From Colonized to Colonizer: Innisfail, An Irish Colonial Settlement in North Queensland

Abstract

The paper focuses on Johnston shire, named after explorer Robert Arthur Johnstone, who was George Dalrymple’s officer in charge of the native mounted police in the expedition that set out from Cardwell in September 1873 to explore and chart the north east coast between Cairns and Townsville. Between the late 19th century and the 1970s Johnston shire developed as one of the main centres of cane farming and sugar cane processing, a typical colonial business that started with the establishment of Thomas Henry FitzGerald’s company. FitzGerald was Irish and he called his plantation Innisfail, an Irish name meaning ‘the Isle of Destiny’ in English.