Anglo-Celtic Australian

Australians of Anglo-Celtic ancestry

Julia Gillard Steve Irwin Ian Thorpe Ned Kelly Heath Ledger Kylie Minogue
Total population
74% of Australian population (2010 estimate)
Regions with significant populations
All States and territories of Australia
Languages
English
Religion
Predominantly Christian significant nonreligious population
Related ethnic groups
Anglo-African · British American · Irish American · British Latin American · Cornish · English · Irish · New Zealand European · Scottish · Welsh · White British and other white/European ethnicities.

Anglo-Celtic Australians or British Australians are citizens of Australia with British and/or Irish ancestral origins.

Demography

From the beginning of the colonial era until the mid-20th century, the vast majority of settlers were British or Irish. Among the leading ancestries, increases in Australian, Irish, and German ancestries and decreases in English, Scottish, and Welsh ancestries appear to reflect such shifts in perception or reporting. These reporting shifts at least partly resulted from changes in the design of the census question, in particular the introduction of a tick box format in 2001.

Until 1859, 2.2 million (73%) of the free settlers who immigrated were British.

In 1999, the Anglo-Celtic ethnic strength in the Australian population was calculated as 69.88%. This represents a proportional decline from 1947 when Anglo-Celtic ethnic strength was 90% and 1988 when it was 74.55%. The study also projected that in 2025 the Anglo-Celtic proportion will fall to 62.5%.

Anglo-Celtic is not a category in the Australian census. At the 2006 Census of Australia respondents could nominate up to two ancestries (although 65% of respondents nominated just one). Out of a total of 19,855,288 responses, 6,283,647 (31.6%) responses indicated English ancestry, 1,803,740 (9.1%) indicated Irish ancestry, 1,501,204 (7.6%) indicated Scottish ancestry, 113,242 (0.7%) indicated Welsh ancestry, 1,864 (0.01%) indicated Manx ancestry, and 5,686 (0.3%) indicated British ancestry.

Just over three-quarters of the Australian ancestry group stated no other ancestries. Among the 24% who did report another ancestry, the ancestries most commonly stated were English (reported by 13% of the total Australian ancestry group), Irish (3%), Scottish (1%), German (1%) and Italian (1%). The number of people reporting Australian ancestry in 2001 was almost double the 3.4 million (24% of the population) who gave Australian as their ancestry in the 1986 Census. This reflected a shift to reporting Australian ancestry among Australian-born people with Australian-born parents. Among these people, the proportion stating Australian ancestry increased from 33% to 56%, making this the group most likely to state Australian ancestry in 2001. There was also a substantial increase in reporting of Australian ancestry among Australian-born people with one parent born in Australia and one born overseas. Of this group, 33% stated Australian ancestry in 1986 and 49% in 2001. The explicit inclusion of Australian as an ancestry response in the 2001 Census (through its inclusion among the tick box answers) seems likely to have influenced this change. However, a real change in cultural affiliations may also have contributed. Compared with 1986, some people may have placed more value or relevance on their Australian affiliations and less on historic ties to England.

A 1996 study of the ethnic origins of the Australian people shows:

• 12,438,600 people had English origins.
• 5,454,200 people had Irish origins.
• 5,393,800 people had Scottish origins.
• 768,100 people had Cornish origins.
• 727,800 people had Welsh origins.
• 46,600 people had Manx origins.

The United Kingdom remains the leading source of immigrants to Australia. In 2005–06 22,143 persons born in the United Kingdom settled in Australia, representing 21.4% of all migrants. At the 2006 Census (excluding overseas visitors) 1,038,165 persons identified themselves as having been born in the United Kingdom (5.2% of the Australian population), while 50,251 identified themselves as Irish born.

The Anglo-Celtic element in the population is expected to drop to 62 percent by 2025.

Usage

The term Anglo-Celtic is primarily associated with Australians of British and/or Irish ancestry. It reflects the ethno-cultural composition of post-colonial Australian society, in which English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx, Dutch and German peoples fused through inter-marriage into a single national group.^{[citation needed]}. Since European settlement of Australia in 1788, people of Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins have comprised the majority of the Australian population.

Other terms like Anglo, Anglo-Australian, Anglo-Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon-Celtic are used interchangeably with Anglo-Celtic (sometimes inaccurately, such as for persons whose lineage cannot be confirmed or established, or who are of an exclusively Celtic background). The derogatory word skip has been used by some ethnic groups in Australia to refer to Anglo-Celtic Australians^{[citation needed]} in reference to the 1960s television program Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Anglo-Celtic is a combination of the combining form Anglo- and the adjective Celtic. Anglo-, meaning English and sometimes British is derived from the Angles, a Germanic people that settled mainly in England in the middle of the first millennium. The name England (Old English: Engla land or Ængla land) originates from these people. Celtic, in this context, refers to the people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, the Celtic nations of the British Isles.

Identity

The emergence of Australian nationalism in the second half of the nineteenth century diminished the degree in which Anglo-Celtic Australians identified themselves as primarily from their homelands, although many elements of Australian culture and life, from jurisprudence to gardening, are transplanted from British and Irish traditions.

Controversy and criticism

Some have argued that the term is entirely a product of multiculturalism. For example, historian John Hirst wrote in 1994: "Mainstream Australian society was reduced to an ethnic group and given an ethnic name: Anglo-Celt."

The Australian journalist Siobhan McHugh, however, has argued that the term "Anglo-Celtic" is "an insidious distortion of our past and a galling denial of the struggle by an earlier minority group", Irish Australians, "against oppression and demonisation... In what we now cosily term "Anglo-Celtic" Australia, a virtual social apartheid existed at times between [Irish] Catholics and [British] Protestants", which did not end until the 1960s.

The term was also criticised by the historian Patrick O'Farrell as "a grossly misleading, false, and patronising convenience, one crassly present-oriented. Its use removes from consciousness and recognition a major conflict fundamental to any comprehension not only of Australian history but of our present core culture."

Yet as long ago as 1967, British migrants in Australia felt it necessary to form an association to represent their special interests: the United Kingdom Settlers' Association, which subsequently became the British Australian Community.

See also

• Anglo-Celtic
• English Australian
• Irish Australian
• Scottish Australian
• Welsh Australian
• Cornish Australian
• Demographics of Australia
• Europeans in Oceania
• European Australian