The letters of Irish emigrants in Australia (featured in the ‘sources’section of HI Winter 1994), steeped in local idiom and nuance, deserveto be heard as well as seen. A ninety-minute cassette, based on aseries of radio programmes produced by Cathal Póirtéir, has beenreleased in conjunction with David Fitzpatrick’s Oceans of Consolation:Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia (Cork UniversityPress) [to be reviewed in the next issue of HI]. RTE actors readletters to and from six different counties, accompanied by DavySpillane’s music for didgeridoo and uilleann pipes. The cassette(£5.95) may be ordered through bookshops (ISBN 1-85908-075-2) orcollected from Dept. of Modern History, Trinity College, Dublin 2.
