In his affectionate and gently humorous verses ‘John O’Brien’ (Father Patrick Joseph Hartigan) sang of farming life and of the life of Irish settlers in Australia – a home life of affection and instinct with true piety; intercourse, humorous or comradely, with friends and neighbours; a life on the land; and at the Church upon the Hill that is the center of their lives. Around the Boree Log is verse that is simple, sincere and lit with a kindly understanding of the lives it chronicles.