The Victorian Supreme Court has determined the descendants of Ned Kelly’s family are not a distinctive cultural group with the right to protections of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’.
The 1878, the body of Sergeant Michael Kennedy lay in the bush in Victoria’s Wombat Ranges. He’d been shot by the notorious Ned Kelly gang – but the bush would add its own gruesome ending.
In an extract from his book, Australia in 50 Plays, Julian Meyrick reflects on an under-appreciated contribution to Australian theatre by the poet Douglas Stewart.
Destruction of the Kelly Gang. Drawn by Thomas Carrington during the siege.
State Library of Victoria
True History of the Kelly Gang marks the tenth screen version of the Ned Kelly outbreak, and is a more violent and dark – and therefore true – telling.
Sidney Nolan’s Steve Hart dressed as a girl 1947 from the Ned Kelly series 1946 – 1947 enamel paint on composition board 90.60 x 121.10 cm.
Gift of Sunday Reed 1977 National Gallery of Australia
As a bushranger in the Kelly gang, Steve Hart took to dressing as a woman and riding side-saddle to avoid detection. Sidney Nolan’s painting captures Hart’s adolescent cockiness, bravery, and foolhardy bluster.
Was Ned Kelly a Robin Hood warrior or a lone wolf/dangerous criminal/whacko? Given enough cultural oxygen, outlaws are apt to become folk heroes - something today’s shock jocks might care to remember.
Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter is not your standard bushranger confessional, it’s a searing document of prophecy and self-mythologisation.
Raymond Barlow
If you had to argue for the merits of one Australian book, one piece of writing, what would it be? See the end of this article for information on how to get involved. Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter was…
Remembrance Day is one of many historic Australian events to fall on that date.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller
Australia’s national story is littered with significant occasions that have fallen on November 11 and two years ago, for me, was no different. It was the morning of November 11, 2011 and I was working…