At the top of a hill in south-west Victoria sits the church and hall of St Brigid's in Crossley, surrounded by rolling green hills of fertile volcanic soil. To the south, the hills drop away to the Southern Sea. These fields have sustained the largest rural Irish immigrant population in Australia for more than 150 years.
The Irish migrants came from a country traumatised by the great Famine of the late 1840s. It is estimated that well in excess of one million Irish people died of starvation. It was Ireland's holocaust.
My own great grandmother, Mary Cleary, was the soul survivor of her family and she was sent to Australia to her only known living relative. She sailed out of Cobh harbour in Cork, as a young girl, knowing there was no family to go back to.
Her story is not unique in this area. Many of the migrants who came to the Port Fairy, Killarney, Crossley and Koroit areas were from some of the areas worst affected by the famine. They came to Australia in desperation as a beaten people, with little but the will to survive.
Before migrants came to these shores, it was Gunditjmara country. The Aboriginal tribal clan lands of the KoroitGunditj, MoonwerGunditj and TarererGunditj. By the time the Irish began arriving in the early 1850s, the Aboriginal population had been decimated by disease, alcohol abuse and killings. Their tribal lands had been usurped and they were reduced to fringe dwellers in their own country.
Last Saturday night, in that country hall in Crossley, Archie Roach, a Gunditjmara man, a child of the stolen generation and multi award winning vocalist, sang in solidarity with the Irish Catholic descendants of those famine migrants.
Five generations after our forefathers built and paid for St Brigid's church at the turn of the 19th century, the people of Crossley and Killarney are fighting to save the gathering place from private ownership. Against the wishes of the local community, the buildings are for sale by tender by the Catholic Church.
At the sell-out fundraising concert to buy back the buildings (pictured), Archie told the audience of young and old, black and white, old residents and newcomers: 'My people know what it is like to have something you love taken away from you. This place belongs to these people. You can't just take it away. They belong here. It's their place.'
This from a man who knows a thing or two about community and the pain of having it taken away. We should not repeat the same mistakes by devaluing our own settler heritage, and the sacred space and communities our Irish forebears built for us.
The principle is simple and universal: people need a place to belong; it is innately human to share song and hand down stories, and find strength, support and salvation in each other. All these things are the glue which binds our communities together.
In 2006, at the annual renowned 'St Brigid's Session' fundraiser, famed Irish musician Mary Black sang a capella, as children practiced their Irish dancing, and locals passed the sandwiches.
A few weeks ago, at the 'Saving St Brigid's' concert, a soft Irish brogue could be heard as familiar faces greeted each other. Children ran free as locals passed their home cooked fare around the outside fire, clapping along to the music.
Mayor of Moyne Shire said 'The Catholic Church might own these buildings but we all know historically and morally they belong to the community'. The church was built for 6000 pounds, paid by our ancestors, of which the Catholic Church donated 750 pounds.
Our ancestors were not wealthy. They made great sacrifices to raise these funds to build a community gathering place. Ironically, today we find ourselves in that very same position — about to indebt ourselves to buy back our buildings so they continue to be a vibrant focus of our community life.
The Friends of St Brigid's was formed in 2006, to uphold the area's unique Irish heritage, by turning the former church into an Australian-Irish Cultural and Heritage Centre, a plan backed by the Irish, Federal, State and local governments. The centre will house the history and culture of the Irish immigrants who came to South West Victoria, a centre of national and international significance.
Ninety five years ago this week, our own forefathers Dan Lane and Dan Madden stood to thank Archbishop Mannix for opening St Brigid's church. They told the congregation: 'We have decided to build a Church. Let us build a good one; one that we can proudly hand down to our children as a legacy.'
We are proud children of that legacy. Let's not lose these stories and memories. They are dramatic stories of endurance and survival, acted out in the fields of south-west Victoria. Let us cherish this great chapter in Australian history and write the next chapters of a society no longer divided by religious or racial differences or intolerance.
Let's ensure our own song and story shared at St Brigid's are kept alive. We owe that to our children's children.
Shane Howard and Archie Roach will join a line up of folk, Irish, Indigenous and contemporary musicians from south-west Victoria on stage at Thornbury Theatre in Melbourne on Friday 3 July at 8.30pm, to help raise funds for their local community to buy back their buildings. More info
South West Victorian singer-songwriter Shane Howard has played the world over, to audiences of thousands. He has recently penned a song 'The Church up on the Hill' for a cause that is close to his heart and home.
Regina Lane is a member of The Friends of St Brigid's. She has just completed her Masters of International Development, and will shortly start work as a Climate Change Campaign Organiser for GetUp!