From where he sits at "the edge of the world" at his home in Port Fairy, Shane Howard is barely a stone's throw from the paddocks worked by his great grandparents, refugees from the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19th century. 
"They lived just up the road from me here," says the singer/songwriter. "They came from the great hunger, that incredible adversity where a million people died of starvation and disease and more than a million evacuated the country. "They came here and this country was good for them but it took a long time."
One of those ancestors - Patrick Howard - even played a key role in the Eureka Stockade of 1854, narrowly escaping with his life.
"We carry it as a bit of a badge of honour in the family," he says.
Howard remains best known for writing and performing Solid Rock, Goanna's timeless 1982 anthem railing against Indigenous injustice. And while he continues to be heavily involved in Indigenous rights, he has also long been passionate about telling the story of the Irish diaspora, which is also his own history. The hardship and marginalisation of those early migrants is laid bare with his show Exile: Songs and Tales of Irish Australia. There is, he says, an inherent melancholy in being separated from one's country of birth.
"Nothing's sadder than an Irishman out of Ireland," he says. "We're a migrant country, a refugee country in many ways. I think it's important every now and again to have a look over our shoulders and see where we've come from. It's really important to go back and gather up your own stories and mythologies of where you came from."
The show features Howard alongside some of the rising and established stars of the Irish contemporary folk scene. Performers include Dublin singer-songwriter Declan O'Rourke; John Spillane, an award-winning singer-songwriter from Cork and celebrated Kerry vocalist Pauline Scanlon. "We will pay homage to the great Australian-Irish shemozzle," says Howard. "It's not a rock show - we've tried to be musically authentic - and it's very song-driven, of course."
He admits selecting just a few songs from such a vast and rich musical tradition has been tough.
"I had a pretty clear idea from the outset - I really wanted to gather together essentially the Great Australian-Irish Songbook," he says.
Howard, 61, was this year appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours List for services to the performing arts and Indigenous music. He calls it a "lovely honour" but remains slightly uncomfortable with the accolade, which comes, he says, after years of sensing he was "on the outer" of the Australian mainstream.
Exile: Songs and Tales of Irish Australia is at the Factory Theatre, Marrickville, on   February 24.