In the years either side of Federation in 1901, Australia’s Irish Catholics balanced two often contradictory impulses: their determination to retain their cultural and religious links with Ireland in the face of an often unsympathetic Protestant majority, and the desire to become ‘good’ Australians in order to make ‘a go’ of their lives in the new land. This paper explores how this process played out at St Joseph’s Nudgee College, a Christian Brothers’ day and boarding school in Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland, and how sport played a central role in satisfying both imperatives. This discussion will be framed by the intersection of the social/political/economic context of Queensland during the period 1891–1914. It will focus on the educational context in which the Irish Christian Brothers operated as they struggled to make the College a bastion of Irish Catholicism and a vehicle for the socio-economic advancement of their community.

在 1901 年联邦任何一方的岁月里，澳大利亚的爱尔兰天主教徒平衡了两种经常相互矛盾的冲动：他们决心在面对新教徒占多数的情况下保持与爱尔兰的文化和宗教联系，以及成为“好”澳大利亚人的愿望。为了在新的土地上“开始”他们的生活。本文探讨了这一过程如何在澳大利亚昆士兰州首府布里斯班的基督教兄弟走读和寄宿学校 St Joseph's Nudgee College 进行，以及体育如何在满足这两个要求方面发挥核心作用。本次讨论将以 1891-1914 年期间昆士兰的社会/政治/经济背景为框架。