how the Irish helped lay the foundations of the Australia we know today.

## Editions

### The Luck of the Irish

- Publisher: allen_unwin
- ISBN: 978-17-4237-812-1
- Pages: 1
- Published: 2015-03-05
- Language: en_GB