Will John Delaney be remembered at the Siege Dinner?

The nice looking violent criminal
whose 'last stand' is being commemorated on June 30th 

The “Ned Kelly Siege Dinner” is to be held in two weeks’ time at Glenrowan. Ive already written my thoughts about it HERE. The question I asked then, and still haven’t had an answer to, is what on earth are you going to be celebrating?

Ive been much too busy this week to do any serious reading for the blog, but I am going to bring to the notice of Siege Dinner attendees one of the incidents that took place during the siege so they can think about it as they listen to the live music from Damien Howards new CD “Ned”. In one of his songs you might hear Ned Kelly say “I’m not the one who started this fight” and “Authorities heavy hand turned me to crime”. I’m sure you all know Kelly was lying when he said that!

But the incident I want you to specially recall is what happened during the siege to eighteen-year-old John Delaney, one of the hostages imprisoned inside the Ann Jones Inn. I want you to think about the kind of person who would subject this young man to such a tirade of abuse and threats and bullying, to such devastating public humiliation over half an hour or more, that the poor fellow was reduced to a weeping wreck, believing he was about to be shot in the head, murdered. I want you to ask yourselves as you commemorate the Siege and the ‘heroic’ last stand of its creator, how you would have felt if it was your own son being subjected to this vile abuse, and if you really feel so great about celebrating someone who amused himself by such things as pushing the barrel of a loaded gun into an old mans mouth at Euroa,  and by bullying a kid by putting a loaded gun to his head?  Frankly I would be embarrassed to be toasting such a person.

Peter Fitzsimons wrote about this event as follows :

“In the case of John, Ned has a problem. For it has come to his ears that not only had John Delaney’s father , the Greta blacksmith sold a horse to the Victoria Police Force, but young John himself had recently done a favour for a policeman and infinitely worse, even tried to join the Victoria Police.

Well in Neds book this is a crime punishable by death, and he is just the man to do it. Pointing his revolver at the terrified young man who has tears running down his cheeks and onto his shirt Ned says to all who are listening that he would personally ‘have the life of anyone who aided the police in any way or even showed a friendly feeling for them.

‘I can and will find you out’ he goes on. …….

‘But I’m a fair man he says’  and he takes his pistol from his belt and holds it out to Delaney, daring him to take it, telling him he could even take the first shot!

Of course the still sobbing now shaking young man refuses to take it.

As Ned continues his haranguing alternately pointing the revolver at the weeping young mans head and then putting it down again, many of the women in the crowd plead with the bushranger to spare his life. Just what is about to happen now no one is sure but finally after young Delaney faithfully promises that he will never again try to join the police force Neds play at being a cold-blooded murderer comes to an end.”

Typically, this unsavoury act is glossed over or ignored by most Kelly writers, who concentrate on the fact that at the Royal Commission, Thomas Curnow who was a witness to this bullying, expressed a view that even though he was convinced at the time, as Delaney was that Kellys threats were real, later, on reflection he decided it was “a ruse” :

Q17632. That young Delaney has been convicted of some offences; did he appear to be a sympathizer? -He was as white as a sheet. He was really frightened; he could not make himself so white and trembling as he was.

Q17633. He has been sentenced for some offence? -Yes.

Q17634. Is that the boy you referred to as applying for admission to the police ? -Yes, that is what Ned Kelly said.

Q17635. You do not think it a ruse of Ned Kelly’s? -I did afterwards. I did not at the time, but after I did think it was a ruse on Ned Kelly's part, though not on Delaney's. Delaney, I think, really thought Ned Kelly in earnest.

In other words, Curnow concluded that Kelly didn’t ever intend to shoot John Delaney, but use him in a stunt designed to keep everyone at the inn afraid and uncertain about what might happen next. 

To Kelly sympathisers this means it was all fine – Delaney was never actually going to be shot, Ned Kelly was just mucking around, having a bit of fun, nothing to see here!  In fact it was  an act of despicable cowardice, of bullying and mental torture that demonstrates again the way in which the mind and personality of a psychopath works. For women, like Mrs Scott at Euroa, Ned wore a veneer of smiles, flattering charm and exaggerated deference to gain control. Here, he used fear and threats of violence against an innocent youth. In both cases he would have greatly enjoyed himself and couldn’t have cared less about the feelings of his victims. Such is a psychopath.