The fake news about the so-called “Kelly outbreak” has been the dominant narrative for decades, so its not going to be enough to correct it once and expect that from that moment on everyone will know the true story. For one thing, there are the mobs of Kelly supporters on pro-Kelly FB pages who are […]
In Discussion
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 […]
Kelly Cousin Tom Lloyd Assaults Amelia Goodman and goes to prison.
According to Kelly defenders, Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick was the cause of the entire outbreak. He is routinely vilified as a drunk and a womaniser even though, as Ive pointed out HERE and HERE there is not a single shred of evidence that supports either of those two claims. Neither is there a single shred of […]
My Message for 2023 : The battle to keep Ned Kelly as an Australian Hero has been lost.
It would be interesting to know for certain who supports the idea that Ned Kelly is an Aussie Icon and Hero these days but I would guess that more than half of the population still does. I would guess though, that a survey would show that the huge majority of Australians have only a very […]
A BBM THREAD WORTH READING…FOR A CHANGE
I don’t know why Mark Perry was expelled from “Ned Kelly Sympathisers” FB page but he must be getting close to being expelled from the one he started himself , Best Bloody Man, because he has been pricking a few of the apologists balloons of late. A week or two back he wrote “Some of […]
The Condemned Cell Letters confirm that Ned Kelly lost his mind in 1880.
Ned Kellys plan for Glenrowan was described as ‘mad’ by a well-known Kelly sympathiser and spokeswoman for the Kelly story. As far as I know, no other Kelly sympathiser has ever challenged that description, and certainly no truly objective observer would disagree: even Ian Jones said it would have been a ‘criminal atrocity on […]
Violent young fool Ned Kelly and Thomas Lonigan – heres the true story:
Ned Kelly is supposed to have said that if he ever shot anyone, Thomas Lonigan would be his first victim. And that’s exactly what happened: Lonigan was the first of the three policemen that Kelly murdered at Stringybark Creek on October 26th 1878. Kellys remark about killing Lonigan was his response to having his testicles […]
Stringybark Creek : What the hell was Ned Kelly thinking?
There’s one thing that I think pro and anti-Kelly factions should agree on about the events at Stringybark Creek: The Gang didn’t approach the police with a plan to kill them. An argument that they went there expressly with murder in mind can certainly be made from plenty of bits of available information such as […]