ASHA Talk: Where's the evidence? The archaeology of Sydney's Aboriginal history by Paul Irish

An online National Archaeology Week (NAW) 2025 talk hosted by the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology (ASHA). Presented by Dr Paul Irish this 45 – 50 minute talk starts at 6pm AEDT/4pm AWST/5.30 ACDT/8pm NZDT on Tuesday 20 May and will be followed by a Q & A session.

In this talk Paul Irish will revisit research undertaken in 2012 with a former colleague about the archaeological evidence of the continuing occupation of Sydney by Aboriginal people after 1788. Looking at these findings, and ongoing archaeological, archival and community research into Sydney’s historical Aboriginal past, Paul will consider how a history once obscured by ignorance, and often overlooked in the artificial divide between ‘historical’ and ‘Aboriginal’ archaeologies, can be made visible.

Paul Irish is a historian and director of consultancy Coast History and Heritage. He started working about 25 years ago as an archaeological consultant specialising in Aboriginal heritage, before training as a historian. Since 2024 Paul has hung up his trowel to focus fully on working as an Aboriginal history consultant, working collaboratively with Aboriginal community members, particularly in the Sydney area. He is the author of the 2017 book Hidden In Plain View. The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney (winner of the 2018 NSW Premiers History Award for Community and Regional History).