MovieChat Forums > Ned Kelly (2004) Discussion > Did Ned consider himself Irish or an Aus...

Did Ned consider himself Irish or an Aussie?

posted 16 years ago by LNMaguire
27 replies | jump to latest

Odviously everyone remembers him as the famous Aussie Outlaw, he was born in the country, but his family was sent there by the English and he came from a strong Irish background, surrounded by family in a strange place, also the Irish in Australia kept to themselves as much as possible. At the time do you think Ned would have seen himself as purely Irish or Austalian or maybe both?

Disscuss.

"Our revenge will be the laughter of our children" - Bobby Sands 1954-1981 R.I.P.

[–] TakuyaAus 16 years ago

Probably Irish, even though the Australian colonies had self government since the 1850's mainly because it took 6 months to send a message to england and then another 6 months to get one back.

So i think he thought he was an Irishman in a strange world!

[–] KarlMaldensNose 16 years ago

There were no Australians until 1901 when the colonies federated. Ned would have considered himself a Victorian, a pride of (colony)State that still exists. He would have been fully proud of his Irish heritage, but I believe he would have considered himself a Victorian. During WW1 which followed not too much after Ned, battalions were raised on a State basis and were fiercley proud of their origins.

Paradise is exactly like where you are now, only much, much better.

[–] davekthurles 16 years ago

I doubt he would have have considered himself part of the British empire, considering both his parents came from Ireland

[–] ContinentalOp 16 years ago

"...but his family was sent there by the English..."

Wrong he was sent there by the British not the English. English, Scotish, Irish, Welsh were sent by the British Government.

"Jai Guru Deva, Om"

[–] canute82 16 years ago

Yeah, but the establishment and authority of Britain was based in London and thoroughly English, so it's true to say it was the English that sentenced Irishmen to transportation.

Ned Kelly would have had no concept of being an "Australian", because such a thing didn't exist. He was born, lived and died in Victoria, which was a colony of the British Empire that just happened to be on the Australian continent. Just as several other colonies were, such as New South Wales, Tasmania, The Swan River Colony in modern day Wesern Australia, etc. But they were all separate colonies, and the idea of a "nation" called Australia, or of "Australians" simply didn't exist. White people living in Australia would have identified either as British, because they lived within the British Empire, or as exiles from wherever they or their ancestors came from.

Read Kelly's own words (in the Jerilderie letter, quoted from in the film, and which still exists) and it becomes very clear that he thought of himself, his family, his friends and everyone in his immediate community as one thing and one thing only: Irish. More specifically, Irish men and women oppressed under "The saxon yoke" of British tyranny.

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[–] canute82 16 years ago

No, they are not. Millions of Australians, both indigenous and non indigenous, have no British heritage at all. And many of those who do have some British ancestry are separated from their most recent British ancestor by ten or fifteen generations.

It's no more true to say all Australians are British than it is true to say all Americans are British.

England was founded by immigrants from Germany. Does that make all English people German?

[–] smoothlysmooth 16 years ago

10 or 15 generations?! A generation is 25 years by the way.

"England was founded by immigrants from Germany"

I don't know who taught you history! Was it Hitler?

[–] canute82 16 years ago

"10 or 15 generations?! A generation is 25 years by the way.

"England was founded by immigrants from Germany"

I don't know who taught you history! Was it Hitler?"

A generation is not a fixed number of years. It could be as little as twelve or as much as ninety. I said "as many as", indicating that was the extreme and not the norm. I also didn't state that all of those generations lived in Australia, just that they weren't British.

And no, Hitler didn't teach at my school, funnily enough. I take it you don't know what the word "England" means, or where the Angles and Saxons came from.

[–] Mex5150 15 years ago

"---
10 or 15 generations?! A generation is 25 years by the way.
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A generation is not a fixed number of years. It could be as little as twelve or as much as ninety.

It is commonly accepted as 20 - 30 years (25.2 years in the United States as of 2007 and 27.4 years in the United Kingdom as of 2004)

I said "as many as", indicating that was the extreme and not the norm. I also didn't state that all of those generations lived in Australia, just that they weren't British.

Even using your minimum age of twelve years that is still 180 years!

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"England was founded by immigrants from Germany"

I don't know who taught you history! Was it Hitler?"
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And no, Hitler didn't teach at my school, funnily enough. I take it you don't know what the word "England" means, or where the Angles and Saxons came from.

And we assume you don't know what the word 'founded' means LOL

~Mex

--

Did you ever notice that people who believe in creationism look really un-evolved?

[–] richimorton 15 years ago

"Even using your minimum age of twelve years that is still 180 years!
" ............seriously ? 12 ? Even here in Hackney i have only ever seen 15 year old parents walking with their baby buggy ! 12 !

That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .

[–] Negron 16 years ago

Does that include the Boongs?

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[–] UberNoodle 16 years ago

Great. Way to pollute a thread with ignorance.

[–] pjglynndoora 16 years ago

I'd say Ned imagined himself as Irish

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[–] SonOfEvermore 15 years ago

There was no such thing as "Autralian" at the time, how could he consider himself Australian?

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[–] colt_89 15 years ago

Haven't you read the thread?

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[–] canute82 15 years ago

Just like to respond to this....

"Hi

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"---
10 or 15 generations?! A generation is 25 years by the way.
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A generation is not a fixed number of years. It could be as little as twelve or as much as ninety.
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It is commonly accepted as 20 - 30 years (25.2 years in the United States as of 2007 and 27.4 years in the United Kingdom as of 2004)

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I said "as many as", indicating that was the extreme and not the norm. I also didn't state that all of those generations lived in Australia, just that they weren't British.
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Even using your minimum age of twelve years that is still 180 years!

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"England was founded by immigrants from Germany"

I don't know who taught you history! Was it Hitler?"
---

And no, Hitler didn't teach at my school, funnily enough. I take it you don't know what the word "England" means, or where the Angles and Saxons came from.
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And we assume you don't know what the word 'founded' means LOL"

OK. Well first, perhaps you'd like to tell us what YOU think "founded" means and how you suggest that I have misused it. Are you suggesting that England existed before the Anglo-Saxons arrived? The GROUND that England would later occupy existed, sure. But it wasn't England.

Secondly, in the context I was using the word "generation", I was clearly talking about literal generations, as in within a single family. Not the statistically calculated average time that generations take to pass within a wider community. In the context I was using the word, a generation is a generation, not a fixed number of years. What you're talking about is something entirely different, like the vague concept of "generation Y" following "generation X", despite the fact that some "gen y"s have "gen X"s for parents and others have "baby boomers" or even earlier "generations" as parents.

Given that there have been European settlers in Australia for more than 220 years I don't know why you see 180 as a stretch. And anyway, as I already said, I wasn't suggesting that all of those generations had lived in Australia, just that they weren't British. And that's even without considering all the Australians who have no British ancestry at all.

Anyway, I was simply countering the patently absurd assertion that "all Australians are basically British".

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