Here is a brief snapshot of Kitty Parker’s rebel ancestry: Michael Dwyer’s sister Sarah married Hugh Vesty Byrne, Dwyer’s Lieutenant. They had fourteen children. In 1825 a daughter Catherine Byrne married John Keirghan also a currency lad, or child of the convict Patrick Keirghan transported on Marquis Cornwallis, 1796, who married convict Catherine Kitts in Sydney. John Leary, convict on transport Prince Regent 1824, married convict Catherine Jones in Sydney 1825 Continue reading
Conviction Politics I unexpectedly attended a fascinating presentation at the Celtic Club this month on the massive international Conviction Politics project. Its aim is to use recently digitised records of Tasmanian convicts to reframe Australian democratic politics. It emphasises the scale of the convict system, and focusses on the ordinary working men and women. It … Continue reading
Mary and many of her fellow passengers – convicts – on board the Earl Grey, having left Dublin five months earlier in December 1849, and disembarking on a grey May day on the other side of the world in 1850.
What struck me particularly about these stories was the spirit and fight of women in the face of discrimination and adversity. Continue reading
Is there bias in dictionary compiling? Ultimately, yes. Continue reading
The author, Simon Smith, is a filmmaker who has recorded stories from around the world, and that background is seen in the writing as he fills in little details and concentrates on the lives, likes and troubles of the main characters. Continue reading
With the passage of time Irish Catholics eventually did become part of the fabric of Australian society. With the coming of each generation, they moved along and some of them, up the social scale. But their ascent was neither rapid nor easy. Continue reading
History tells us that when the stakes were substantial, Pitch and Toss games could become extremely serious. In Dundalk in 1914 a man died following an altercation during a game of Pitch and Toss when an argument arose as to who was entitled to the winnings. Continue reading
Caroline Chisholm had worked hard in Australia for the families of convicts to be reunited. No one knew we had been rejected from the list of travellers. Continue reading
Nobody wanted to know convicts in early British settlement of Australia and now family historians are eager to find a connection to a convict in their family tree. How times have changed. Continue reading
Tinteán 