Life After the Republic

I wrote on Facebook that last week was going to be a massive week for the Kelly World, and it turned out to be even bigger than I was expecting, with the release of the second of Doug Morrissey’s works about the Kelly outbreak a few days ago. My copy hasn’t arrived yet but once it does and I’ve had  time to read it I will post my review of it here. If anyone else reads it and wants to write a review for posting here that would be most welcome.

The least momentous of the events on the Kelly Calendar in the last week was the Siege Dinner last Saturday night, which came and went without a murmur.  I was amazed to learn afterwards that Grantlee Kieza spoke at the dinner but this hadn’t been mentioned anywhere beforehand which makes no sense at all. Why  a fund-raiser and NK Centre promotor Joanne Griffiths wouldn’t  advertise her star attraction is weird – more people would have come, more funds would have  been raised…. A week later, there are still no reports on the NK Center Facebook page about what happened, and the Ned Kelly Center website is still a blank page “Under Construction. In fact, I think its pretty obvious she realises her only hope is to extract funding from the public purse. These ‘fund raisers’ and the ‘petition’ are just stunts aimed at local and state governments in the hope they will be persuaded to hand over millions of  public dollars to her NK Center. God forbid!

This massive Kelly week  actually got under way a couple of days before the siege dinner, last Thursday, June 28^th with an announcement that Matthew Holmes the movie director was launching a project to make a movie called “Glenrowan”. About a year before he had attempted to crowd-fund a movie they were going to call “The Legend of Ned Kelly”, but were unsuccessful. Now they are saying that there is so much in the Kelly story that it would be almost impossible to have done justice to it in one film so instead he and Aidan Phelan have written a script that focusses just on the siege at Glenrowan. Aidan Phelan invited readers to submit questions about the movie on his Bushranger Facebook page – about the only place I am not banned from – so I submitted four. Phelan answered them all very intelligently and I was most especially interested to learn that the Glenrowan movie will NOT mention the Kelly Republic of North east Victoria. Phelan says HERE “There is no tangible evidence that we can point to as proof of the concept, only anecdotal evidence that can’t be verified at this stage, and oral histories. No doubt this will upset a lot of ‘kelly-ites’ and will cause a lot of anti-kelly commentators to pat themselves on the back but it all comes down to our dedication to providing the facts of the story”  Well said Aidan.

I also asked if they would depict the bullying and humiliation that I wrote about on the Blog a couple of weeks ago, of eighteen-year-old John Delaney. Disappointingly, Phelan says that after initially including it, they later dropped that scene due to time constraints, but remarked that it was “a really fantastic moment narratively and historically because it really will cause the audience to question their opinions of Ned, and that’s what the whole film is about, Its about questioning the accepted version of things” So, wouldn't it be better to leave it in?

But you could have knocked me over with a feather! This is a dramatic turnaround from a year ago when I was blocked from their website for asking questions. This year they are not only accepting questions from me but answering them. And the answers are very encouraging. However I would urge them to put the Delaney scene back in and not waste too much time on things like hop-skip-jump competitions and more scenes than are necessary showing wood splintering under police fire, and bottles shattering on shelves as the hostages scream and cower on the floor, as in The Last Outlaw. The indications are that if they stick to the facts as they say they will, this could be a very violent film. Phelan was most emphatic that Aaron Sherrits murder will be part of the movie, and I have no doubt they will show in great detail every death at the Inn, Neds every wound, Hare collapsing from blood lost from his shattered wrist, Joe Byrnes body strung up, the burned corpses of Steve and Dan…. And will it end with a hanging? It will be a couple of years before we find out.

The most important announcement last week for the Kelly world, by a country mile, was of course the release of Stuart Dawsons book, Ned Kelly and the Myth of a Republic of North east Victoria. Morrissey’s book will set you back about forty bucks but Dawson, in an act of incredible generosity is giving away the results of several years of intense research for absolutely nothing. The free PDF can be downloaded from HERE and so nobody who claims to be interested in Kelly history has any excuse for not printing it off and reading it. Its an absolute landmark Kelly publication.  Predictably, the Kelly FB sites are almost completely silent about it - they’re all more interested in the movie that’s two years away - but no-body seems to have noticed the fact that their movie is going to back up Dawson’s conclusion, that their beloved Kelly Republic is a myth – that’s why it won’t be in the movie.

An article about Dawson’s free book appeared in the Border Mail. They say all publicity is good publicity so at least readers will know that Dawson’s book is out there, but I thought the article was typical tabloid trash, the lowest quality of journalism. The fact the book is available on the internet for free wasn’t mentioned and yet that is surely a major point of difference between that Kelly work and every other one that’s ever been created? I suppose the  writer was concerned that if he mentioned Dawsons book was available for free people might read it. Instead the lazy journalist tried to turn the debate into an attack on Ian Jones, a beloved figure in the north-east. Dawson rightly declined an interview, trying to avoid the journalists attempt to focus on personalities rather than the actual arguments and evidence presented in the book.  But that wasn’t good enough for the hack who then gave Ian Jones and Matt Shore most of the column inches to attack Dawson’s book even though both of these people hadn’t ever read it.  What a ridiculous joke! How on earth can the opinions of people who have never even seen a work be relevant in an article about it?

Imagine a reviewer saying I’ve never seen this movie, this Art exhibition, this play, I’ve never driven this new car, eaten at this new restaurant, heard this new album – but I’ll  speak from a position of complete ignorance and tell you what I think of it!

So what did these commentators have to say? Ian Jones went for Dawsons throat, as he has done in the past when other authors have published stuff he doesn’t agree with, questioning his motives, and resorting to patronising sarcasm “…they have to say it doesn’t exist because obviously they are so bright if it did exist they would know about it” He also mentioned arguments for the republic that are directly and fully addressed in the book. If Jones  had read them he may well have been speechless.

Matt Shore said he had spoken to a man who claims to have seen the Republic Declaration but he wouldn’t go public because “he would be treated akin to somebody that believes in UFOs”. Exactly! People who make claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. No credibility needs to be attached to it. Read the book Matt and you will see what I mean. As a Kelly history custodian your view of the book is worth hearing.

What SHOULD have happened is that once the journalist discovered both his sources hadn’t read the book, if they weren’t prepared to say “let me read it first”, he should have said “get back to me when you have”. Then you might have seen a quality piece of journalism. Instead we got rubbish.

Modern Kelly supporters are having a big struggle even imagining a Kelly story without a Republic – but here’s the interesting thing: for the majority of its life, there was no Republic myth in the Kelly story. Jim Kelly and Tom Lloyd and James Ryan supported Kelly but didn’t know anything about a Republic. JJ Kenneally had no trouble hailing Kelly as a hero without a republic myth. Same with Clune and Brown, Osbourne, Graham Jones and other Kelly writers down the years. None of them believed in a Republic. The important fact that Dawson has proven in his book, is that the Kelly republic idea has only  been a serious part of the Kelly story for maybe 40 of the last 140 years,  a very recent ‘add-on’ to the Kelly story, an attractive and clever embellishment that enhances the story and redeems the horrors of Glenrowan – but it’s an unhistorical artefact, a motivation and a plan that was never real, it wasn’t ever a part of the outbreak.

So Kelly followers, the good news is that history shows that you can safely accept the facts, the logic and the arguments of Dawson’s book that the Kelly republic is a Kelly Myth, not believe in the Republic and yet still be a sympathiser -  just like most of the sympathisers who have gone before you. There are still plenty of reasons for you to continue to be fascinated by the Kelly story, but now you can safely dump the Republic and be more like the original, old-time Kelly sympathiser! Clinging to the republic myth, from now on, will be seen as akin to believing in UFO’s. Wacky!

ANNOUNCEMENT : The Kelly Republic is Dead.

On the back cover of a recently published “Kelly” book, the reader is asked “Did you know that Ned Kelly was planning a republic of north-east Victoria?”

The suggestion that Ned Kelly was ‘planning a republic of north east Victoria’ has been examined and discussed several times on this blog, the first time being on Australia Day 2015 before the Blog was even a year old, and when I was still familiarizing myself with the detail of the Kelly story.  What I noticed back then, exploring the republic idea for the first time was that despite being famous for his voluminous writings and his incessant speech-making to hostages, to Magistrates, Judges, prison guards, doctors, friends and enemies alike, Ned Kelly himself never once uttered even one single word about a republic of north east Victoria, ever. Not one word! If he had, it would have been remembered. It’s a big idea.

But Ned Kelly wasn’t the only person who never said anything about a Kelly republic of north east Victoria. Every single other person involved in the Outbreak ALSO never said anything about a republic, not gang members, extended family members, friends and sympathisers, spies who infiltrated the gangs support network, magistrates, policemen, prison guards, Royal Commissioners, Commission witnssses, men, women, children….NOBODY, as far  as its humanly possible to know, not one person in the entire nineteenth century EVER said a single word to anyone about a Kelly republic of north east Victoria.Not one word!

But there’s more!

In 1929 JJKenneally, a noted Kelly sympathiser published his famous work ‘The Complete  Inner History of the Kelly Gang’. Its regarded as a landmark. Kenneally wrote in the introduction “The information necessary to enable me to write “The Inner History of the Kelly Gang’ was willingly supplied by members of the Kelly family and those relatives who were actively engaged in protecting their kith and kin from being betrayed for blood money by their enemies. The provedore (Tom Lloyd, first cousin of Ned Kelly) was the chief scout and confidential assistant to the Kellys and he was the only living person who was able to give me, in detail, their policy, programme and actual performances’

So here we have a claim to have been privy to the ‘inner history’ of the gang, to have been informed by the man widely regarded to have been effectively the fifth member of the Gang, and by the “Kelly family’ itself. Kenneally said he was provided with information ‘in detail’ about the gang’s policy and programme – and what did Kenneally learn about a republic of north east Victoria? Not one single thing. He called his book “The COMPLETE Inner history…” and it contained not one word about a republic of north east Victoria. Nothing! Not one word!

Ned Kellys brother Jim wrote to Kenneally and said "Through your book the people of Australia are in full possession of the truth" No mention of a republic.

James Ryan, a cousin of Ned Kelly also wrote to Mr Kenneally and he said "Your book is indeed complete". Again, no mention of a republic.

Those long echoing decades of silence about a republic are a massive problem that modern Kelly  Republic supporters needed to have explained before anything else if they wanted the Kelly republic to be taken seriously. But they never have. What that fifty years of silence suggests  more than anything else is that the republic of north east Victoria is a modern-day invention. The only possible alternative explanation leaves the Kelly Republic on life support supplied by a giant conspiracy theory, an impossibly vast and perfectly impervious cone of silence.  No such thing has ever existed in human history.

The significance of the claims for a Kelly republic cannot be overstated - the republic has been made the absolutely essential core of the entire Outbreak, the justification and the inspiration for everything, and in particular the planned massacre at Glenrowan. The foremost of all Kelly authors, Ian Jones declared that “The Glenrowan campaign is inexplicable without the central carefully obscured fact of the republic”. At another place Jones described the Glenrowan Campaign as ‘madness’ unless it was part of a fight to establish some sort of new political order – he went so far as to say that if Glenrowan wasn’t ‘an act of war’, then it would be ‘simply mass murder’. And yet, if we are to believe proponents of the theory, at the time the establishment of a republic was being planned and carried out, nobody ever mentioned it to anyone . Not once. Ever!

Without the republic, Glenrowan was just madness, mass murder, and pure criminality, and Ned Kelly can no longer be promoted as a revolutionary hero making a stand against injustice but a wannabe mass police killer, a mere criminal. Those are the alternatives offered not by me but by Ian Jones himself. Without the republic, Jones said Glenrowan was just a mad plan for mass murder. So what was it really: a mad plan for mass murder or an attempt at a republic of north-east Victoria?

Well, I have ground-breaking news for everyone interested in the truth about the Kelly outbreak. This week, just in time for the Glenrowan Siege Memorial Dinner, and for the announcement yesterday of a new movie that will 'show you everything' about Glenrowan, the mystery of the republic of north east Victoria has been fully and finally resolved. This week, the results of the latest long awaited and much anticipated research on the Republic has been released by Stuart Dawson, the leading Kelly academic from Monash University. In brief, the republic is dead.

Dawson has already published the results of his enquiries into several other important Kelly controversies, the most important one being his work on the ‘Fitzpatrick incident’. He also examined the arguments about Kellys last words – they were not ‘such is life’ -  and he showed that the eye injury sustained by George Metcalf at Glenrowan was not caused by a police bullet but by one accidentally fired by Ned Kelly before the siege had even started.

Dawson’s latest publication is ‘Ned Kelly and the Myth of a Republic of North-Eastern Victoria”, and once again he has made it freely available as a PDF that can be downloaded HERE. This latest work however, is without doubt his most important, because it deals with the most important claim ever made about Kelly, what Ian Jones said was the “central…fact” about the siege at Glenrowan, that it was an attempt by Ned Kelly to establish a republic. If true, that would mean Kelly was some sort of political visionary, a leader and a martyred revolutionary hero. But if not, even Ian Jones concedes he must have been a mad criminal.

What Dawson has done is look in detail at every shred of evidence, every argument and every claim about the Republic that has ever been made.  This is not an argument based on cherry-picked evidence to suit a predetermined outcome but a thorough examination of every argument and every piece of evidence and every claim thats ever been made in support of the republic. It’s a remarkable achievement. There is not one claim or statement or mention by anyone relating to the republic that Dawson hasn’t looked at in microscopic detail. There is not one argument relating to the republic that Dawson hasn’t scrutinised deeply. He has traced the modern-day claims about a Kelly republic back to their roots, to their first ever mention. He has looked again at the claims about the conditions that were supposed to have been the cause of republican sentiment. He has looked at the claims about who the people were that were supposed to have supported this plan. He has looked at the claims there were secret meetings and records kept. He has looked at the claim that at Glenrowan there was a sympathiser army waiting to join the battle. He has looked at what arms they might have had. He has looked at the precise timeline of the events at the Glenrowan siege. He has looked at the famous claim that an actual Declaration was seen in a London museum. He has looked at the claim that this declaration was found in Ned Kellys shirt-pocket when he was captured. And more, much more. To say Dawson left no stone unturned would be an understatement. The stones haven’t just been turned over they’ve been weighed, measured, X-Rayed, photographed and catalogued, and the soil underneath them has been sieved.

The Bibliography lists 85 Kelly related publications, and there are 536 footnotes!

In the light of the exhaustive nature of his enquiry, Dawsons conclusions about the Kelly  republic of North-east Victoria are both devastating and inescapable. Dawson has confirmed once and for all that the Kelly republic is indeed a 20th century invention , an idea that was never in the mind of Kelly himself or anyone else in his world. It will now no longer be sensible for anyone to continue to promote the idea, include it in books or films, or postulate that Ned Kelly was a revolutionary hero. From now on it will be as sensible to claim that 'Ned Kelly was planning a republic of north-east Victoria' as it would be to claim, as was once asserted and believed to probably be true, that in the middle of Australia there is a vast inland sea inhabited by creatures as yet unknown. Nobody advances the arguments for an inland sea anymore because they have been disproven : now it’s the same with the kelly republic.

Given that the book has been made available for download for nothing, nobody who claims to be interested in the Kelly story has any excuse for not reading it. But be warned – though its only 65 pages long, the writing is so detailed and the arguments so condensed, its not a book that can be lightly skimmed over – it requires close and careful study.

There will of course be people whose beliefs are not founded on, or affected by facts, logic and reason, and to maintain their dogma about a Republic they will have to retreat into blind faith, and probably declarations based on their family tradition and handed down oral history. This is the quality of 'evidence' that’s given us several Steve Harts and Dan Kellys that survived the siege, impossibly huge numbers of peoples great-grandfathers who happened to be hanging around the Euroa Bank when the Kelly Gang robbed it, even the furphy that John Monash held the reins of Ned Kellys horse when he was robbing the bank at Jerilderie and was rewarded with a shilling. Anyone who wants to claim the low quality evidence of oral history as evidence for the republic will first have to explain why their great-grandfathers knew something about the Gang that J.J.Kenneally, Tom Lloyd, James Ryan and even Jim Kelly never knew. They won't be able to do it. They will be left with bare, baseless assertion. And as we know, anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

From today, the Kelly story can no longer just be the same old Kelly story : Dawson has changed it radically and irrevocably. The Republic is dead - and according to Ian Jones this means Kellys Glenrowan was a mad plan for mass murder.  End of story.