Ned Kelly The True Story

The trial of Ned Kelly took place in Melbourne over two days in late October 1880. Kelly was found guilty of the murder of Thomas Lonigan, and the presiding Judge, Redmond Barry sentenced him to death. In this post I am not going to describe the minutiae of the trial or dissect the legal mechanics […]

In Part X of this series I described how the Kelly Outbreak came to an end at Glenrowan on the weekend of June 26th1880: the Kelly gang engineered but  completely botched a hostage crisis that began in the Woolshed valley with their murder of Aaron Sherritt. It ended disastrously at Glenrowan with the death of […]

Next week it will be 142 years since the Kelly gang murdered policemen Lonigan, Scanlan and Kennedy at Stringybark creek, an appalling criminal act that horrified and shocked the colony. Ned Kelly claimed to have killed Lonigan in self-defence but now we know that was a lie: Lonigan was shot while out in the open […]

The final public act of the Kelly gangs outlawry is often called The Siege, a showdown between the Gang and the police made especially famous by the heavy suits of armour that the gang had been making in secret over previous months in readiness for the confrontation. It took place 150 miles north of Melbourne […]

  Barely two months after they robbed the bank at Euroa of over £2000, the Kelly Gang went north over the Murray river into NSW and on Monday February 10th 1879, robbed the Jerilderie branch of the Bank of NSW of a similar amount.   Once again, as at Euroa, instead of riding into town […]

Self-published author Aidan Phelan says of his first work, the historical novel “Glenrowan” that it is ‘the story of how one man’s burning obsession can have far reaching consequences, and how a tiny town between towns became as iconic as Gettysburg or Waterloo’. Actually, most Australians know almost nothing about Glenrowan, and anyone who did, […]

Anyone who has read Frickes book and part One of my review might be wondering why I completely ignored its first four chapters.  In those Chapters Fricke provides what he must have thought was relevant background detail, describing the origins of Melbourne itself, of Redmond Barrys early life in Ireland, the colonial milieu into which […]

“Ned Kelly as we all know, was no angel. But how much better was his nemesis, Sir Redmond Barry, who sentenced Ned to death and who succumbed to Kellys courtroom curse by dying within two weeks of the bushranger’s execution?” That question is asked on the back cover of “Neds Nemesis”, a small book written […]

Shortly after the police murders at Stringybark Creek, legislation was passed that made the Kelly gang outlaws, meaning they had no legal protections, and could be shot and killed on sight by anyone. Rewards were posted in ever increasing amounts for the supply of information that would lead to their capture, but nobody ever attempted […]