Return to scene 32 to make your choice.
FACT FILE:
IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND
Ever since Ireland joined the United Kingdom in the year 1800, there have been those who have wanted independence and freedom for Ireland. There have been many wars fought for Irish independence, but to this day it remains part of the United Kingdom.
Some Irish rebels were sent to Australia as convicts – including to Van Diemen’s Land. Da’s act of rebellion (burning an English vessel) saw him transported and treated as a common criminal. However, other political prisoners were sometimes revolutionary journalists and politicians arrested for ‘treason’ – betrayal of one’s country (which in this case was England, not Ireland). Many of them were well-educated and from wealthy families. Because of this, and because they had not committed violent crimes, they tended to be treated better than regular convicts by the authorities.
One well-known group of fifteen Irish political prisoners sent to Van Diemen’s Land, in 1849, were part of a group who called themselves the Young Irelanders. Their leader, William Smith O’Brien, was originally sentenced to death for treason – however, his sentence was lessened to transportation to Australia after 17,000 people in the United Kingdom signed petitions begging for him not to be killed.
Some people who supported Irish independence came to Australia voluntarily, as free settlers, with the aim of helping Irish political prisoners, especially leaders from the movement, to escape the country, which was illegal. In this book, Lachlan O’Riordan is a fictional example of one of these people. They took great personal risks to support their leaders and help their cause.
Return to scene 37 to make your choice.
DID THAT REALLY
HAPPEN?
Although I’ve had help from historians to check facts in this book, I’m first and foremost a storyteller. When I found interesting bits of history, I wanted to include them, even if it meant taking some poetic licence. Here are a few points of clarification, as well as some interesting connections to my own family’s past …
The bracelet in the hem of the petticoat …
NOT LIKELY, BUT POSSIBLE. Convicts were provided with new clothes at the start of their voyage. They were also thoroughly searched, scrubbed down, and if their old clothes were tattered, these were incinerated. So there would have been lots of opportunities for your bracelet to be found and taken from you, but if your petticoat was in good condition, and if no one noticed the treasure in your hem when they were searching you, you may have managed to keep it. Convicts who were transported were allowed to keep personal items with them. ‘Acrostic’ jewellery, where each gemstone stands for a letter spelling a secret message, did exist and was a popular fashion throughout the 1800s.
Meeting your end at the hands of a murderous doctor …
YES AND NO. Doctors and medical researchers in Britain in the early 1800s needed to use human corpses for dissection to better understand the workings of human bodies. Medical schools paid good money for dead bodies, which led to the awful practice of graverobbers digging up freshly buried bodies to sell for a profit. Some graverobbers went even further and started murdering the victims themselves, but their crimes were discovered when medical schools became suspicious. There is no evidence that doctors themselves ever colluded in these murders, or wanted live subjects for experimentation. That part of the story is pure fiction.
The house at Bothwell, the bushrangers, and the arson attack …
YES, BUT THE DATES HAVE BEEN ALTERED. The Tilsomes’ house in Bothwell is based on Sherwood, my ancestors’ property, although my ancestors lived in a log cabin at first and their sandstone house wasn’t built until the late 1830s. The sandstone quarry that you fall into in the story is real, as was the arson attack by local Aboriginal people in retaliation for the theft of their land, and did not occur until 1830, not long after a shepherd on the same property was speared to death. The bushrangers’ attack also occurred at Sherwood, though not until 1843. It was led by Martin Cash and his gang, who really did give the master’s tobacco and alcohol to the servants! Although a young girl joining a bushranging gang is fiction, there are accounts of one or two women bushrangers.
The friendship with Waylitja …
UNLIKELY, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Amid the violence and dispossession, there are records of colonisers treating Tasmanian Aboriginal people with kindness. Colonisers of the Quaker faith, such as Dr George Story and the Cotton family, befriended Aboriginal people on the east coast of Tasmania and sheltered them from attacks. Throughout Australia’s colonised history, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of people who rose above what society expected of them and formed friendships, alliances and romantic partnerships across racial divides. We can only hope that in Van Diemen’s Land in this era, in our story, it would have been possible for you to do so too.
A young convict girl being assigned to a single male master…
NO, NOT AT THIS TIME. It was actually against regulations for a young female convict to be assigned to a single male master (such as Mr Tilsome before his family comes, or Lachlan). This was to protect the young women from potentially predatory men. However, I decided it was in the best interests of the plot to keep those parts in.
The Irish political prisoners escaping Van Diemen’s Land …
YES, BUT NOT UNTIL DECADES LATER. Again, this is based on my own family history: my husband’s family, the Conolans, had an ancestor called Bernard Conolan who came to Tasmania to assist Irish political prisoners to escape Van Diemen’s Land. (And indeed, one was disguised in a priest’s outfit!) However, this happened later than is shown in the book, in 1853. My husband has inherited a large amethyst ring, sent from America to Bernard Conolan as a gift of thanks
