“Druids Down Under”: Australian Druidry as Adaptation and Innovation

Abstract

The arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 marked the start of European colonialism in Australia, an island continent inhabited for 60,000 years by Indigenous peoples. White settlers were Christians, but around one-third of the convicts in the early colony were Irish Catholics, and Celtic folk traditions from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man took root in the new colony. In the twenty-first century cultural bodies like the Celtic Council of Australia and the annual Australian Celtic Festival at Glen Innes celebrate these historical ties. Australia is also home to a thriving alternative religious and spiritual subculture, in which Celtic-tinged Paganism and Druidry are prominent. While linked to communities in Britain, Australian Pagans and Druids adapt northern hemisphere traditions under the southern stars and innovate in drawing Celtic beliefs and practices closer to Indigenous traditions, and the distinctive Australian landscape. This chapter considers the presence of British Druidic orders in Australia, facilitation of Druidic events by visiting leaders and teachers, and the emergence of an Australian Druidry, evidenced by Julie Brett’s Australian Druidry: Connecting with the Sacred Landscape (2017) and Belonging to the Earth: Nature Spirituality in a Changing World (2022) and Sandra Greenhalgh and Elkie White’s edited volume A History of Druidry in Australia: A Collection of Perspectives (2020).