Lachlan Strahan – ‘Justice in Kelly Country: The story of the cop who hunted Australia’s most notorious bushrangers’ – a review by Dr. Stuart Dawson

    This is the second review of the excellent ‘Justice in Kelly Country’ to appear on this blog. For clarity in reading, this review will use ‘Strahan’ to refer to Senior-Constable Anthony Strahan (the author’s great-great-grandfather) who was deeply involved in the Kelly hunt, and ‘Lachlan’ to refer to Lachlan Strahan, the book’s author. […]

Justice in Kelly Country

The Story of the cop who hunted Australias most notorious bushrangers For a few minutes on October 28th 1878 at Stringybark Creek Ned Kelly wrongly believed he had just shot and killed Senior Constable Anthony Strahan, the subject of this biography. At least, that is what Kelly later claimed in the Jerilderie letter, repeating an […]

The idiotic ‘Hero or Villain?’ question is only ever asked by Sympathisers.

In the grandly entitled  “The Author Speaks: On Understanding Historical Figures” Aidan Phelan writes about the so called “Ned Kelly – hero or villain?” argument and returns to two pet themes of his, the first of which is that all human beings, Ned Kelly included, are ‘nuanced complex and multi-facetted’. There is absolutely nothing new in that […]