In Discussion

  In the previous Post, I exposed the Kelly sympathiser lie that Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick was a ‘womaniser’, and a ‘merciless hunter’ of women who committed an ‘outrage’ on Kate Kelly. The record shows only two women in his life, and he was still married to the second one when he died aged 67. His Death […]

  In the midst of a discussion about Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick I was challenged by this claim on Facebook recently, and my reply was a commitment to present a detailed response on the Blog:   “You have not ‘disproved the stories about Fitzpatrick’, you have presented an alternative and stated that it is THE true […]

  Last month I predicted before the anniversary of Ned Kellys capture that this year any kind of commemoration or celebration of it by Kelly devotees would be a flop, because even in Victoria interest in celebrating debunked Kelly mythology has fallen to barely recordable levels. Kelly sympathisers have already noticed it themselves and have […]

Until quite recently, on the anniversary of the Siege, Kelly sympathisers gathered annually at Glenrowan to toast their hero Ned Kelly. They all believed his last stand on June 28th 1880 was an attempt to establish the republic of North East Victoria, a heroic final defiant act of a brave but imperfect idealist fighting on […]

  There was really only one thing that the Kelly gang did that was truly original: other Australian criminals had already committed more brutal crimes than the Kelly gang ever did, already murdered more police, already held up whole towns and shouted hostages drinks, already robbed more banks and written letters to explain themselves – […]

In 1992 when Ned Kelly was generally considered to have been a hero, a giant statue of him was erected in Glenrowan where it has remained as a big tourist drawcard to the region.   At its base is a plaque with the following inscription:   Ned Kelly – Hanged a murderer in Melbourne, November […]

I begin this review of the latest book written by Grantlee Kieza, ‘The Kelly Hunters’ with the last words he wrote in it, the final thought Kieza wanted to leave with his readers about Ned Kelly :  a quotation from the report of the Royal Commission of enquiry into ‘the circumstances of the Kelly Outbreak’ […]

Its an often-overlooked fact that for at least two thirds of the 140 years since his death Ned Kelly was widely regarded as a violent criminal and not much more. The claim that he was something more was only developed in the last 50 years or so by a variety of ‘pro-Ned’ authors, a narrative […]

I have to say it’s so refreshing to have in ‘Nabbing Ned’ author David Dufty a new voice, some new ideas and some new challenges for Kelly enthusiasts to think and talk about. In reality, for a while now we have been going over the same ground, and it’s getting a bit boring, so its […]

I started reading my Kindle copy of this book at 0530 today. A full review of this just-released work about the Outbreak is in preparation, but in the meantime, here’s something from the book to start the discussion off.   Last week, well before publication date, an article in the Age newspaper about the book […]