The Greatest of the Kelly Myths : Part 1

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 Beechworth Town Hall. For the affirmative the speakers were an ABC journalist Cathy Bedford, the then Commissioner of Police Christine Nixon, and well known QC Julian Burnside. Lined up against them were probably the three biggest guns in the Kelly world : Ian Jones, John McQuilton and Keith McMenomy. Right away I thought to myself a debate in Beechworth about Ned Kelly that’s going to be decided by the Popular vote? – whatever side Ian Jones is on will win! Beechworth couldn’t possibly vote against Ian Jones AND Ned Kelly. And sure enough, that’s what happened: Ned Kelly was deemed by popular vote to be an appropriate hero for Australia. I wonder how different the result would have been if the debate had taken place in Sydney or Perth?

The debate was really enjoyable to watch, and Ian Jones’ team were formidable, as expected :  those three men after all had devoted significant parts of their adult lives to the study of Ned Kelly and the Outbreak, whereas the other side were all amateurs.  In another Blog posting I might one day detail and critique the Jones teams arguments, but today I wanted to write about a question  that occurred to me while listening to it : which of the many myths mentioned during the debate is the greatest of all the Kelly myths?

By myths I am meaning those things that are claimed to be facts about Ned,  not just the things supposed to make him a hero and Icon, but the many other claims  which on close examination are found to be based on little or no evidence, or even inspite of contrary evidence.  An obvious one is that he was Australias “Robin Hood”. Another is that he was a particularly devoted son. Another is that he only ever killed in self defence. Another is that he had massive support. Another is the Police ‘body straps’ , said to be proof that the Police went into the bush to kill not to capture Ned, another is that he had a plan to establish a Republic of North East Victoria. Another is that he would have made a great General…the list is very long!

Listening to the debate though, it suddenly occurred to me that there is ONE myth that even the journo-policewoman-QC side had accepted without question, and therefore mustn’t that make it the greatest one? ‘Greatest’ because even people who have seen through so many of the other myths haven’t seen through this one. ‘Greatest’ because once you’ve accepted this myth as a truth, you’ve conceded the possibility that Ned Kelly was at some level justified in how he behaved, and let the door open for many of the other myths to sneak through towards legitimacy? Is this the KEY Kelly myth?

The myth I am referring to is the notion that the Kellys were innocent, or mostly innocent victims of Police persecution and corruption; that they were wrongly harassed and hounded until they reached breaking point, that their criminality was largely a reaction to deprivation and oppression that was based on their race, their religion, their poverty and their status as selectors. This myth says that the outbreak was the not-entirely-unjustified reaction - or as the affirmative team suggested, the over-reaction - to injustice perpetrated against them, that everything that followed however bad or mad was somehow triggered and in some way caused and could  be understood as a reaction to what was done to the Kellys. They had had enough and took a stand.

This whole myth is brilliantly smuggled into one of the great speeches attributed to Ned – though its another myth that these words written by David Gaunson are Neds words – but they are great words never-the-less, and John McQuilton quoted them at the end of his contribution to the debate:

“If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment and if the Police are taught they might exasperate to madness men they persecute and ill treat, my life will not have been entirely thrown away.”

Its an arresting sentence made more powerful by saying the same thing twice over, for rhetorical effect – men are made mad by bad treatment/ police exasperate men to madness by persecution and ill treatment! Cleverly he reversed the idea that actions speak louder than words, drawing our attention away from his actual life and directing it instead at his lips, his words rather than his deeds because looking at his deeds one might see an altogether different picture, one of indecency, violence, thieving, killing and mayhem.

The persuasive power in these noble words cannot be denied, coming from a man on Death Row, portraying himself as a martyr, seeming to accept what he believes is an unjust fate, but believing his life wouldn’t be entirely wasted if it taught the Public and the Police some valuable truths. Such a truly heroic stance. 

However  make no mistake : its an extraordinary thing that he is saying, which is that in spite of all the violence, the language of torture revenge and punishment, the stock theft, the robberies, hostage -taking  and the murders he was fundamentally innocent, he was a victim of ill treatment, and the Police by their persecution drove him to exasperation, to robbery, hostage taking murder and mayhem, and in the end to madness - it was all the fault of the Police. This is something which most of the present day Kelly supporters believe to a greater or lesser extent is a fundamental truth about the Kelly story, that he was a police made criminal born out of persecution and ill treatment.

In reality though, if the actual record of his life and the life of the Kelly family is examined, what is revealed is that those words are a lie, a huge lie, a delusion that existed only in the paranoid mind of Ned Kelly. In reality, when you search the record for evidence of unjustified and unwarranted harassment and persecution of the Kellys, for the acts that drove them to exasperation and madness, the ill treatment and persecution he referred to in his famous Death Row speech you struggle to find anything. What you find are claims and allegations, stories and complaints but no facts to back it up. 

I begin by referring back to my earlier post “The New view of Red” in which I showed  that the growing Kelly family had virtually no interactions with Police up until the time of Red Kellys death in 1866 when Ned was 11. This is not a mere opinion, or a version or an interpretation but an account of what is actually known. Yes, Neds father had been a convict, but he had served his time quietly, and kept out of trouble for almost the whole of the rest of his life. However because of his alcoholism his farming ventures eventually all failed, and in a moment of weakness, not much more than a year before the alcoholism finally killed him he stole a neighbours calf, killed and dressed it and unsuccessfully tried to conceal the evidence. In the end he was convicted of the most minor possible charge in relation to that theft, being in unlawful possession of a hide, and he went to prison because he was too poor to pay the £25 fine. The sentence itself was remitted by 2 months, but later on that same year he was fined 5 shillings for being drunk and disorderly. A year later there had been no further police interest in Neds family, but Red died from ‘dropsy,’ a complication of his alcoholism. It was a truly tragic loss, but thats the whole story of Red Kellys life in Australia. Nowhere in it is there a single scrap of evidence that he or his young family were persecuted, subjected to 'ill treatment' or driven to exasperation and madness by the Police.

But to understand how these baseless myths have been fostered and promoted into the supposed truths of the Kelly story read what JJ Kenneally wrote in 1929 :

"Irish patriotism was such an unforgivable crime in the eyes of the British Government officials in the Colony of Victoria that even the serving of a savage sentence would not wipe out the campaign of anti-Irish hatred so well organised in the Colonies. John Kelly was continually hounded by the Police who without the authority of a search warrant frequently searched his home without success. The heads of the Police department were very disappointed. The search continued until at last they found a cask with meat in it. John Kelly was arrested and charged with having meat in his possession for which the Police said he had not given them  a satisfactory account....

It is evident that the bench at Kilmore regarded  the charge against John Kelly as a 'trumped up affair' ; he was sentenced to only six months...

Although the sentence was only for six months it proved to be a Death Sentence. Such was the treatment to which John Kelly was subjected in the Kilmore jail that notwithstanding his good health and perfect physique when sentenced, he died shortly after his release"

The  numerous errors and misrepresentations of fact in that passage are so obvious I don't even have to point them out. And they continue right throughout the entire book, which was still being reprinted 40 years after it was first published. Clearly it has had a huge impact on the public understanding of the Kelly story, and on writers who came after Kenneally, but the story it told, believed by many today to be true even now, was actually a fabrication, a fairy story.

Max Brown continued the innocent persecuted victim theme this way, describing the stolen calf as 'bread for his children' for greater emotive effect and aligning Red with the genuinely innocent: “The sentence meant the collapse of hope for Red, in gaol for stealing bread for his children – that crime for which so many thousands of his countrymen had been transported”

The myth is continued by John Moloney who gets some of the facts wrong whilst developing the false  ‘persecution’ theme as well, saying this: “It was Reds first appearance before a Court since he was granted his freedom, and although the money to pay the fine was somehow raised thus obviating the necessity of a return to prison, the old lag charge was revived and the ex convict was again ranked in the criminal class”

The truth is this : there was no ill treatment or persecution; it didn’t happen. In fact there is plenty of evidence that  supports the opposite view: the Police dropped more serious charges, and Red received what even Ian Jones described as a ‘generous’, remission of a third of his sentence.

That’s not to say of course that the Kellys were not aware of the Police or had nothing at all to do with them: unfortunately for Red, Ellens brothers were constantly before the Law, but nobody seems to dispute the genuine criminality that these men were engaged in, or have ever suggested that Police interest in them wasn’t justified.  Speaking of Ellens brother Jimmy, Ian Jones wrote “ …young Jimmy had begun a long career of crime, most of it generated by a volcanic temper that led him into a succession of brawls and sometimes murderous assaults, punctuated by a few stock thefts. Cause and effect can be debated but he emerged as a dangerous unpredictable rat bag of a man, rarely out of trouble.”

What has to be agreed on, 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 being exasperated to madness by ill treatment. In my next post I will examine what happened between the Police and the Kellys after Red was gone. Maybe there we will find the proof of what Ned claimed..

And does anyone think theres a different myth that is greater?

In 2017 watch the Kelly Legend collapse even further ..

The headline in the Australian of last weekend, January 14^th 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 Murray Advertiser has run hot with claims and counter-claims about who should call the shots for the latter-day Kelly Gang.”  Read it HERE.(If that link just takes you to a pay wall, Google Kelly Gang descendants at war ) Today, a week later there have been 46 comments added to the Autralians story and the clear majority  are not supportive of the ‘war’ or of the Kelly story generally -  those comments  are the ones that received the greatest number of “likes”. This  Comment is one of my favourites :

Ted

7 DAYS AGO

Why is this news? Let them fight amongst themselves, who cares! The fact remains that Ned Kelly was a criminal and murderer. 41LIKES

Another good one :

Jason

7 DAYS AGO

Amazing. The descendants of robbers and police-killers fighting over who gets to be recognised for it. I wonder if 100 years from now we'll see the descendants of the current crop of grubs and murderers  doing the same? The way the media treats them as celebrities I wouldn't be surprised.    26 likes

Nobody on any of the Kelly Facebook pages dared to mention it, but in the SAME edition of the Australian last weekend there was a SECOND article about Ned Kelly. It was called “Truths need to be told abut Australian Bushranger Ned Kelly” and written by Gerard Henderson. Read it HERE ( If that Link just taks you to a Pay wall , Google Ned Kelly Gerard Henderson and you'll find it) The reason none of the Kelly fan sites mentioned it is obvious, even in its title: Henderson was making a plea for the facts about Ned Kelly to be told instead of the baseless myths and delusions of the “Legend”, such as the ones repeated in Peter Fitzsimons book

Henderson writes  “The problem with so many of the Kelly Gang fan club, including Carey and Fitzsimons, is that they believe what Kelly said in his Cameron Letter (1878), Jerilderie Letter (1879) and elsewhere. But Kelly was a congenital liar whose accounts warrant critical scrutiny.”

Henderson knew about Morrissey’s book, and mentioned it positively - I am guessing he became aware if it because  it was shortlisted in the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Australian History. He mentions McDermott as well, as a person who has challenged the Kelly myths but rather regrettably has completely missed ‘The Kelly Gang Unmasked’ by Ian MacFarlane, something that I am sure wouldn’t have happened if it been part of the bibliography of Fitzsimons book. Fitzsimons disgracefully pretended that work didn’t exist when he published his book, ignoring it at the behest of Ian Jones, the arch Kelly mythologizer. Henderson expresses a hope that the upcoming book by Grantlee Kieza about Ellen Kelly wont also perpetuate the Kelly myths.

The article was followed by over 200 comments and again, the majority – by  a big margin – were supportive of Henderson’s view, that Ned Kelly wasn’t a heroic revolutionary but a criminal murderer. As usual, Kelly defenders mmostly repeated myths and fairy stories about Ned Kelly and demonstrated their ignorance of the detail of the story.

I have no idea if any of the any of the comments were submitted by people who read this Blog, but I read many of the very same ideas that I have been promoting here for more than 2 years, such as that the ‘body straps’ story is unsupported, the Republic story is a myth, that Glenrowan was akin to a  ‘terrorist’ plot, and that Kelly was a notorious liar.

Delightfully, there were a couple of responses from Grantlee Kieza himself, and they gave me great encouragement because they seem to indicate he is clearly very well aware that Kelly was a liar, and that much of the modern story is Myth:

“Thanks Gerard for mentioning my new book Mrs Kelly, out next month. Rest assured that I debunk many of the myths about the Kelly family including the absurd notion that the very honourable Sgt Michael Kennedy was the head of some sort of hit squad sent to kill the Kelly brothers and that they were only defending themselves at Stringybark Creek. Ned Kelly had many noble qualities but he was also a dangerous criminal who had little regard for human life if someone crossed him. But my book also tells the personal story of Mrs Kelly and all her tragedies - a poor, illiterate Irish woman with a dozen kids, surrounded by criminal relatives on all sides. Her three sons  kept the police hammering on her door until it exploded on one afternoon in  April 1878. Yet one of Mrs Kelly's  sons also became a well respected policeman and world famous horseman and she was known as a very beloved resident of her village in her later years. Best wishes. GK “

Ive been saying for a while now that the public squabbling between Kelly factions can only harm their cause and I think the responses to these articles confirms it. It also confirms that appealing to the Public with a Petition for public support for a Kelly Center is doomed, as was the previous attempt using Crowd Funding. Admiration for Ned Kelly has had its hey-day and now its in decline - if there was ever a chance for something big, it was 10 years ago. Thankfully Australia is moving on, and when the big Ned topples over at Glenrowan nobody will ever put up a new one, because by then it will be realised by everyone that Ned was a crook. The Kelly Vault will become a weird memorial to someones creepy fascination with a psychopath, a ghoulish collection of mementos of a delusion shared briefly with uninformed romantics. 

So , all in all the Kelly myth is off to a rotten start for 2017. The Kelly descendants are scrapping amongst themselves and trashing their public image, they’ve banned me from some of their sites but the true story is emerging anyway, I am getting unprecedented numbers of Hits on the Blog and even The True Story Facebook page has finally started to take off.  And in Australias most widely distributed newspaper, in the first two weeks of the year not one but two articles have trashed Ned Kelly the hero. It looks like the new book on Ellen will continue the dismantling of the Kelly myth, but at the same time reveal what I expect will be the fascinating and complex story of Mrs Kelly. Bring it on!

Dee owns the Kelly Story

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 Camp centred around the Kelly Vault, an annexe to the Burke Museum that houses the private collection of a Kelly enthusiast, Matt Shore, along with the public collection of Kelly related objects from the museum.

The latest skirmish has been provoked by a letter to a local newspaper backing Joannes proposal. The Vault and the Ned Kelly Center both almost simultaneously posted an image of the letter, then proceeded to dismiss the points its author was trying to make. 

Frankly, the arguments between these two groups are unedifying and childish, and unlikely to enhance Public support for either side. I think the Vault is making a serious mistake in taking sides and aligning itself with Leigh Olvers group, though the Vault is probably in debt to it now because of the preposterous deal they made about exhibiting the Unforgotten Image. More than one person suggested if  the Vault hadn't made those compromises then 'the Public' would  never have had the chance to see the photo. Well, yes but so what? Matt Shore said the Photo added nothing to the Kelly story, but the Vault seriously compromised its professional status in agreeing to  the peculiar demands of the Kelly faction that owned the Photo. Was it worth it Matt, to compromise your Museums reputation for something that added nothing to the Kelly story? Is the Vault going to reduce itself to the status of travelling Freak Show, now simultaneously exhibiting 'the greatest Kelly discovery in 50 years' and ' the Kelly find of the Century'?

Instead I think the Vault ought to have stayed neutral and strongly urged these two factions to settle their differences behind closed doors. What I would suggest they do is create some sort of Kelly descendants Organisation, register members and get them to vote for half a dozen members to form a committee to represent them all, for the committee to then elect a spokesperson and for everyone to support one leader and one policy in the Public space. At the moment the egos of Joanne Griffiths and Leigh Olver are not just getting in the way of progress, but actually ruining the prospects of ANYTHING being achieved by Kelly descendants.


So why have I called this post "Dee owns the Kelly story"?

Its because yesterday I received my copy of "Edward 'Ned' Kelly : The Definitive Record"  by Kelvyn Gill. Its over 1200 pages long, in two huge volumes. What the author has assembled is an exhaustive collection of every document and publication he could find that was issued at the time by newspapers, government and other sources that related to the Kelly outbreak. They are presented in chronological order  beginning from well before Ned was born, to well after. He makes a point of NOT including 'oral history and anecdotal material' - a wise move because todays oral history and anecdote are an almost bottomless pit of untestable tales, many of which would have only the barest trace of something historical at the bottom of them. On the other hand official records, telegrams, newspaper reports, and personal recollections made at the time have a far greater authority as source material. But there also numerous photos, old diagrams and lists, the text of the Cameron and Jerilderie Letters,  and The Royal Commission. And much much more. Kelvyn Gill has produced a marvellous academic resource and deserves huge congratulations and respect for what must amount to being almost a lifetimes work.

This is an invaluable collection that anyone SERIOUSLY interested in the Kelly story should own. Its a resource that will prove invaluable for any research you might want to do, but its also a fascinating place to randomly open and begin reading - there is something to learn and be surprised by on every page.

According to the original email I received about this work from Kelvyn Gill, only a limited number of these volumes is being printed. At present they can be ordered from him directly at a cost of $160 including Postage, but this is going to increase substantially once the book has wider retail release - he suggest it will be at least $200. For anyone wondering about the cost, try going to  a University Bookshop and buying a standard text book on any subject : many are double the price of this work which has taken Mr Gill 30 years to produce. Believe me, its well worth the purchase price : his email is gill26p@tpg.com.au

I wish everyone all the Best for 2017. The Kelly story is not going away and neither am I.

2016 In Review: Part Two :

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 the end it was just an amusing sideshow that exposed some of the Kelly descendants to be manipulative,  secretive and inclined to be bullies.  Just about everything else that appeared on those Facebook pages were just reposting of Kelly related stories from the news – the house sale, the Beechworth Gaol sales, a Play about Neds love life and so on. Attempts to start discussions on Kelly history never got past a couple of likes. The liveliest discussions were ones that I stimulated - I challenged comments that were sexist, misogynist, bullying, anti-Police hate speech or just plain wrong but once I was banned from Ned Kelly Central and the Vault Facebook Pages, those discussions have disappeared. Bill is stirring them up a bit at the moment and already has been warned by NK Central - so he’s  skating on thin ice: be careful Bill - if you make them too uncomfortable you’ll be banned too!

In contrast to the declining interest, censorship  and lack of ideas on the  Facebook pages of whats left of the online Kelly World, Death of the Legend Blog went from strength to strength in 2016.  Here are the stats that prove it : In December 2014 there were 2768 visitors, in December 2015 there were 6119, and in December 2016, with another week to go there have already been over 10,000!  

Blogger Stats shows me that TODAY more than 10 different blog posts have been visited : for example 2 people visited and read the post and discussion about Peter Carey’s book, 2 people visited and read the article about Bill Denheld’s discoveries at Stringybark Creek, several people read the post about why Ned Kelly hated the Police and 9 people read the Post about Ian Jones entitled ‘The Last Kelly Warrior’. These visits are so much more meaningful than Likes and Clicks to comments on Facebook pages – these are visits by people who read and are informed by entire essays on Kelly topics and the viewpoints and opinions of readers who post comments and digress into other interesting corners of Kelly history. Here are some of the topics we discussed on the Blog in 2016 :

ü  The myth of the Kelly Republic ( a fantasy designed to hide Ned Kellys murderous intent): read it again HERE

ü  The murder of Lonigan at SBC ( Ned Kelly lied - it wasn’t self defence): read it again, and 60 readers comments HERE and HERE

ü  The myth about John Monash meeting Ned Kelly during the Jerilderie Bank Robbery ( he didnt!) : read it again HERE

ü  The criminal career of Dan Kelly ( petty thief and delinquent) : read it again HERE and HERE

ü  The criminal career of Jim Kelly in three parts: (he briefly changed his name to Jim Wilson and stole horses in NSW) read them again HERE , HERE and HERE

ü  The myth of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart surviving the Ann Jones inn fire  ( they didn’t) : read it again HERE and HERE

ü  The myth that Ned Kellys last words were 'Such is Life'  (  They weren’t) - a review of the latest research by Dr Stuart Dawson) : read it again HERE

ü  The true site of the Police murders at SBC : read it again HERE

ü  The myth about Police persecution being the cause of the Kelly Oubreak (it wasn’t) : read it again HERE

ü  A new view of Red Kelly - (this is ground breaking insight even if I say so myself!) : read it again HERE

In 2016 we also discussed all these books:

ü  Ned Kellys Last Days by Alex Castles ; Reviewed HERE (excellent book)

ü  Ned Kelly Knight in Aussie Armour by Eugenie Navarre ; Reviewed HERE and HERE (rubbish )

ü  Ned Kelly the Man behind the Mask by Hugh Dolan ; Reviewed HERE (interesting Comic)

ü  The Kelly Gang Unmasked by Ian MacFarlane ; Reviewed HERE (the BEST new era Kelly book, and absolute MUST READ)

ü  The Trial of Ned Kelly by JBPhillips ; Reviewed HERE
 (worth reading)

ü  The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey ; Reviewed HERE (a prize winning novel , historically inaccurate but a moving read) 

ü  The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang by JJKenneally ; Reviewed HERE (a classic piece of extreme Kelly propaganda)

ü  Ned Kelly : A Lawless Life by Doug Morrissey ; Reviewed HERE (the brilliant second of the new era Kelly books, short-listed for a Literary Award but not the winner - another 'must read')

ü  The Myth of the Lost Cause ; Reviewed HERE (an interesting comparison of  historical Myths)

ü  The CSI@SBC Report ; Reviewed HERE (a brave but unsuccessful attempt at making a case for an alternative to Bills site for the SBC murders)

ü  The Reports of the Royal Commission ; Reviewed HERE (The Classic official resource : HUGELY misquoted and misinterpreted by Kelly propagandists)

Ned Kelly Volume 1 by Dr Michael King ; Reviewed HERE ( an e-book full of conspiracy theory garbage)

We also reviewed something called “Neducation” which is the word invented by a Kelly Propagandist to  describe the telling of lies about Ned Kelly to children, and we looked at several children’s books, HERE. We also had a couple of Guest Posts from Peter Newman, one of which was the  review of Eugenie Navarres book, and the other about the burial sites of Kelly gang members. We also had the second report from Dr Stuart Dawson, ( about Neds last words) , there was a post, which is 4th in the list of the Top Ten all time favourite posts, about the Kelly biographer and former giant of the modern Kelly world Ian Jones, we ran a Poetry competition and after more than 365 days of counting  we gave up waiting for the Kelly troll to front up with his promised explanation of how Lonigan received his wounds. Instead, with the help of Blog readers I solved the century old mystery myself.

We covered a lot of ground in 2016, we had some really interesting discussions and I believe we all learned a great deal about the Kelly legends.

Its hard to believe that about a year ago someone said I had covered just about everything there was to cover in the Kelly story and I was going to run out of topics before too much longer - well that certainly didnt happen and I am pretty sure we will find plenty more to discuss and discover and argue about in 2017.

I want to thank all the contributors and readers of this Blog for your interest and attention all year long, and for helping the Blog grow and continue to be successful and become now, undoubtedly the centre of the online Kelly world. Long may it continue.

May you all greatly enjoy the Festive season and your summer holidays, and have a fruitful and fulfilling New Year.

2016 : The Kelly Year in Review. Part 1

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 but today I will start where 2016 began and finished, with the Ned Kelly Vault, the driver of the only Kelly game in town this year, with its relentless promotion starting in March of a ‘forgotten photo’.

At the start of the year I posted a two part review of the Kelly Vault, the annexe to the Burke Museum at Beechworth.  I was critical of the fact that the information attached to many of the objects on display heavily favoured the Ned Kelly hero mythology and Ian Jones unproven theory about a Kelly republic, whilst  ignoring the alternative view of Ned Kelly, that he was a psychopath, mass murderer and outright villain. In a Museum, one expects at least an attempt at balance, but this was lacking.  I also objected to the display of what they claimed was ‘the most significant Kelly discovery in 50 years’ a piece of metal that Scientific analysis had PROVED was NOT what the Vault was claiming it was.   

The Vault answered some of my criticisms and made encouraging noises about review and renewal of its displays in the future, so in response I wrote a conciliatory Post entitled “The Vault Fires back”. At their request I also removed the word ‘Forgery’ from the title of the Post about the metal find, though it was really just a playful pun on the fact that the metal was claimed to have been found at the site of a bush forge. Additionally, an assurance was given by the man who discovered the metal that in August 2016, he would at last publish the results of the testing he had commissioned himself in 2010 that he said proved that the Vaults claim about his finding was indeed correct. In fact, the Book was never published, a limited release of Information announced as a substitute for the Book didn’t occur, and neither did a special Facebook page on the subject  that was going to go live in September. When I visited the Vault in November 2016, the metal was still on display and the Kelly Republic misinformation was unchanged.

In addition to the “most significant Kelly discovery in 50 years” the Kelly Vault also now has on display  “the Kelly find of the Century”, the arresting ‘forgotten image’ which though unprovable, is possibly of Ned Kelly in 1874, at work in the Bush, aged 19. They began promoting this photo in March but it wasn’t revealed until November, and in between produced a steady stream of postings related to it, to keep up the interest.

Nobody ever dares mention it in the Kelly world, or at the Vault but that charming young man with the winning looks at that very same time when the Photo was taken, was a seriously delinquent youth, a onetime member of the antisocial Greta Mob with a rap sheet as long as your arm. By the time that Photo was taken Ned had been lucky to be acquitted of various charges related to his involvement in numerous armed holdups whilst learning the Bushranger lifestyle from Harry Power, acquitted of charges relating to an assault on a chinaman, had been convicted and served time in prison for assault and indecency, and a second term in prison for receiving a stolen horse. I think if people were told the truth about him, that here in this photo is a violent young convicted criminal, a thief and mass murderer in the making, when they look at it they will feel a chill go down their spine, and maybe get an insight into how his charm, his looks and his personality were able to allow the  transformation of an appalling life of violent crime into the absurd modern legend. Instead the public is fed the utterly unhistoric line that Kelly was a victim, a poor put upon, and persecuted selector , a Police made ‘criminal’, and when they look at his smiling face they cant help but believe it. Well, he soon got sick of the hard slog of splitting timber and turned to a far more lucrative profession : stock theft, and not too long after that sealed his fate by wrecklessly confronting and killing Policemen doing their lawful duty.

The Vault extracted every last ounce of publicity possible for itself in promoting the imminent release of  this image, calling it the “forgotten image”  with radio interviews and newspaper promotions, but when it was finally made available to the Public, it was only possible to see it by paying money and by squinting, one person at a time into an absurd little “viewer’

Actually, to be correct, what the Vault has on display is NOT the Photo but a sort of slide show of a digitally enhanced copy of it, not much more than a very short video. .  Imagine how you might feel if you went to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa but all you got to see was a video image of it  viewed through a tiny hole in a wall!

They haven’t said where the actual Photo is except that it still belongs to unidentified “Kelly family” who by now probably have it secured in a different Vault altogether, a Bank Vault! I am sure the Kelly family will be delighted that by its publicity and by its attempts to have the photo authenticated the Vault has turned a Photo that couldn’t be sold at Auction in 2002  into an object of considerable worth today : $100,000 at Auction perhaps?

Matt Shore effectively admitted in his recent interview that he’s not happy with what the anonymous Kelly owners forced the Vault to do with this Photo. Frankly I think he’s been outmaneuvered by a cynical and manipulative Kelly faction, making use of his passionate interest in the subject to advance their side in the publicly obvious and damaging internecine Kelly war going on for control of the whole story. I think he has been bullied by the anonymous Kelly people, as I have also this year by one who isn’t anonymous. 

The Vault have now removed from their Facebook Page a statement that used to say the Vault was “a Museum not a shrine”. The pretence  at being a museum and not a shrine has been exposed : they haven’t altered any of the  unbalanced Kelly Republic Mythology, they have continued to display an article that science has shown is not what they claim it is, and now, they’re being told what to do by heavies in the Kelly family. On their Facebook Page, the only voice that offered alternative opinions regarding Kelly mythology has been banned : it was mine of course!

The Unforgotten Image saga was one of the few positive and interesting events in the Kelly world in 2016. Another positive was the release of two Kelly books this year. The first was the kelly story told in cartoon form, 'Ned Kelly The Man Behind the Mask' by Hugh Dolan, a Jacquie Lambie Network  senate candidate at the last election. I  quite liked it and  reviewed it HERE.  The other Kelly book released this year was ‘Ned Kelly: Knight in Aussie Armour’  by Eugenie Navarre which Peter Newman reviewed HERE, and after I had a chance to read it added my own thoughts HERE. This book was a joke : it contained the predictable memories of old people in Kelly country who were handing down family oral history about their hero Ned Kelly, it made all manner of ridiculous claims about the Kelly Outbreak and recycled the stupid nonsense about Dan Kelly surviving the inferno at the Ann Jones Inn. I wrote about and completely debunked that possibility in the post I called “Well yes, actually you WERE burnt to a cinder” This title was a reference to a book called “Burnt to a cinder was I?” – which claimed Dan Kelly survived the inferno, a feat which is simply physically impossible as I showed in that Post in January 2016.

The other bit of good news that cheered up the Kelly sympathisers somewhat was the decision to spend a million dollars restoring a house that Neds father built at Beveridge in 1860. To placate people who might resist the idea of a million dollars of Public money being spent preserving the home of a mass killer, they are pretending the house is being saved because it has some unique architectural values relating to the way early Irish settlers built their homes.

Just about everything else that happened in the Kelly world in 2016 was bad news, as people seem to be losing interest in Kelly mythology. The big one was the abandonment of the annual Beechworth Ned Kelly Weekend. It seems a small group of enthusiasts had been organizing it year after year and were getting worn out, but there wasn’t anyone else willing to take it on. There were also disputes within the organization between the old hands who resented newcomers throwing their weight around, and this was the final straw.  They said they needed a break and would be back in 2017, but the signs are not encouraging - nothing has happened on their Facebook page for months. Its got to be a bad sign for Kelly believers if there weren’t enough of them in Beechworth, the beating heart of Kelly Country of all places, to keep a tradition going. 

The Ned Kelly Forum and its Facebook page have also disappeared, thanks again to infighting between members. This Forum had its best days back in 2012 when it first began, and many of the people whose names I see on Kelly related Facebook pages in 2016 signed up and were active contributors to all kinds of discussions back then, some of them worth reading. Sadly the Kelly troll Fitzsimons bullied so many of the contributors there that important members left, and hardly anyone else could be bothered posting. Finally it seems the ego of one of the two “Key Masters”, the wannabe movie star, got the better of him and because he couldn’t get his way he blew the whole thing up. This kind of puerile behavior must infuriate the many people who made thoughtful contributions to that Forum posting Photos and ideas in the belief they might be there for a long time to be used as a resource by other interested people . Instead they were destroyed by a disrespectful Kelly moron. That was a place peopled by some particularly virulent anti-Dee characters, so I am delighted to see their voices have been silenced but mine continues stronger than ever! 

Iron Outlaw, once the sort of online Mecca for Kelly enthusiasts has remained moribund all year, even its Facebook page barely changes from one month to the next, and they cant even be bothered attacking me any more. The only reason IO still exists is probably because its all run by one person so internal disputes are impossible. However, he has clearly run out of ideas and lost interest.

Ned Kelly Centre Facebook page, set up by Kelly family descendant Joanne Griffiths also is running out of ideas and the promised Web site hasn’t appeared. Her Crowd Funding attempt to raise $8million failed completely, an indicator of how little support there is for Kelly projects these days. Almost nothing happened on that Facebook Page this year.

Ned Kelly Central Facebook Page, set up in opposition to Joanne  Griffiths by an Anonymous person seems to be the private domain of  another Kelly descendant, Leigh Olver,  who is its most prolific contributor by a long way. Every so often he or one of his factions spokespersons announces they dont support Joanne or her endeavours, exposing the Kelly wars to all and sundry and weakening the prospect that anyone would want to support either side of these bickering Kelly descendants. NKCentral Facebook page began with high hopes of being a place where all points of view could be shared and discussed, at one point even encouraging me to post there, but they have ended the year firmly in the Kelly sympathizer camp, after choosing to ban me for trying to defend myself against bullies and liars who attacked everything I tried to post. My posts were of course challenges to Kelly myths and nonsense, but also to anti-Police hate, misogyny and sexist comments posted there, but in the end I was banned, my posts all deleted and the bullies, misogynists and Police haters remain, along with the Kelly sympathisers and their delusional uncorrectable beliefs about the Kelly story.  I wrote about it  here and here. In 2017 it will decline into irrelevance, getting a few Likes to news articles it reposts and nothing much else.

In retrospect then, the cause of the Kelly sympathiser went downhill in 2016 : the Ned Kelly Weekend disappeared, the Ned Kelly Forum disappeared, the two Kelly books published were a cartoon book and a joke, the Ned Kelly Centre stalled, and the Facebook Pages of the Vault and Ned Kelly Central have been dominated by interest in a photo of Ned Kelly. They have both also demonstrated a surprising readiness to censor and repress alternative viewpoints, preferring to ban a voice for balance, logic and historical truth and keep the company of police haters and misogynists, all of whom are free to continue to Post there as they wish.

In the next Post, in a few days time I will review the continuing remarkable rise of the Death of the Legend Blog in 2016, a place where there is amazing diversity, avid interest in the Kelly story and nobody is banned or censored.