Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian poems
John O'Brien 1878-1952
John O’Brien was the pen name of Father Patrick Joseph
Hartigan, born in Australia of Irish parents from Lisseycasey, Clare, Ireland.
Parish priest for twenty-seven years at Narrandera in southern New South Wales.
Well-known verses like “Said Hanrahan”, The Old Mass Shandrydan”, "The Little Irish Mother” and , of course, “Around The Boree Log” were celebrations of life in this rural community and in his own family.
His kindly, humorous understanding of the lives of the men and women around him, the home life full of intimate affection and true peity.