Patrick O’Farrell: An Expanded Memory

This paper provides an analysis of the contribution to the Catholic history of Australia by Patrick O’Farrell. Eschewing footnotes, like O’Farrell himself, Campion considers the changes of tone, emphasis, and content which enrich the new editions of the history, from its first appearance in 1968 through subsequent rewriting in 1977, 1985, and 1992. It is argued that O’Farrell responded to the transformation of the Catholic world in the intervening decades but also to new research in Australian Catholic historiography, much of which he was responsible for fostering.