Ned Kelly: Hero or Villain

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- PC - said:
So you would support aboriginal thievery ?
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In the time frame of when they had just been conquered of course.

Would you not support them when they are having laws of a foreign invader impossed upon them?

Laws that prevented them from the same rights as everyone else?

Aboriginals and the Irish were treated pretty much the same quite often.

Is it any wonder alot of the the early inter marriages were between Irish and Aborignals.
 
AndSmithMustScore said:
In the time frame of when they had just been conquered of course.

Would you not support them when they are having laws of a foreign invader impossed upon them?

Laws that prevented them from the same rights as everyone else?

Aboriginals and the Irish were treated pretty much the same quite often.

Is it any wonder alot of the the early inter marriages were between Irish and Aborignals.
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So when were the Irish driven from their lands in Australia?
 

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- PC - said:
So when were the Irish driven from their lands in Australia?
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First of all they were out here BECAUSE they were driven from their lands in Ireland.

You obviously have no idea how land selection worked back then.

James Whitty was a squatter who became one of Ned Kelly's most redoubtable foes. Squatters often occupied important social positions in local communities and were prepared to use such positions to frustrate selection. They were able to choose the best pastures, mainly along river banks and watering holes, effectively picking the eyes out of the land or “peacocking”, as it was known back then. Dummying was also a famous tactic used by squatters whereabouts a man was paid by them to select land. He would then transfer it back to the squatters.

Ned soon found that people had long memories for such as he. He ran in a wild bull and heard that James Whitty, a wealthy property owner on the King, had accused him of stealing it. He stopped him on Oxley racecourse and asked for an explanation. It must have been with some discomfiture that Whitty, a rugged character of Irish extraction like Ned himself, was forced to admit that his son in law, John Farrell, had fed him the rumour. The missing animal, in fact, had since turned up.
Max Brown Australian Son

The squatters with their social influence where able to place roads through selections. They sat on the boards set up to overview the land laws effectiveness. City officials, oblivious to the ways of the country accepted these committees findings as gospel. All this resulted in land lock where quality pastures became unavailable to selectors. These selectors were mainly made up of diggers who had become tired of the gold chase through the bush and decided to settle on the land instead. Squatters resented the diggers calls to “Unlock the land” as they saw the country as their own. They had pioneered the land during the 1830's and felt a moral right to it.

Ultimately the Victorian Parliament passed legislation which allowed any man or single woman the right to select parcels of land to the size of 640 acres (reduced to 320 acres in 1869). The selectors had to pay off the land and make certain improvements to it to the tune of one pound per acre. This led to an undeclared land war between the squatters and selectors.

Whitty and his fellow squatters presented Sergeant Steele with an engraved sword to commemorate Ned's capture at Glenrowan. Whitty must have been one of the few people Steele didn't shoot at during the siege.

The selectors blamed the squatters for the failure of selections as the best land had already been taken up. At the height of the battle some squatters would resort to harassment if all else failed. Selectors stock would be impounded, their fences broken down, their water flows restricted, and the squatters cattle would graze on the selectors lands. Whitty was one such squatter and along with McBean, was seen by the Kellys, Quinns, Byrnes and the like as men above the law who are able to direct the wrath of the police and magistrates on whom ever they pleased. That many of the selectors were just poor farmers with no land education what so ever was of no real importance, the squatter had build himself up as a tall poppy and it was only a matter of time before someone came along to cut him down
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That's how they saw to it the Irish got the worst lands and made it incredibly hard for them to make a go of it.
 
AndSmithMustScore said:
That's how they saw to it the Irish got the worst lands and made it incredibly hard for them to make a go of it.
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Well what did you expect smitty.As if they were going to give the good land to you silly buggers.A little bit of potato blight and your lot all start starving.Whats wrong with a bit of diversification.Carrots, cabbage and tomatoes are life sustaining foods too you know. ;)
 
AndSmithMustScore said:
First of all they were out here BECAUSE they were driven from their lands in Ireland.
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Or were they criminals? The ones who were booted off, went to America.

You obviously have no idea how land selection worked back then.
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And you have no idea how criminal courts worked back then. You steal , your guilty.
 
AndSmithMustScore said:
First of all they were out here BECAUSE they were driven from their lands in Ireland.

You obviously have no idea how land selection worked back then.

That's how they saw to it the Irish got the worst lands and made it incredibly hard for them to make a go of it.
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Dunno whether there is history between you and PC (therefore sorry if I am interupting a stoush).... but your post is absolutely contradictory.

Whitty was of Irish extraction!... are you going to extend it to Catholic Irish republicans?... if so 40 years before such persons enjoyed enormous success migrating to SA ... Clare Valley ( famous for wines) was founded by an Irish Catholic named Gleeson several surrounding towns Seven Hills ( still remains Catholic monastry) Armagh etc etc still declare this heritage.

Squatter / Settlor relations and unfairness was more about injustices of the inherited British class definition rather than race.. and in NE Vic the Chineese were treated much worse than any including the massive Irish community in Beechworth.

Many of the Kelly sympathisers were not of Irish decent... simply under class English.
 
Corpuscles said:
Dunno whether there is history between you and PC (therefore sorry if I am interupting a stoush).... but your post is absolutely contradictory.

Whitty was of Irish extraction!... are you going to extend it to Catholic Irish republicans?... if so 40 years before such persons enjoyed enormous success migrating to SA ... Clare Valley ( famous for wines) was founded by an Irish Catholic named Gleeson several surrounding towns Seven Hills ( still remains Catholic monastry) Armagh etc etc still declare this heritage.

Squatter / Settlor relations and unfairness was more about injustices of the inherited British class definition rather than race.. and in NE Vic the Chineese were treated much worse than any including the massive Irish community in Beechworth.

Many of the Kelly sympathisers were not of Irish decent... simply under class English.
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Hardly contradictory.

Whitty wasn't Celitc Irish. So sorry to rain on ya parade,but he was Anglo-Irish.

One look at his surname and that tells you it's not Irish, it's English in origin.

So no contradiction at all.

And yes i know all about the Irish comming to South Oz, because half my mothers family came to South Australia from Clare where their lands over the years had been confiscated from them.
They had been left little in their own nation to call their own after having been large land owners.

But thats only a small part of it.

One of the O'Loughlin men who came out to try make a go of it ended up in Victoria and when he passed away in the 1800's he ended up being buried in East Geelong cemetary.

And if any evidence was required to prove their second class citizen status this can be found in the fact he was buried in the catholic section where they weren't allowed to have headstones.

So there's a section in the cemetary where there's the unmarked graves of countless Irish Catholics of the time.

I'm not saying ALL Irish were treated this poorly but alot were.

In fact one of our Clan came from Clare and became the 13th premier of Victoria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_O'Loghlen

And he tried to break up the estates of the ruling English/Scottish upper class.

So gladly i can say at least my family had a crack at breaking the English monopoly.
 
- PC - said:
Or were they criminals? The ones who were booted off, went to America.
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Hardly criminals.

Their only crimes were to dare to raise armys to try and defend their lands from the invading english.

And for that they lost everything that their families had built up over 1000's of years.

You appear to be completely naive of the whole reason so many Irish ended up leaving Ireland and why there was so much resentment to anything English.

And as Corpuscles has stated already Clare in SA was named so by Irish immigrants from that county.

Incidently Clare was one of the hardest hit population wise by land evictions and the potato famine.

If i remember rightly the other hardest hit was Tipperary or was it Limerick.

Can't quite recall but it was in Munster.

- PC - said:
And you have no idea how criminal courts worked back then. You steal , your guilty.
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And you have no idea how the system worked back then.

Evidence has already been shown on the kinds of people the authorities were.
 
Sure turned the corner these days...the law is a PC ass! Basically do what you want as a pro crook no probs but don't you dare overstay 1min in a carpark or use pay as you go on an overland train or the nazi try hard inspectors will get you.
 
Ned Kelly was today given a funeral service in Wangaratta.
The final chapter in the story of Ned Kelly- or will discover more about his life in the future?
 

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It's good to see him at least buried as per his wishes, albeit not entirely intact. From what I've read it was handled well, being about burying a man with dignity regardless of his guilt or innocence. He's an intriguing figure which ever side of the fence you're on.
 
Hard_to_Beat said:
I don't know how he could be viewed as a villain in a corrupt system.
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Agree, his end game was a bit over the top but he was dead man as soon as they sent the four coppers out to get him. (carrying the equipment to haul bodies, they weren't out to capture)
 
You gotta back your coppers. coppers are human, coppers are influenced by the same circumstances the people they target are.

but having said that, you gotta keep on coppers who stuff up.

absolute power is evil, human behavior can't resist having that.
 
Gough said:
I can't believe that anybody who doesn't have a link to the Kelly family, or any of his victims could still hold a strong opinion on this.
It happened a long time ago now.
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Our nation has never claimed independence from anything. Folk like Kelly and Peter Lalor (Eureka Stockade) are the closest thing Australia has to 'revolutionary heroes', and so people talk them up years from their deaths.
 
It's like John Farnham or Roberta Williams. Everytime you think you've heard the last from them, they pop up again somewhere.:rolleyes:
 
Invented the "Tin Foil Hat"
Personally I'm totally flummoxed GG has not posted in this thread!
Anyway.
Ned's and Icon and a major historical figure.
I don't see him as hero or villain simply as active, though most likely unaware, participant in building our national identity.
 
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