My family history omits all mention of violence against Māori – I want to break the silence

It is a grim irony that my Irish family – paying to live on land colonised by the English – was involved in alienating Māori from their land On the morning of the5 November 1881 my great-grandfather, Andrew Gilhooly, stood alongside 1,588 other men, waiting to commence the invasion of Parihaka pā (settlement), home to the great pacifist leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi and their people. He would have participated in the weeks and months of destruction and despoliation – of people, property and cultivations – that followed. Andrew remained at Parihaka – which is on the west coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand – as part of the Armed Constabulary’s occupying force until late 1884. The occupation was not benign: on one occasion constables tore down 12 houses in retaliation for attempts by neighbouring Māori to bring goods into Parihaka (the attempt to feed starving people was dismissed by the Native Minister as being “in every way objectionable”). Continue reading...
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