downunder update

Ned Kelly is our famous bushranger, a folk hero who became a legend during his own life.

Ned is part of the mythology of ‘the bush’ - the perceived cradle of mateship, equality, and the masculine virtue of fearless strength. A self–educated man, Ned was extremely articulate, known for his poetic turn of phrase and sharp wit. Much has been made of his ironic statements and colourful language but it doesn’t take an academic degree to have the gift of the gab, much less a passion for freedom. Read the rest of this entry »

This suit of armour was worn by Ned Kelly at Glenrowan. It was made from mouldboards and boiler plate steel from an old plough, and weighed 44 kg - 97 lbs. Dressed in this armour, Ned Kelly burst out of the Glenrowan Hotel on a misty morning in 1880.

At first the dumbfounded police couldn’t understand why their bullets seemed to have no effect.

Even in the misty dawn light, they could see the helmet he was wearing, but when they aimed at his torso, nothing happened. Then they realised that under his long overcoat must be more armour, so they began firing at his legs. It wasn’t long before he was brought down in a hail of bullets.

At just twenty-five years of age, Ned Kelly created a wildfire of sentiment never before seen in Australia. He was the first ”media sensation’ of the time and recognised as a colonial example of demonisation.

The legacy he left compounded the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic attitude of the English Crown and the Colonial Administration, a legacy which is still being challenged over a century later. When the Queen of England visited Australia in 2006, her 3 day tour coincided with St Patrick’s Day and all parades and public festivities around that feast day were cancelled. Even local hotels were forbidden to advertise with green bunting.

To this day, we use the expression as game as Ned Kelly for a particular type of praise. It implies heroism of a reckless, audacious kind

What really took place during those days of the siege at Glenrowan?

Was this the time the Kellys had planned the “Rise”, the declaration, the start of the fight for the “Republic of the North-East’? There is much talk in Glenrowan still, that Kelly Gang sympathisers had planned to ride to Melbourne and kidnap the Governor, the Marquis of Normanby.

That June weekend of 1880 saw a full, fat moon, a time for action traditionally favoured by the Irish rural rebels of the past.

The train, loaded with police, made its way up from Melbourne. It whistled as it approached the bend a few miles out of Glenrowan. And, in the scrub, men set fire to signal rockets and groups of armed horsemen moved in the bush - the Kellys were not alone at Glenrowan.

Did they plan to derail the police train? To hold hostages as bargaining chips for the release of Ellen Kelly, the outlaw’s mother?

As the outlaws’ plan began to go wrong, a wounded Ned Kelly rode through police ranks to turn back his followers.

In a few short hours the Siege of Glenrowan was over.

In the early morning light of June 28, 1880, Ned emerged from the bush near the The Glenrowan Inn to make his famous and extraordinary ‘Last Stand’.The Siege of Glenrowan really began when Joe Byrne killed the police informer Aaron Sherritt. The Kellys had expected a quick and decisive response from the police, and as Joe and Dan rode quickly to Glenrowan, Ned and Steve were already there - taking hostages in the Glenrowan Inn.

A train carrying police reinforcements was heading north from Melbourne, and the Gang intended to derail it. Unexpectedly, the train was extensively delayed and, by the time it arrived, the Kellys were exhausted and ready to abandon their plans.

A hostage, Thomas Curnow, somehow managed to convince Ned that he was an ally and was released. Once freed, Curnow went straight to the train line and warned the oncoming police of the trap ahead, safely halting the train before it was derailed.

When the train arrived, Constable Hugh Bracken who had been held hostage, escaped and informed the police reinforcements that the Kellys were in the Glenrowan Inn.

A long gun battle ensued. Dan, Joe, and Steve were shot dead and a number of civilian hostages were also killed by police gunfire. The Glenrowan Inn was burned down and Ned Kelly and his Kelly Gang became part of Australian history

The Kelly Armour

All four members of the Kelly gang, Ned and Dan Kelly, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, wore suits of armour made from ploughshares. Despite the police being forewarned of the Kellys’ armour, and the apparent ineffectiveness of police gunfire against the Kellys during the siege, the police didn’t catch on that the outlaws were using body protection.

Granted, the siege mainly occurred during the dark, which greatly reduced clarity of vision, but the failure of the police reinforcements to realise what was happening sheds light on the calibre of the men who had arrived from Melbourne. Constable Gascoigne engaged in close gunfire with Ned (whom he recognised by voice) and shortly after told John Sadlier that he had fired at him point blank and hit him straight in the body. But there is no use firing at Ned Kelly; he can’t be hurt

The armour was worn in an attempt to protect the gang from police gunfire, and used only the once. Despite this, over a century later the familiar image of the Kelly armour has become an Australian icon.

Aaron Sherritt, born 1855, was a strong, athletic youth with an outgoing personality and said to be second only to Ned Kelly in toughness.Aaron attended the same rural Catholic school in the Woolshed Valley near Beechworth as did Joe Byrne, and the two boys were instantly drawn to one another. Apart from a romance with Joe’s sister (and Joe in turn with Aaron’s sister), the two spent time in gaol together. Ultimately, this union was to end tragically as Joe murdered his best friend, after realising that Aaron was spying for the police.

Although Sherritt was supposedly a friend of the outlaws, he became a police informer for money. He advised the police to camp out in a cave near the Byrne’s family home where they stayed there for about a month in a vain hope of capturing Byrne during a visit to his mother. Although it was supposed to be a secret operation, their presence there was soon known to the locals. Mrs Byrne herself discovered the camp in just a couple of days. She noted Sherritt’s presence among the police and informed her daughter who then broke off her engagement to him. Sherritt later married another girl, the fifteen year old Ellen Barry.

On the 26th June 1880, Aaron Sherritt  was at home with his wife, mother-in-law and four policemen.  A neighbour knocked at the door. When Sherritt answered, it was no neighbour, but his former friend, Joe Byrne who stood there, and he shot Sherritt dead.

The police officers, plucky to a man, hid under the bed and did not even report the killing until late the following morning.

Aaron had paid for this betrayal with his life.

Within a couple of days, Joe Byrne was himself killed in a shootout between the gang and the police.

The Kelly gang, like so many of the Irish rural rebels, performed their outrages under a full moon. The raid on Jerilderie, the shooting of Aaron Sherritt and the subsequent siege at Glenrowan, all coincided with the full moon.

In Ireland the ‘Ribbonmen’ and the “Whiteboys’ also carried out their activities on nights illuminated by the full moon. The Kelly gang were active in an Australian setting, with an Irish influenced symbolism.

Who were the Ribbonmen?

The Ribbonmen were members of a secret associations among 19th century lower class rural Irish Catholics organised in opposition to Orangeism, and similar to that of the Whiteboys or the Defenders of earlier periods.

The ideology of the Ribbonmen was anti-British, anti Protestant and anti-landlord. It could be classified as a primitive form of nationalism. The Ribbonmen were involved in violent riots (some of which ended in deaths) with the Orange Order in the north of Ireland and elsewhere used violence to resist paying tithes to the Protestant Church of Ireland. The name is derived from a green ribbon worn as a badge in a button-hole by the members.

The Tithe War

In Ireland between 1831 and 1836 a series of periodic skirmishes and violent incidents broke out. The anger was over the obligation of Irish Catholics to pay tithes for the upkeep of the Protestant Anglican Clergy.

Under the English Penal Laws for Ireland, anybody working the land was required to pay an annual tithe - a religious tax - of 10% of the agricultural produce for the upkeep of official state church, the Anglican (Episcopal) Church of Ireland.

This was despite the fact that the vast majority of the population were Catholic. More often than not, tithes were collected in the form of goods, especially livestock, as opposed to payment of monies.