Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/12532
Title: 'After Transportation': Some Memories/Reconstructions of a Late 19th Century Irish-Like Colonial Frontier in Northern New South Wales
Contributor(s): Ryan, John S  (author)
Publication Date: 2010
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/12532
Abstract: Keith Garvey (1922-1997) and Col Newsome (1914-2008) were two bush writers, who enshrined in their personally presented/performed (historical) stories and poems/ballads, an engaging Irish sensibility, a like moral anger [indeed, a true saeva indignatio, particularly against those who 'led' their fellows to war, social squalor, or other abasement], and a plain workaday sense of morality that was less censorious of their [Protestant cynical] fellows, than defiantly contemptuous of English/absentee pomposity and corruption. Even so, they were both full of disgust at brutal police officers, especially towards bushrangers, and venal and weak clergy, and so deeply concerned for the tragic fates of the countless numbers who were abused and betrayed in the new land, whether they were of convict stock, driven out by the 'Clearances' or the Potato Famine, or cheated of their very pathetic huts by the corrupt supervisors and managers so regularly employed by the great pastoral companies. And, very quietly, in the background - for both writers and for the readers of their works, however laconic they may seem - there is the practice of a great compassion, a respect for all the Aboriginal peoples, and a frank acknowledgement of sinfulness in all, and the refusal to 'knock' each other for human frailties, let alone despise them because of colour, faith, job or indifferent health. In truth, in their own crowded lives and enacted philosophies, they were truly whole men, the last of the Australian bushmen for whom the greatest betrayal of one's fellows was indifference to their needs.
Publication Type: Conference Publication
Conference Details: Celtic Studies 2010: Seventh Australian Conference of Celtic Studies, Sydney, Australia, 29th September - 2nd October, 2010
Source of Publication: Seventh Australian Conference of Celtic Studies Conference Handbook, p. 24-25
Publisher: University of Sydney
Place of Publication: Sydney, Australia
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 160303 Migration
160403 Social and Cultural Geography
160104 Social and Cultural Anthropology
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950304 Conserving Intangible Cultural Heritage
940401 Civil Justice
950503 Understanding Australias Past
HERDC Category Description: E3 Extract of Scholarly Conference Publication
Appears in Collections:Conference Publication

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