Irish Republicanism,the Threat of Political Violence and the National/Border Security Nexus in Australia

In the early 1970s, the Australian government became increasingly concerned about terrorism and political violence, with a particular focus on violence emanating from overseas conflicts. A range of border control measures, including character and security checks for migrants and visitors, had been in place since the First World War and these increasingly intelligence-led security protocols grew in complexity apace with global mobility and politics. Since the mid-1960s, the security services had been monitoring Croatian nationalists in Australia, who were suspected of fostering violent political activity, and their links with similar movements in Europe and North America. The emergence of terrorism relating to the Palestinian struggle since 1968 was also a concern, especially following the massacre at the Munich Olympics in September 1972. The beginning of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's bombing campaign in England between 1972 and 1974 was seen as a further threat. By then, border controls were becoming part of Australia's counter-terrorism frontline, described elsewhere as the ‘national/border security nexus’. ¹

The developing national/border security nexus came at a time when the security services in Australia were shifting from a focus on counter-subversion (primarily focusing on communism and the new left) to counter-terrorism, primarily connected to international issues. ² This meant increased scrutiny of migrants and visitors coming to Australia from particular nations or regions associated with terrorism and on-going conflict, leading to the establishment of the Visa Warning List by the Department of Immigration. ³ The department also focused on several migrant communities in Australia which supposedly threatened political violence in the domestic sphere. The memo circulated in 1972 identified Croatians, Macedonians, Slovenes, Greeks, Lebanese (and other Arab speakers), Spaniards as well as Russians. ⁴

This nexus also was being developed during the period when the ‘White Australia Policy’ was coming to an end and the introduction of visas for (accompanied by increased scrutiny of) migrants from Britain and Ireland. Although not seen as a higher level of threat as southern European or Middle Eastern migrants and visitors, the Australian authorities also employed security checks on potential Irish migrants (from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) and surveilled sections of the Irish community already in the country. Despite the fact that the Irish comprised a significant portion of the Australian white settler population, they often occupied a liminal space between the privilege of whiteness provided by British or Irish subjecthood and a ‘suspect community’ that had to be monitored.

This began before the outbreak of the ‘Troubles’ in 1969. For example, some were monitored following the 1916 Easter Rising, which was seen as a twin evil with ‘Bolshevism’. ⁵ Police and the security services also showed significant interest in Irish Republican groups around the country and their international links, which resulted in the monitoring and exclusion of Irish visitors to Australia in the 1920s. ⁶ After the perceived threat of Irish Republicanism faded between the 1930s and 1960s, there was still surveillance of Irish nationalist and republican groups in Australia, predominantly those linked to the Communist Party of Australia. But suspicion increased throughout the 1970s as the conflict in Northern Ireland erupted. ⁷

In the postwar era, Australia established assisted passage schemes for both Britain and the Republic of Ireland and until the 1970s, migrants from these countries made up the majority of migrants entering the country. As Mark Finnane and Andy Kaladelfos have shown, assisted passage schemes meant that some security checks were made on British migrants (including those from Northern Ireland), but criminal checks were rare. ⁸ When the ‘Troubles’ began in 1969, the Australian authorities worried that the lack of a requirement for visas for British and Irish migrants and visitors meant that potential Irish Republican activists could enter the country undetected. In the 1970s, some visitors from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were monitored by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Commonwealth Police Force and various Special Branches of each state police force. However, the authorities were frustrated at not being able to prevent ‘undesirable’ activists from arriving in the first place due to the absence of visa regime for British and Irish nationals, a remnant of Australia's past Dominion status.

This article shows that in circumvention of these limitations, the Australian authorities attempted to control the flow of visa-exempt nationals through the border by requiring security checks for those seeking assisted passage and others who came to the attention of the Australian Migration Office in Belfast. Files from ASIO and the Department of Immigration reveal that staff at the Australian Migration Office in Northern Ireland passed along with intelligence briefings on several people who had emigrated or sought to emigrate who were suspected on having links to the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the mid-1970s. These documents show that several individuals were deemed possible cases for exclusion or deportation as security risks, but this action did not seem to be taken in the end, despite the potential threat republican political violence could pose to national security.

By 1975, visa-free travel had been abolished as part of the final dismantling of the ‘White Australia Policy’ by the Whitlam government and assisted passage was discontinued shortly after. This should have created conditions for increased scrutiny via the border control system upon those suspected of being involved in militant Irish republicanism and potential political violence, but documents from the late 1970s reveal that Australian requests for information from London and Belfast still went unfulfilled. Even as the priorities of the national/border security nexus seemed to be changing in Australia and Irish militants were of interest to the authorities alongside similar militants from southern Europe and the Middle East, the operations of the system were still hindered by a lack of cooperation from Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as the institutional legacy of a system that for so long privileged British and Irish migrants.

As Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall have written, ‘The Irish-born and their descendants have always formed a substantial minority within Australian society’. ⁹ After the partition of Ireland in 1921, both Protestants and Catholics migrated to Australia from Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, with little distinction in Australian immigration and nationality policy between British and Irish migrants. Both were considered British subjects throughout the interwar period and until 1948, there was no distinction between Australian and British citizenship. This allowed subjects of both the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State to emigrate with few legal restrictions.

In 1947, a new assisted passage scheme was established for British emigrants to Australia (including those from Northern Ireland) ¹⁰ and an Australian Migration Office was set up in Belfast. In 1948, the Australian government started to also encourage migration from the former Irish Free State, as the Republic of Ireland was established in the same year. ¹¹ Although Australian citizenship was established in 1948 (as distinct from British citizenship), Australia still allowed (almost) unrestricted migration from Britain and Ireland throughout the postwar period and up until the 1970s. Between 1961 and 1975, arrivals from the United Kingdom and Ireland together comprised the single largest category of migrant, account for 40 per cent of arrivals throughout this period. ¹²

Despite the historically high number of Irish migrants to Australia and the size of the Irish community throughout the twentieth century, a considerable section of this (predominantly Catholic) community was treated with suspicion by Australian authorities due to alleged Irish Republican and anti-British sympathies. At the height of these conflicts, the Australian government, the security services and the police heavily surveilled the Irish migrant communities and visitors from Ireland to Australia. Although this suspicion diminished into the 1930s and throughout the first decades of the postwar period, the commencement of the ‘Troubles’ in 1969, coinciding with a broader radicalism across the Western world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, saw a renewed attention towards Irish Republicanism, particularly that associated with communism, national liberation and political violence. Australian authorities sought to keep the ‘Troubles’ outside of the country and tried to prevent it from reverberating within the Irish communities in Australia. As well as the monitoring of those suspected of being sympathetic to militant Irish Republicanism, the authorities attempted to use the border control system, in many ways ineffectively, to prevent the ‘Irish problem’ from arriving on Australian shores.

Since the First World War, the border control system had been used by the Australian authorities for national security purposes – the ‘national/border security nexus’. Subversive and extremist politics, as well as the prospect of political violence, was often portrayed as foreign and people suspected of being involved in these forms of politics were, the words of Imogen Tyler (using the concepts of Julia Kristeva), ‘abject subjects’ to be repelled and expelled from the host nation. ¹³ Border control mechanisms became the frontline in preventing potential threats from entering the country, in the guise of ‘enemy aliens’ who were nationals of hostile powers, other aliens suspected of being involved in subversive or dangerous politics or British subjects that were considered disloyal (such as anarchists, communists or fascists).

These mechanisms were not just present at the port of entry but extended far into the domestic sphere. As Nick Vaughan-Williams and Leanne Weber have shown, national security and policing interests have meant that the border control system pervades ‘everyday life’, and multiple government agencies are used to monitor migrants and their communities who are considered a threat to the host nation. ¹⁴ Using Paddy Hillyard's description of the policing of Irish communities in Britain during the ‘Troubles’, these migrant groups become ‘suspect communities’ in the eyes of the authorities. ¹⁵ The nexus of the border and national security systems has been highlighted by many in the ‘War on Terror’ years, ¹⁶ but scholars, such as Constance Bantman, Daniel Brückenhaus and Andrekos Varnava, have shown that this reaches back across most of the twentieth century in the Western world. ¹⁷

The national/border security nexus in Australia, first developed during World War One, operated by identifying potential threats at the border, monitoring subversive or dangerous migrants and visitors inside the country and seeking to deport those deemed to be a danger to the nation state. This required a multitude of government agencies at both the Commonwealth and State level, such as the Department of Immigration, the Department of Labor (combined briefly with the Immigration Department in the mid-1970s), the Attorney-General's Department, the Commonwealth Investigations Branch (replaced by ASIO in 1949), the Commonwealth Police Force (replaced by the Australian Federal Police in 1979) and state police forces, to monitor migrants and visitors suspected of being involved subversive or dangerous political activities. ¹⁸

Although there had been restrictive controls on immigration since Federation in 1901, it was not until the War Precautions Act 1914 that there was an explicit national security element to the immigration control system. The Immigration Restrictions Act 1901 and its subsequent amendments in the lead up to the First World War were primarily aimed at keeping migrants from Asia out of the country. As Peter Cochrane and Anthony Burke have shown, Australia feared invasion from Asia, either by military conquest or by immigration, and border controls were seen just as vital as a national defence policy by the Australian government in securing the sovereignty of a white Australia. ¹⁹ The Immigration Restrictions Act 1901 allowed for broad discretion of the immigration officials to deny persons they deemed ‘undesirable’ through the use of the dictation test.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 caused the Australian government to introduce more restrictive legislation regarding migrants and non-naturalised citizens, which built a framework for further legislation to expand the national/border security nexus over the next century. The War Precautions Act 1914 allowed the eventual registration of aliens, enforced by regulations in 1916, and was followed two versions of the Unlawful Associations Act in 1916 and 1917, which allowed for the deportation of people born outside of Australia to be deported for being involved in subversive activities. Although the measures introduced during wartime were meant to be temporary, once the national security ‘genie’ had been unleashed, it was very difficult for the peacetime governments that followed to put it back in the bottle. As Mark Finnane and Andy Kaladelfos have written, the ‘earlier enactment of wartime restrictions, and the associated institutional creativity, consolidated the immigration regime as a central element of national defence’. ²⁰

The Second World War caused the Australian government to reconsider its immigration policies and, in the aftermath, there was a drive to bring European migrants to the country under the slogan ‘populate or perish’. This included migrants from Italy and Germany (who had been recently deemed ‘enemy aliens’ in Australia), as well as migrants from Eastern and Central Europe; many of whom came as ‘Displaced Persons’. A number of scholars have shown that these migrants underwent, to varying degrees, significant political vetting. Their findings have shown that since its inception, ASIO was involved in screening migrants arriving from postwar Europe. ²¹ The refusal of entry to people suspected to be a security threat was formalised in the Migration Act of 1958, although the mechanisms for the use of the border control system for national security purposes existed much earlier.

Despite the vetting of migrants from Europe for security purposes, security checks on potential British and Irish migrants were rare throughout the postwar period, with only migrants recruited into specific industries subject to criminal and security checks before they arrived. In July 1957, Tasman Heyes from the Department of Immigration complained in a meeting with its British counterparts that the ‘United Kingdom is the only Government which does not help us in screening all applicants from migration to Australia’. ²² A report drafted by the Department of Immigration in the late 1950s stated that ‘[i]t has always been a principle of our immigration policy that British subjects wishing to travel here, without Government assistance, should be free to enter Australia’, adding ‘provided that they are of sound health, good character, and unlikely to be a charge upon funds, and predominantly of European descent’. ²³ But the Department did desire some checks for those seeking assisted passage, although the British authorities were reluctant to do this for all accepted applicants, instead of agreeing to perform checks ‘for British citizens concerning whom there is some doubt or suspicion’. ²⁴

This arrangement continued into the 1960s, with the Department of Immigration stating that as there was ‘[n]o general security or police check … carried out in the case of British migrants from the United Kingdom, … there is no effective safeguard against British migrants who are criminals or a security risk entering Australia’. ²⁵ The British authorities still agreed to make some enquiries for people entering specific industries or when suspicions were raised during this application process, but the First Assistant Secretary from the Department of Immigration complained, ‘[t]his does not alter the fact that the great majority of British migrants come to Australia under the assisted passage scheme without any check being made to establish whether they have a police record or whether they represent a risk to security’. ²⁶ One of the triggers for a check would be if the nominating person in Australia was ‘adversely recorded’ by ASIO, ²⁷ which was the case with one of the applicants discussed later in this article.

Despite the limited checks for migrants coming from Britain and Ireland, there were a number of discussions over the years between ASIO and other government agencies over whether entry and/or assisted passage would be granted to people suspected of having ties to the IRA. For example, in the aftermath of the IRA's border campaign of the late 1950s, there was a concern about suspected IRA members migrating to Australia. For example, in 1961, ASIO noted that James Lonergan, a British migrant ‘suspected of Irish Republican Army sympathies’ had sponsored two nephews from London as part of the assisted migration scheme. ²⁸ Although a file was held on Lonergan, it was considered by ASIO that there was ‘insufficient grounds on which to base security objection’. ²⁹

As Evan Smith and Anastasia Dukova have shown, Irish Republican sentiment existed in Australia for decades, but rose dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the ‘Troubles’ broke out in Northern Ireland, but also coinciding with the broader radicalism of ‘1968’. ³⁰ Prior to this, the Communist Party of Australia had historically been politically aligned with militant Irish Republicanism, predominantly through the Connolly Association. The Connolly Association in Australia was modelled on its British counterpart, established in 1938 to promote socialist Irish Republicanism within the British labour movement and the Irish diaspora in Britain. ³¹ The Australian organisation was established in 1964 and included a number of CPA members, ³² but like its British sister organisation, sought ‘to raise Irish issues within the ALP and the trade unions’. ³³ Alongside the CPA, the Socialist Youth Alliance (SYA), a Trotskyist group that emerged from the anti-Vietnam War movement, also associated with Irish republicanism.

Alongside the Connolly Association, several other Irish Republican groups emerged in the early 1970s, the most prominent being the Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA), named after the organisation of the same name in Northern Ireland. A provisional committee of the Australia version of NICRA was established in Melbourne in July 1970, but the split between the Official and Provisional wings of the IRA abroad impacted upon the ability of the Association to function effectively. ³⁴ A report to Victorian Police's Special Branch proposed that although the leading figures of NICRA were aligned with the CPA and the Official IRA, the involvement of ‘various other Trotskyist and Provisional movements have effectively hampered any Communist domination of the association’. ³⁵

The second organisation was the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society, which was established in Victoria in May 1971. An ASIO agent's memo claimed that the Society was ‘the under-cover name for the IRA in Victoria’, ³⁶ but it was soon established that the Society was more likely to be involved in fundraising, demonstrations and distributing literature than being involved in acts of political violence. However, ASIO was still concerned that the Society was ‘seeking co-operation and advice of constituent organisations of the Radical Protest Movement in Australia, while also seeking “to achieve an element of respectability”’. ³⁷

The Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society were directly involved in the fundraising campaign of NICRA. By October 1971, ASIO was suggesting that ‘in excess of 150 persons have attended’ the weekly meetings of the Society in Sydney. ³⁸ Another report from January 1972 stated that the Society had 300 members, of which 120 were financial. ³⁹ ASIO was particularly concerned about the possibility of the Society raising money to be sent back to Northern Ireland, retaining copies of a number of flyers distributed by the Society requesting donations to be sent to ‘Political Prisoners Aid’ and similar causes. ⁴⁰ A memo to the Victorian Regional Director in early 1972 stated that the role of IRA sympathisers in Australia, such as those in the Society, ‘would be directed towards financial, rather than physical, support of the cause’. ⁴¹ A report on a meeting of the Socialist Youth Alliance on Irish Republicanism quoted Bill Hanna of NICRA as stating that he was ‘confident that the proposed National Organisation of Irish Civil Rights Associations would be able to raise five thousand dollars ($5000) per week’, which would be ‘sent to Ireland to purchase arms’. ⁴² Hanna allegedly said, ‘it's no good sending money to provide food and shelter while people are being killed’. ⁴³

Despite the fact that the split between the Officials and Provisionals had left the Society ‘virtually in a state of collapse’ ⁴⁴ by 1973, the Australian authorities were still worried about political violence and public disorder at demonstrations involving these groups (primarily directed at British institutions in Australia), as well as IRA members and sympathisers coming to the country. This anxiety expressed by the authorities came as the Provisional IRA began its bombing campaign in Britain between 1972 and 1974 and an increasing concern about terrorism, especially political violence linked to international conflicts.

In the early 1970s, there was a growing concern within the Australian government and ASIO about political violence and potential acts of terrorism. In 1972, the new Attorney-General Ivor Greenwood initiated an investigation into terrorism and political violence in Australia, scoping out the potential for a Royal Commission into the subject (although this was eventually rejected). ⁴⁵ The two predominant groups believed to be involved in political violence were anti-communist Croatian émigrés involved in acts of terror against symbols of the Yugoslav government and left-wing activists involved in ‘violent’ protests and acts of vandalism (including arson). ⁴⁶ Despite these broader concerns about potential left-wing political violence, left-wing Irish Republicans in Australia were not, for the most part, considered to be involved in terrorism or political violence. The Interdepartmental Committee established to investigate terrorism and political violence in Australia and to determine the need for a Royal Commission stated that the various Irish Republican groups were mostly ‘involved in demonstrations, fundraising, letter writing and similar activities, with NICRA and the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society identified as the “most active in terms of demonstration type activity”’. ⁴⁷

A report to ASIO's Regional Director in Victoria indicated it could not envisage ‘a situation arising in Australia wherein opposing groups of Irishmen would resort to intimidation or violence to promote their opinions’. ⁴⁸ Furthermore, a memo from July 1974 noted none of the Irish Republican groups in Australia had ‘so far shown any tendencies towards violence’ and that their activities had been ‘confined to fund-raising and demonstrations’, which had been ‘relatively peaceful’. ⁴⁹ But there remained a concern, particularly under the Gorton and McMahon governments, about violence at demonstrations ⁵⁰ and this can be seen in the discussion of pro-Irish Republican demonstrations in the ASIO files. A report of an SYA meeting in Adelaide in November 1971 stated that while publicly Bill Hanna (from NICRA) ‘stressed that [a] march would be non-violent’, in a private discussion with fellow activists Hanna allegedly said ‘whilst he wanted the demonstration to be peaceful, if anyone tried to interfere, then they would be willing to fight’. ⁵¹

Part of the discussion around tightening protest laws in Canberra in 1971 had revolved around violence and vandalism directed at foreign embassies and consulates in Australia. During the debate over the Public Order Act in April 1971, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Leslie Bury, provided to parliament a list of 40 attacks on foreign representatives and their property between 1966 and 1970, experienced by 22 countries, with the serious attacks (including bombings and arson) being perpetrated against the consular properties of Yugoslavia (5) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (5) and the United States (4). ⁵² At this time, the British High Commission was not listed, although ASIO continually warned that the offices of the British High Commission, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, were likely targets for pro-Irish Republican protest, especially after the introduction of internment in Northern Ireland in August 1971 and ‘Bloody Sunday’ in January 1972, when British troops opened fire on protestors in Derry, killing 13 people. An ASIO memo from Canberra to all of its state branches cautioned in February 1972:

Several demonstrations and anonymous threats have recently been directed against the various offices of the British High Commission (BHC) throughout Australia as a result of the situation existing in Northern Ireland.

Would recipients ensure that headquarters is advised immediately of any planned demonstration or any other activity to be mounted against the offices of any BHC. Liaison is to be maintained with police officers. ⁵³

A report on one of these demonstrations in response to the events at ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Melbourne suggested that there was a potential for the demonstration to develop into political violence. It stated:

Throughout this demonstration, it was apparent to me that this crowd was in an explosive state and it would not have taken very much more inciting to spark off a riot. This was due to the intense feelings of the participants and different views held by the groups involved. ⁵⁴

In the same month, ASIO noted a death threat against the British High Commissioner in Canberra, written in reaction to the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ a few weeks before, pronouncing that the High Commissioner had ‘been sentenced to death by the High Court of the Provisional Wing of the Australian IRA’ and that ‘[a] Saturday will be your paratroop day of remembrance to coincide with Londonderry’. ⁵⁵ Although this was probably a ‘death threat from a crank’, the police in the ACT and NSW were advised. ⁵⁶ Another memo from November 1971 reported that an anonymous call had been made to the British High Commission in Melbourne threatening that ‘a British Government building will be “razed to the ground in Australia” by the end of the month’ as ‘a reprisal for British tortures (sic) in Belfast’. ⁵⁷

As the ‘Troubles’ continued in Northern Ireland, ASIO did raise the prospect that there could be a shift from these activities to political violence, with the same memo stating:

It has been reported that the leaders of [these] groups do not advocate the use of violence. However, the possibility that acts of violence will be committed in the future by these groups, or members thereof, should not be discounted. ⁵⁸

In an earlier report on a demonstration outside the British High Commission in Sydney in January 1973, it was claimed that Seamus Flynn, an alleged representative of the Official IRA who was on an extended visit to Australia and had connections to the Communist Party and the Socialist Youth Alliance, had ‘intimated veiled threats of future confrontation and action to gain publicity for the Irish struggle’, but did not elaborate upon whether this was considered a probable risk. ⁵⁹

There were allusions to Irish emigrants to Australia returning to Northern Ireland to partake in Republican activities, including political violence and dealing in arms, but there were few cases elaborated upon in the ASIO files. The security organisation had noted back in late 1971 that people had approached the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society and ‘volunteered to go back home to fight against the British’ or ‘offer[ed] the Society arms and explosives in the hope that the equipment would be forwarded to Ireland’. ⁶⁰ In response, it was reported that ‘the Society cannot assist those persons wanting to go back, nor could the Society forward arms to Ireland’. ⁶¹

One case from 1974 involved Seamus O’Kane, a middle-aged Irish migrant in Brisbane, with ASIO investigating claims that he boasted of raising money for the IRA and of travelling to Ireland to deliver these funds. ⁶² Enquiries made with members of the Queensland Irish Association ascertained that O’Kane had previously boasted of his fundraising activities and had been suspended for soliciting funds in the past, with some other members regarding him as ‘rabid’. ⁶³ Although O’Kane apparently refused to give much details (‘on the basis of “security”’) about some of his activities, according to this ASIO report, O’Kane travelled to Ireland annually to pass on his collected funds to his contacts, which were supposedly ‘of a high level’. ⁶⁴ The report further stated ‘O’Kane made no qualms of the fact that donations he received were used for the purchase of “guns”’. ⁶⁵ O’Kane had previously been flagged in late 1971 by the Commonwealth Police as ‘being very “pro IRA”’ and ‘well off financially’, who had allegedly said that he would be travelling to London to meet with several other Australians, New Zealanders and Americans who ‘were all then going to Northern Ireland to assassinate the Prime Minister’. ⁶⁶ A letter from the CPF to the Department of Foreign Affairs in October 1971 acknowledged that he was not, at the time, known to ASIO or to the Queensland Special Branch, but ‘his particulars [had] been circulated to Commonwealth Police at all International airports throughout Australia’. ⁶⁷ Although the currently open files do not mention O’Kane again after 1974, it is noted that ASIO suggests further monitoring and liaising with the Queensland Police.

The following month concerns emerged within ASIO that the IRA planned to attack the Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Peterson and a royal visit by Prince Charles to Brisbane. On 2 October 1974, the Premier's office received a telegram simply stating ‘Calling media – identification 7COO’ from a sender named as ‘Alabama’. It was passed along with to ASIO which noted that Bjelke Peterson's Press Secretary was ‘concerned about this particular telegram because he states he has read or heard somewhere that it is the type of message sent by the IRA when a bombing is imminent’. ⁶⁸ The telegram was traced to a Marian Edwards in Cairns, with ASIO commenting that her mother had been noted in other ASIO files as ‘being active in the years 1951/52/53 in the UAW [Union of Australian Women]’. ⁶⁹

ASIO was particularly concerned about an untraced telegram addressed to the Cairns Post on the same day from a Brisbane-based address calling itself the Queensland Liberation Movement. This telegram, according to ASIO, ‘contained threats to kill the Premier and threats to place bomb in the office of Cairns Post if the contents of the telegram were not printed’. ⁷⁰ ASIO investigated whether the telegrams had been sent by the same person and inquiries were made into whether Edwards was in Brisbane, ‘especially because of the impending royal visit’. ⁷¹ Despite a flurry of cables between the various branches of ASIO and the Commonwealth Police, the files do not reveal anything further in this case.

On the topic of royal visits, when Queen Elizabeth II was to visit Australia in late 1973, Sean Lavin (previously associated with the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society) was reported as ‘express[ing] no interest’ in the Queen's visit, who also reportedly stated ‘that, as far as he knew, no members of Irish organizations in Melbourne [would] stage protest demonstrations in the Queen's presence’. ⁷² Lavin added that organisations, such as the Green Cross of Australia, were ‘more concerned with raising money to assist internees in Ireland over the Christmas period’. ⁷³ Irish Republican violence was not as of higher concern to ASIO compared with other ethnic and national groups, such as the Croatian and Lebanese diaspora communities, but this did not mean that the Australian authorities did not seek to screen and monitor potential security problems coming to the country amongst Irish migrants and visitors.

Once the conflict in Northern Ireland began, there was a renewed interest in monitoring possible IRA sympathisers and members travelling or emigrating to Australia, expanding the national/border security nexus beyond the physical borders of the country. The initial urgency of screening Irish migrants from both sides of the Irish border had originally spiked in the 1920s and then lulled for decades. In June 1971, the Acting Deputy Chief Migration Officer at the Australian High Commission in London, R.A. Thew, wrote to Canberra informing the Department of Immigration that the Belfast Regional Office had noticed particular applications for migration to Australia from areas of Belfast ‘where the disturbances regularly occur’. ⁷⁴ Thew claimed that these applications had ‘certain distinguishing features’, which he noted were:

They are submitted by males in the 18/20 age group who, although born in Northern Ireland, refer to their nationality as ‘Irish’ and who choose to obtain Irish passports from the authorities in Dublin, rather than hold United Kingdom passports. (Thus giving rise to the impression that they have affiliations with or sympathies for the Irish Republic). These applicants are invariably unemployed or engaged on part-time employment as barmen (latest figures obtained from the United Kingdom authorities indicate that the present unemployment level in Ulster is 7.7 per cent). ⁷⁵

Later in the same year, a letter from Chief Migration Officer in London, R.F. Harris, acknowledged that the intensification of the ‘Troubles’, in a period where the British had introduced the policy of internment, had caused more Northern Ireland residents to seek migration to Australia. But Harris suggested that ‘there seems to be a doubt concerning the motives of many new applicants’, with the migration officer stationed in Belfast mentioning that, in his view, ‘the applicants concerned do not really intend to settle overseas indefinitely – rather they are seeking a temporary resettlement opportunity until such time as conditions settle down again so that they can return’. ⁷⁶ In response to Harris’ letter, the Secretary for the Department of Immigration, R.E. Armstrong, impressed upon him that ‘the need for utmost care’ was required for selecting migrants from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, stating ‘we do not wish to grant assisted passage to Australia to anyone who has association with the IRA or is involved in extremist activity of any kind’. ⁷⁷

Australia's national/border security system came up against the privilege of white British and Irish migrants to the country and thwarted attempts to screen for those involved in militant Irish republicanism. ⁷⁸ Although security and criminal checks for most British migrants seeking assisted passage only occurred when there was a specific request to do so, Harris admitted to Armstrong that until 1970, ‘our Australian Migration Officer in Belfast was able to obtain penal checks through the Royal Ulster Constabulary on every A.P.S. [assisted passage scheme] applicant in Northern Ireland’ through personal contact in the RUC. ⁷⁹ The RUC chose to end this arrangement ‘because of the work involved’, at a time when the conflict in Northern Ireland was escalating. ⁸⁰ By late 1971, the only checks on Northern Irish applicants for assisted passage were done under the same guidelines as checks conducted in London, but Harris worried that checks conducted in London ‘may not include all the information in the Royal Ulster Constabulary records’, which he lamented would not improve ‘under existing conditions’. ⁸¹

However, Harris noted there was an avenue for checking ‘all Irish nationals born in Eire [sic]’ who applied in Britain, via the Irish police, An Gárda Síochana, with the authorities in Dublin able to provide a ‘police certificate of character’ and ‘advice of any adverse security record’ if requested. ⁸² This could also be done for those applying in Britain ‘who has had a substantial residence in Eire and whose background suggests a check can be justified’. ⁸³ As a number of Irish Republican sympathisers would likely to have spent time in the Republic of Ireland or born there, Harris wrote that Canberra House was ‘issuing instructions designed to ensure that we take appropriate advantage of the above facilities’. ⁸⁴

As only limited checks could be made, Harris also stressed the importance of interviews in identifying possible security risks amongst assisted passage applicants, with a particular focus on:c

the motives for seeking entry to Australia for settlement;

the civil record of the applicants or family members – questions will be asked not only about any convictions but also in regard to difficulties of any nature with the police or the authorities. The applicant will be asked whether he or any member of the family has ever been involved in or taken part in any civil disturbances on either side or the other of the Irish question. ⁸⁵

These interviews were to be conducted at the Australian Migration Office in Belfast and migration officers were not allowed to take field trips to interview applicants, particularly migration officers from London. This was because ‘as a strange driver of a strange car’ in towns outside of Belfast, migration officers had previously been stopped or challenged by the RUC or the British Army on such visits. ⁸⁶

Even with the possibility of discrete checks on those seeking assisted passage, Harris warned that these screening processes had ‘little scope to influence the short term entry of extremists’ as Irish visitors from both sides of the border did not need ‘to obtain prior authority before travel’. ⁸⁷ This was an increasing concern as in the same month, ASIO was suggesting that the ‘recent increase in alleged IRA activity in Australia is frequently directed by newly arrived young Irishmen, claiming to be IRA officers’. ⁸⁸ After the current affairs programme This Day Tonight featured alleged IRA members in Australia in 1971, a number of government agencies became concerned about this issue, with an ASIO memo noting that the Minister for Immigration had ‘received a number of complaints from the public … for allowing this type of person into the country’. ⁸⁹ ASIO's Regional Director in the ACT stated that the Immigration Department view on this was:

No Australian visa is necessary for Northern and Irish persons who wish to visit Australia. They have what is called “freedom of movement” to Australia with the result that as British subjects they would not be asked the purpose of their visit and no record would be held by the Department of their visit. The only formalities would be stamping of their passport for a six month period and the usual filling out of an Incoming Passenger Card. ⁹⁰

As the British authorities intensified their efforts in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1974 with internment, the suspension of Stormont and the passing of the first Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Commonwealth's Special Interdepartmental Committee on Domestic Violence (established by the Whitlam government in 1974) ‘expressed concern’ to ASIO about ‘the possibility that members of the IRA could attempt to travel to Australia if the UK Government imposed heavy restrictions on [the] IRA’. ⁹¹ An ASIO inward message from December 1974 shows that ASIO worked with various agencies, such as the Department of Immigration, Customs and the Commonwealth Police Force, to detect potential terrorists entering Australia, with the following recommendation:

Most persons suspected of terrorist affiliations would appear to come under the scope of the Migration Act and it is recommended consideration be given to examining the mechanices [sic] of passing such info to Labor and Immigration and COMPOL. No doubt some system is presently operated by ‘C’ Branch for informing immigration of adverse traces on intending migrants. ⁹²

Although it was difficult for the Australian border control system to detect visitors from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the Australian authorities did do some checks on people applying for assisted passage from Northern Ireland in the 1970s via the Australian Migration Office in Belfast. It was here that the office's staff investigated some applicants and forwarded intelligence reports to ASIO and the Department of Immigration in Canberra.

In October 1974, ASIO investigated the migration of several people from Northern Ireland suspected of being involved in or having sympathies with the IRA, all sponsored by people attached to one address in Wollongong. It was noted that three out of the four people identified had applied for assisted passage and had been rejected, with three of them paying their own way to Australia. ⁹³ Although one, Roy McIlwaine, was believed to have returned to the UK after less than a year in Australia, the others were seeking to sponsor others to emigrate. ⁹⁴

One of these migrants was James Lillis, who was considered a ‘prohibited immigrant’, but still resided in Australia. ⁹⁵ Lillis had been interned from January to June 1972 ‘under suspicion of being a member of the IRA’, while Lillis’ brother was a prisoner at Long Kesh, the Detention Centre for paramilitary prisoners in Maze, County Down, at the same time. ⁹⁶ James and his wife Jean were both considered ‘strongly nationalistic’ and ‘hard line Republicans’, and although Lillis now resided in Australia, there was a concern expressed by the Australian Migration Office in Belfast that this did ‘not remove him from the grip of the IRA, who are well represented in Australia’, ⁹⁷ which, as discussed above, contradicts the intelligence being gathered by ASIO during the same period. The Australian Migration Officer in Belfast suggested that Lillis would continue to assist the IRA from Australia (‘where he cannot be interned’) by raising funds. ⁹⁸

Lillis had allegedly served a prison sentence for a firearms offence and it was speculated that he was involved in more serious crimes. The same Australian Migration Officer in Belfast speculated, perhaps wildly:

There are currently several hundred unsolved murders committed in Ulster with the use of firearms during this current period of civil unrest. Any man prepared to carry an illegal firearm in Ulster must be regarded as a potential murderer. [Lillis] may be responsible for one or more of the unsolved murders referred to above. ⁹⁹

Labelling Lillis as ‘obviously not the type of citizen that Australia wants’, the Officer argued that the fact that Lillis was able to travel to and reside in Australia despite being a prohibited immigrant ‘points to a need for a revision of procedures in cases such as this’. ¹⁰⁰ In July 1974, the Whitlam government introduced a visa regime for British migrants, as part of the dismantling of the ‘White Australia Policy’, and the Officer proposed that this would be effective in preventing known criminals from entering the country. ¹⁰¹

This lengthy special report from Belfast concluded:

James Lillis is a prohibited immigrant. He has entered Australia illegally and I strongly urge that the matter of deportation be considered. (I certainly would not like to meet him in a dark street when I return home!) If we allow him to remain in Australia we certainly run the risk of other members of the Lillis family such as his brother Kevin (presently interned but doubtless due for release in the foreseeable future) seeking to join him. I also recommend that action be taken immediately to prevent Mrs Lillis travelling F/F [full fare-paying] to Australia until her husband's position has been determined. ¹⁰²

There are no further documents in the released ASIO files that indicate the outcome of this special report, other than a report from October of the same year noted that Lillis was still at the same Wollongong address. ¹⁰³

Another migrant living in the same residence as Lillis was Michael McGirr, who was ‘understood to have been interned in 1971–2 on suspicion of IRA activities’. ¹⁰⁴ A special report from Belfast stated that while McGirr was not a prohibited immigrant, his internment record and association with Lillis ‘earmark him as a very undesirable type of settler. ¹⁰⁵ The same officer who composed a special report on Lillis again speculated about McGirr's supposed IRA activities, writing:

If McGirr is in fact a member of the IRA (one cannot ‘resign’ from such an organisation) which seems almost certain, it can be assumed that he has taken part in acts of terrorism which have been responsible for the loss of over 1000 lives and the destruction of millions of pounds worth of property in Northern Ireland. People who have acted in such manner in this country are liable to act similarly in Australia, given sufficient reason. ¹⁰⁶

McGirr sought to sponsor his wife and children's passage to Australia and the Belfast Australian Migration Officer recommended rejecting her application, ¹⁰⁷ although a memo from the Australian High Commission in London (via the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch at Heathrow) noted in December 1974 that Geraldine McGirr and her two children had flown from London to Sydney to join Michael, now residing in Sydney. ¹⁰⁸

McGirr's brother-in-law, William Dickinson, was also noted as living at the same Wollongong address as McGirr and questions were raised over his status and his attempt to sponsor his wife (and McGirr's sister) to come to Australia. ¹⁰⁹ The Australian Migration Office in Belfast wrote to the main Australian Migration Office in London advising them that according to the British government's Northern Ireland Office, William Dickinson had no criminal record, but cautioned:

in view of his apparent association with these suspected IRA members, one of whom has served a prison sentence in respect of an arson offence, there is good reason to suspect that Dickinson is also a member of the IRA. ¹¹⁰

As well as attempting to prevent the potential threat of the prohibited immigrant from entering the country, the national/border security nexus also sought to remove ‘undesirable’ migrants from the host society. One case surrounding the authorities looking into deporting an Irish migrant for their associations with militant Irish republicanism was that of Thomas McNeice. McNeice came to the attention of ASIO and the Department of Immigration around the same time as Lillis and McGirr families after McNeice was handed a suspended sentence in Northern Ireland on weapons charges in late 1974. McNeice had travelled to Northern Ireland in May 1973 and was alleged to have been part of the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society while previously residing in Australia.

As an organisation, ASIO believed that the Society had ‘never trained persons in guerrilla warfare’, ¹¹¹ but individual members could be involved in political violence, either in Australia or in Northern Ireland. This seemed to be the case with McNeice. He had migrated as a teenager to Australia in 1959 and has resided in the country until 1972, when he travelled to Europe, arriving in Northern Ireland in May 1973. ¹¹² According to a report in the Belfast Telegraph, McNeice ‘had been approached to join the Provisional IRA after his uncle and aunt had been murdered in Moy, Tyrone’, with the judge at his trial suggesting that he had been ‘duped by another man at the graveside who played on his emotions.’ ¹¹³ McNeice plead guilty to making mortars for an engineer in North Antrim, as well as belonging to the IRA, and received a two-year suspended sentence. ¹¹⁴ The Australian Migration Office in Belfast described the sentence as ‘extremely light’ and suggested that ‘the fact that McNeice would be returning to his wife and child in Australia would have influenced the judge in his decision’. ¹¹⁵

As McNeice intended to return to Australia, the Department of Labor and Immigration, in communication with the Australian Migration Office in Belfast and ASIO, deliberated over whether McNeice could be denied entry to Australia before he arrived or whether he could be deported. An internal ASIO memo outlined this, stating ‘although there may be no legal objection from the UK authorities as to McNEICE's return to Australia, the Australian immigration authorities may object to his return’. ¹¹⁶ Before McNeice left for Australia in December 1974, the Australian Migration Office tried to determine whether he had Australian, British or Irish citizenship, but acknowledged that further investigation, such as putting in a request for information from the Ballymena Police, ‘could not be obtained without our intent being declared’, with the official stating ‘I would not like the IRA to learn of our intent in this case’. ¹¹⁷ The intent of the Australian authorities was to possibly put McNeice on the Visa Warning List or declare him a ‘prohibited immigrant’.

The Department of Labor and Immigration considered whether McNeice's previous 12 years in Australia meant that ‘he could not be termed an immigrant under the Migration Act’, or whether McNeice was deemed to be an immigrant and could thus ‘be a candidate for deportation under Sect. 14 of the [Migration] Act’. ¹¹⁸ Because of his conviction and his membership with the IRA, the Australian Migration Office in Belfast believed that McNeice should have been considered a prohibited immigrant under the 1958 Act, but admitted that McNeice was married to an Australian woman and could not thus be denied entry. ¹¹⁹ Even though McNeice's name was added to the Visa Warning List, he returned to Australia in early December 1974 and correspondence between various agencies continued to question whether McNeice had applied for Australian citizenship or whether he should have been added to the watch lists of ASIO and the Commonwealth Police. ¹²⁰ Investigation by ASIO was rationalised by his alleged association with the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society in the early 1970s, ¹²¹ despite the fact that by the time of McNeice's return, the Society had faded away.

Due to the judge's remarks about McNeice being ‘duped’ into working with the IRA, there were some comments in the files about McNeice's commitment to Irish republicanism and his future involvement in militant political activities. A report from the Australian Migration Office said, ‘[i]n all probability, McNeice will have learned his lesson through bitter experience and he may well lead a normal and respectable life in Australia from now on’, but also warned that his membership in the Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon Society also showed that there was ‘a possibility that voluntarily or involuntarily, he may continue to support the IRA from Australia’. ¹²² An earlier report from the Australian Migration Office said that because of McNeice's links to the IRA, there was ‘a possibility that his family in Australia are similar connected’ and that ‘[p]erhaps ASIO may be interested in checking that out’. ¹²³ A handwritten note on a letter to the Department of Labor and Immigration from the Chief Migration Officer at Canberra House in London stated that an ASIO investigation indicated that McNeice had a wife, two brothers and two sisters in Australia, although there is no indication in the files of further surveillance upon McNeice's family. ¹²⁴ Despite being on the Visa Warning List and interest from state agencies, McNeice returned to Australia in December 1974 and was investigated by ASIO, the Immigration Department and the Commonwealth Police Force until May 1976, upon which it was determined that he was unable to be deported. ¹²⁵

In January 1975, the Australian immigration control system was altered, requiring British and Irish migrants to obtain a visa before entering the country. This coincided with the phasing out of the assisted passage scheme, by the Fraser Government over the next decade and with the introduction of visas for migrants from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Immigration Minister Al Grassby enthused that this would also lead to greater criminal checks for incoming migrants from these countries. ¹²⁶ As this article has shown, security checks were nominally already in place for those seeking to come to Australia from Britain and Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland, but the lack of a visa regime for migrants and visitors from the British Isles meant that this was considered ineffective by many in the Australian national and border security systems.

But even after visas were required for British and Irish migrants, enabling (in principle) greater scrutiny upon those arriving, the Australian authorities did find difficulty in obtaining information from London and Belfast on potential arrivals. In 1976, the Chief Migration Officer at Australia House complained:

Our only avenue for checking applicants from Northern Ireland continues with the general arrangements under which we can seek a limited number of checks here in London through ASIO. There are no prospects under existing circumstances of improving our checking facilities in relation to Northern Ireland applicants. ¹²⁷

The privileging of British and Irish people by the Australian government by holding onto a policy of not restricting them from coming to the country, as migrants or visitors, meant that some within the security services and the Department of Immigration became frustrated at the inability to prevent the entry of political ‘extremists’. Alongside extreme nationalists, communists and those involved in national liberation movements, Irish Republicans were perceived as a security threat in the 1960s and 1970s and if identified through pre-entry security and criminal screenings, an argument was made that they could be denied entry, or if not, denied access to the assisted passage scheme.

Interviews for applicants for assisted passage from Northern Ireland were seen as one avenue to take in screening for ‘undesirable’ migrants involved in Irish Republicanism or political extremism associated with the ‘Troubles’. The Australian Migration Office in Belfast conducted these interviews and ASIO records in Canberra reveal that the officers who interviewed applicants passed along with intelligence on those suspected of being involved with the IRA to Canberra House in London, the Department of Immigration in Canberra and the security services. However, the records also seem to suggest that limited action was taken from the intelligence produced, despite continual internal references to the potential problem that Irish Republicans posed to Australia's national security.

In the early 1970s, conflicts in the Balkans, the Mediterranean and the Middle East meant that people from a multitude of places, including Croatia, Cyprus, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa, Japan and Afghanistan, were subject to extensive security and criminal checks before entering the country, as migrants, student or short-term visitors. Those who had settled in Australia were also scrutinised when they applied for naturalisation, a passport or when they planned to leave the country. On the other hand, despite concerns about the alleged increasing likelihood of Irish Republican political violence in Australia, the authorities were reluctant to intervene against Irish migrants and visitors to the country, particularly as the Northern Irish were considered British and thus to be treated differently to other Europeans and people from elsewhere around the world. Although the national/border security system strictly dealt with migrants and visitors from places of political instability and conflict across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and south-eastern Europe, when it came to the Irish from both sides of the border, the system was far more muted.