Tipperary is Ireland’s largest inland county, being sixth-largest of the 32 counties by area. It shares a border with eight counties, that is more than any other in the Irish Republic. Situated in the province of Munster, it is a rural county whose scenery ranges from mountains to rivers, lakes and farmland. There is the mediaeval and Celtic collection of ruins at the Rock of Cashel and also Cahir Castle, an imposing 12th-century fortress sitting on an island in the River Suir, to admire amongst its attractions.

County Tipperary is often referred to as the “Premier County”, a description attributed to Thomas Davis, Editor of The Nation newspaper in the 1840s as a tribute to the nationalistic feeling in Tipperary. It is perhaps, in many a person’s mind, famous as the place mentioned in the WW1 marching song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, a piece that was written by Jack Judge, whose grandparents were said to come from the county.

Also hailing from this part of Ireland was John Kelly, the father of the renowned Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer Ned Kelly. Ned’s father, John (known as “Red”), had been born in 1820 at Clonbrogan, near Moyglas, County Tipperary and we are able to discover his baptism in the Irish Parish Records that are available on TheGenealogist.

The transcript reveals to us that he was baptised on the 20th February 1820 in the parish of Killenaule and Moyglass, Tipperary. His father was Thomas and his mother was Mary Cody. From the transcript there is a link that will take us directly to the image of the actual parish register, on the National Library of Ireland’s website, so we can see the handwritten entry on the page.

Online accounts tell us that Red, ended up in Australia when he was found guilty of stealing two pigs in Ireland and was convicted in Tipperary at the age of 21. The sentence of the court was for him to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land for seven years. This we are able to corroborate from a search of the Court and Criminal Records on TheGenealogist. We see that his passage down under was on board the prison ship Prince Regent, that docked at Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land (now Hobart in the Australian state of Tasmania), in 1842.

Once Red had served his sentence and was freed in January 1848, he then moved to the Colony of Victoria. Here it was that he found work at James Quinn’s farm at Wallan Wallan working as a bush carpenter. Red married Ellen Quin, the daughter of his employer and they tried their luck with gold prospecting which provided them with the funds to buy a small freehold in Beveridge, just north of Melbourne.

Red and Ellen had eight children together with their third, Edward “Ned” Kelly, being born around December 1854. Sources online tell us in 1864 the family moved to Avenel, near Seymour, and here they were soon attracting the attention of local police. The next year Red was convicted in relation to the theft of a calf and he received a sentence of a fine of £25 or six months’ hard labour. Tragically for the young family, in 1866, two years after moving to Avenel, Red died and so aged just 12, Ned Kelly became the man of the house.

Outlawed!

Ned joined up with a bushranger known as Harry Power (real name Henry Johnson) from 1869 to 1870 and his criminal activity saw him serve two prison terms for a variety of offences. Ned Kelly’s longest stretch in jail was from 1871 to 1874 on a conviction of receiving a stolen horse. Things would get even more serious when he was involved in a violent altercation with a police officer in 1878, at the family home. Ned was indicted for attempted murder of the policeman and fled to the bush, but his mother was imprisoned for her role and given three years hard labour, a sentence that many thought too harsh. On the run, Ned and his younger brother, Dan, along with two others shot dead a police sergeant and two police constables and with these murders the authorities in Victoria declared them outlaws.

We can read about the gang in a copy of The Times dated 9 April 1878 and found in the Newspapers and Magazines on TheGenealogist. The four outlawed murders, it writes, “were still playing at their desperate game, and defying the police forces of Victoria and New South Wales to capture them.” It tells how they followed up the murders of the three policemen by then carrying out a bank robbery in Euroa, before fleeing into New South Wales. Crossing the River Murray and “…sticking up the township of Jerilderie, in New South Wales, some 40 miles from the border, and robbing the local branch of the New South Wales Bank of over £2,000.”

The Illustrated London News published an article in September 1880, along with an image of the bushranger in his famous armoured helmet and long coat over his body armour, garb that has become synonymous with the legend of Ned Kelly. The piece in the ILN that we can read in TheGenealogist’s Newspaper and Magazines collection, relates the gang’s crimes as they rob banks and murder their way through the Colony to their final stand at the Glenrowan Hotel in a town of the same name.

The police, in large numbers, had surrounded the one-storied wooden building and in a final stand Ned Kelly came out in his helmet and coat, revolver in hand. At first, the police bullets made little effect at stopping the bushranger, as under his long coat he had a quarter of an inch thick breast-plates, shoulder-plates and back-plates hidden under his clothing on the top part of his body. One of the police sergeants, realising that Kelly’s legs were vulnerable, aimed for them and brought the outlaw to the ground.

Kelly survived to stand trial on 19 October 1880 in Melbourne. He came before Sir Redmond Barry, the same judge who had earlier sentenced Kelly’s mother to three years hard labour for attempted murder. At the age of 25, Ned Kelly was sentenced to death and hanged in Melbourne Jail on 11 November 1880.

With the varied records available to us at TheGenealogist, we have been able to find the 1820 baptism of John “Red” Kelly in the Irish Catholic records. His transportation to Australia in 1841 and newspaper reports on his infamous son’s deeds and final showdown in 1880.