Month: January 2016

I have been prohibited from contributing to any Kelly discussions on the Iron Outlaw Facebook Page, and the Ned Kelly Forum Facebook Page, but I check them out at intervals to see if anything interesting is happening on either of them. Usually I am disappointed : this week for example on Ironoutlaw they are “liking” […]

Iron Outlaws Australia Day message is a lie : “In 1880 Neds dream was a Republic of North East Victoria” I call it a lie, but it could also be called a fairy story because a lie and a fairy story are both stories that aren’t true. The important difference though is that nobody pretends that […]

Sorry but this is NOT Ned Kelly….or is it? ‘Mind you die like a Kelly, son’ were Ellen Kellys last words to Ned. They are described by Ian Jones in ‘A Short Life’ (p392 in the 2008 edition, Jane) as ‘strange words from a mother such as Ellen to a son such as Ned’.  So […]

Dan or Steve? Imagine how intense the heat of the fire must have been to do this  The other claimants to be  Dan or Steve had less to say for themselves and are harder to research. But there is a broader point that needs to be made here about people who wish to assert something extraordinary, […]

When the guy that I met in Glenrowan told me about his belief that Dan and Steve hadn’t died in the inferno that destroyed Ann Jones Inn, it wasn’t the first time I had heard this story, but I had never given it more than a seconds thought before. I didn’t think any knowledgeable Kelly […]

The Top Gun is the one I saw at the Vault A few days ago I was pleased to receive feedback from the Kelly Vault, and answers to my questions. That gun without labels that the Custodian couldn’t identify the day I was there was mistakenly displayed before the Labelling had been completed. It turns […]

For my money the Best experience in Beechworth is at the Courthouse. There, instead of just looking at things behind glass that relate to the Kelly story, in the Courthouse you can TOUCH the very timber that Neds hands would have touched, stand EXACTLY where he stood and see EXACTLY what he would have seen;you […]

Ive been accused of jeopardising Beechworths Ned Kelly Vault by publicly pointing out some of the places where I believe the Vault doesn’t live up to its own claims to be historically accurate, balanced and impartial. In particular the Vault promotes uncritically the central element of Jones-Kelly mythology, the baseless contention that the Kelly Outbreak was all about […]