Ned Kelly The True Story

Ten days before he was hanged Ned Kelly claimed that ill treatment and persecution of his family by Police were what drove him to behave as he did. He wrote :  “If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, and if the Police are taught that they may exasperate […]

Beechworth Street and Gaol, 19th century According to the innumerable descendants of the Kelly family and the Kelly gang members, their supporters and most of the authors of books, songs plays and films about Ned Kelly, he was a ‘Police made’ criminal. By this it is meant that Ned Kelly was an honest man who […]

If the defenders of Ned Kelly ever point to what they think is actual evidence of Police corruption and the unfair persecution of Ned, the incident they are most likely to refer to is the one where they say, for being caught riding a horse someone else had stolen, Ned got double the sentence that […]

Ned Kelly often robbed people at gunpoint : its a terrifying experience for the victim.  I ended the last Post with these words “What has to be accepted, because that is what all the evidence shows, is that at least while Red Kelly was alive, his family were not the victims of Police persecution, or […]

I recently watched on DVD a debate that took place as part of the Ned Kelly Weekend in August, 2006. The subject for debate was “That Ned Kelly is an inappropriate hero for Australia” and the voice over on the DVD said there was a capacity crowd of more than 400 in attendance crammed into […]

The headline in the Australian of last weekend, January 14th 2017 said it all : “Kelly Gang descendants at war over bushranger lore and legacy” This article referred to the fact that since the Weekend Australian had published ‘that photo’ and an article about it a month before, “the letters page of The Ovens and […]

Does one of these towns own the Kelly story? On the Kelly Facebook Pages they’re arguing about who owns the Kelly story and who has the right to tell it and where it should be told from. Theres a Glenrowan Camp led by Joanne Griffiths, who is an actual Kelly descendant apparently, and the Beechworth […]

On the Facebook Kelly places this year the dominant item of interest has been the Unforgotten Image. Ironoutlaw and Ned Kelly Central both ignored it because  of personal animosities, but even Matt Shore admitted at the end of the year that the image added nothing to our knowledge of  Ned Kelly or to Kelly history.  […]

In this Two Part Post, I am going to review what happened in the wider world of Ned Kelly in 2016. The second Part will be about this Blog, but Part one will be about everything else. The contrast is  quite amazing, as you will see when you read Part Two in a few days time […]

General Robert E Lee rallies the men in the Blue and Gray Ive just finished reading a really interesting book called “The Myth of The Lost Cause, and Civil War History”. Its about the American Civil War, and how the side that was defeated promoted a particular view of what happened in the hope that […]