125 years of the Celtic Club in Melbourne, Australia

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Celtic Club in Melbourne celebrates its 125th birthday this week. We spoke to the club’s President, Seamus Moloughney from Co Tipperary, about its history and the challenges facing one of Australia’s oldest Irish institutions.

On 26 September 1887, the club was founded as the Celtic Home Rule Club. Its goals were to campaign for home rule – the right of Ireland to self-govern while remaining a part of the United Kingdom – and to campaign for the rights of Irish-Australians in Melbourne.

‘The people that came out here, they didn’t just come out for a suntan,' Moloughney said. 'They came out to work and make a better go for themselves, but they still kept Ireland at heart. There was money sent back to Ireland when they needed it, back in those days.’ 

As one of the oldest Irish organisations in Australia, the club ran many fundraisers for Irish independence, and has been around long enough to have its membership divided over controversial issues in modern Irish history: issues like the 1889 divorce crisis involving Irish republican Charles Stewart Parnell and the events leading to the Irish Civil War in 1922. 

Despite those splits, the club endured, growing less political with age.

Now, with a new generation migrating to Australia from Ireland, the club is finding it difficult to attract new members. It attracts big crowds for major events – like the recent All-Ireland finals – but membership among young migrants isn’t particularly high. Moloughney believes they don’t want to be ‘tied down’ with a formal membership.

‘We have to move into the 21st century or we lose everything,’ Moloughney told WorldIrish. ‘We’re not attracting what you’d call the young Irish – they’re going to the plastic places,’ he said, referring to the ‘so-called Irish pubs’.

Part of the problem is that membership is an entirely optional 'donation' – they don’t turn anyone away.

But the Celtic Club isn’t standing still. There’s a big announcement in the wings and plans for big changes to modernise. The club has been pursuing redevelopment plans for its premises on Queen Street since 2010, and is due to announce plans soon.

The centre has, Moloughney says, always served as a place for the Irish to gather, and always will. It’s open for the use of other Irish clubs and associations, and has hosted many high-profile guests.

‘To see Mary McAleese come here, the President, and Mary Robinson - it’s a place where you can entertain visitors from Ireland, and it’s nice to have that.’

‘It’s also nice, [with regard to] the Irish contribution to Melbourne, to have it as a sort of memorial for the people that’s gone through, and something for the young ones that are coming. And at the moment, there seem to be more and more on the way.’

The club’s birthday celebrations take place in the clubhouse on Queen Street on 26 September with a cocktail party attended by the Irish Ambassador Noel White. As always in the Celtic Club, all are welcome.