Irish markers can be found in South Australian archaeology, architecture, geography and history. Some of these are visible in the hundreds of Irish place names that dot the South Australian landscape, such as Clare, Donnybrook, Dublin, Kilkenny, Navan, Rostrevor, Tipperary, and Tralee (as Tarlee).

Its capital is named after German-born Queen Adelaide, its main street after her English husband, King William IV, so it is not surprising that little is known about South Australia's Irish background. However, the first European to discover Adelaide's River Torrens in 1836 was Cork-born and educated George Kingston, who was deputy surveyor to Colonel Light; the river was named in turn for Derryman Colonel Torrens, Chairman of the South Australian Colonisation Commission. Adelaide's first judge and first police commissioner were immigrants from Kerry and Limerick. Irish South Australia charts Irish settlement from as far north as Pekina, to the state's south-east and Mount Gambier. It follows the diverse fortunes of the Irish-born elite such as George Kingston and Charles Harvey Bagot, as well as doctors, farmers, lawyers, orphans, parliamentarians, pastoralists and publicans who made South Australia their home, with various shades of political and religious beliefs: Anglicans, Catholics, Dissenters, Federationalists, Freemasons, Home Rulers, nationalists, and Orangemen. Irish markers can be found in South Australian archaeology, architecture, geography and history. Some of these are visible in the hundreds of Irish place names that dot the South Australian landscape, such as Clare, Donnybrook, Dublin, Kilkenny, Navan, Rostrevor, Tipperary, and Tralee (as Tarlee). The book's editors are twentieth-century Irish immigrants from Dublin (Dymphna Lonergan), Portadown (Fidelma Breen), Trim (Susan Arthure), and by descent from eight Irish-born (Stephanie James).

Irish Settlers in South Australia is the story of two families: the O'Toole family from County Wicklow and the Hayes family from County Galway. The O'Tooles arrived in South Australia in 1840 and the Hayes family in 1849. In the first decades after their arrival they struggled as poor farmers on small 80-acre blocks of land in the districts north of Adelaide. When, in 1869, it became possible to buy land on credit, they joined the migration of settlers into the Mid North. From their origins as impoverished tenant farmers in Ireland, they became respectable landowners in South Australia.Using a diverse range of sources, the author documents her ancestors' hitherto untold story. The sheer sweep of their lives as they endured hardship and misfortune to create a better life for themselves and their descendants is a story worth telling. This book is more than a family history however, for the story of the Hayes and O'Toole families is part of the larger history of South Australia in the nineteenth century.