AS SLOW OUR SHIP

BOOK 2

I

As slow our ship, her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving; Her trembling pennant Still looked back To that dear Isle ’twas leaving

Moore.

Nell and I and I am sure our cousins too, had no intention of making Queensland the land of our adoption if we ever left Ireland. We would have gone to our aunts in America; Mother had four sisters there. We were used to people coming home on holidays from the USA every summer, some only a few years away. But in those days, a visitor from New Zealand or Australia was very rare. A few years before we left home, an old couple that had been reared in our village, returned from Queensland. They had lived in the Downs for about forty years – Mickie Brown and his wife Mary. Mrs Brown always spoke of Queensland as ‘out there’. Mickie used to say, “I’d go back tomorrow if Mary would come” but Mary did not share Mickies’ love for the open spaces.

Mr and Mrs Brown would have known some of the people Bishop Quinn brought to the Downs in the sixties. Then in the spring of 1911, my father’s brother, Michael, returned from Queensland after an absence of thirty-six years. After a term in parliament he was appointed Irish Immigration Agent for Queensland.

‘Sunny Queensland’, ‘The land where Jack is as good as his master’, and ‘The working mans paradise’ – these were some of the slogans displayed on the Queensland government posters throughout the towns and villages.

The Gaelic League, which had been organised in 1898 to save the old language from extinction and preserve the national spirit from becoming completely anglicised, had been trying to stop the great ‘Exodus’ to foreign lands and make our own country a better place to live in. But even when employment was available, the pay was low. In Ireland there were no big commercial establishments. The industries had to close down because of the high tariff imposed on exported goods. Agriculture was the main source of income. At first there was some hostile controversy in the press between the Gaelic League and the emigration agent from Queensland that deterred some possible migrants.

My father’s brother, Michael, had been elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1904 as a member for the Lockyer district.

In 1911 he was sent by the Kidston government in Queensland, to Ireland to induce young Irishmen (and women) to come to Queensland to full-fill the needs of a manpower shortage.

2 Uncle Mick was given a great welcome home from relatives and friends. I was in Reafadda with aunt Maggie at the time. When I came home, Nell had already made up her mind to go to Queensland and there did not seem much else left for me either.

Nell had a nice little business with her knitting machine and was doing very well for a few years. Then so many other girls got knitting machines to work in their own homes and Nell’s machine was an old model, so she could not get needles when replacements were necessary and had to give up.

Two of our cousins, Margaret and Nell O’Dwyer, decided to join us with their cousin, Jocie O’Dwyer and Jocie O’Hehir, daughter of my father’s cousin in Limerick. By September, the six of us cousins were all ready for the big break with all we held dear. Then we visited the aunts and uncles to say goodbye.

Mother came with us to see aunt Annie in her convent in Listowel, Kerry. She was Mother Joseph and Superior of the convent for some years. She had her Diamond Jubilee before she died. This was a sad reunion for mother and her younger sister; they had not seen each other since Annie entered the Convent Presentation Order. Aunt gave us many devotional gifts including a dozen horn rosary beads for our cousins in Queensland.

Uncle Dan drove us in his buggy to Mt Melleray to say goodbye to uncle Denis and get his blessings. The thirty-mile drive through the beautiful Golden Vale was on a calm sunny day in September. I remember the apple orchard, ‘fruited deep’, that we passed on the way.

When we arrived at the foot of Knockmealdown Mts, we walked up the steep path to the Abbey. We were given dinner, waited on by a brown robed Brother. Afterwards, we were received by the Prior and our uncle, Father Benedict O’Keeffe. The Priest Monks wear a wide brown scapular over their white woollen habits; the Brothers wear all brown.

We stayed overnight at Melleray in the ladies lodge outside the main gate. We attended benediction in the chapel that evening and Mass next morning. We had breakfast at the Abbey along with some other lady guests, some of whom stayed overnight at the lodge. The town of Cappoquin is only two miles from the Monastery. Mt Melleray is noted for its hospitality; all are welcome, regardless of rank, creed or race. At the end of your stay, which could be several days, you may leave a contribution if you wish but no one will question if you have not done so. At breakfast I was seated at the end of a long table and a brother placed a large teapot in front of me and said, “Now young lady, you pour the tea”. A nice elderly lady beside me put the milk in the cups and I poured the tea. Having to pour tea for all those strange people was quite an ordeal for me at the time. After grace was said, we partook of a delicious breakfast of eggs, bread, butter and honey, all produced on the Monastery farm by the Monks themselves. Throughout the year, men went there for weekend retreats. We wrote our names in the visitors book before leaving the kindly, hospitable Cistercean Abbey on the mountain. There were great Centenary celebrations at Mt Melleray in 1932. It was established only 50 years when uncle Denis joined the Order.

Mt Melleray is on the Waterford border only thirty miles from Glenough. It is situated on the southern slope of the Knockmealdown Mountains and was founded in 1832 by a group of Irish and English Monks who were expelled from France by a wave of atheistic revolution. Melleray, their Monastry was suppressed.

3 ‘Thus it was that sixty-four Cistercian or Trappist Monks arrived at Cobh in December 1831. In Ireland they were to continue the traditions of Melleray and to revive those of Mellifont. The first Ciscercian Monastery in Ireland founded by St Malachy’. It was suppressed during the Reformation, along with all the other religious orders.

Forty Cistercian Monks and their Abbot were beheaded at Mainister near Limerick in 1585. There were many Cistercian Abbeys in Ireland. The ruins of Holy Cross, near Thurles is one and the ruins of Hoar Abbey by the Rock of Cashel is another.

The Monks have taken vows of extreme penance and prayer. They eat neither milk, meat, eggs or fish and have no salt or condiments of any kind. They have taken vows of silence and only take six hours of sleep a night.

Their usual life span is into the eighties.

All this , for the reparation of the sins of the world.

The community of Mt Melleray have preserved an old wooden meal bin of historic interest in the Cistercean Order. Mt Melleray was founded in 1832 with the help of a great deal of voluntary labour from the local people who rejoiced to have Monks once more among them. There were several Cistercean Abbeys in Ireland prior to the Reformation. In that area in 1839 the potato crop was a failure and there was poor return from other crops, probably from excessive rain and the people around the Monastery were reduced to destitution and some were forced to give up their little mountain farms.

During the enforced famine of the 1840’s peasants sold their produce to pay the exorbitant rents, as semi starvation was preferable to the loss of a cabin in the extreme cold.

The Monks were also near destitution. About that time they had started to raise sheep and lambs but on that bleak, unsheltered mountain their sheep and lambs could not survive in the harsh winters. It grieved the Monks to see the people in such dire need, who had been so generous in helping them to found their Abbey only a few years before. After Easter that year, the Abbot had to leave for Mt St Bernard, their Head House in England. This was only ten years after Catholics in England, Scotland and Ireland had been given religious freedom. Before he left for England, the Abbot purchased, with what little money he had, a supply of oatmeal and potatoes, which he left with the Prior to distribute to the hungry people while it lasted. After three months, the Abbot returned with a good sum of money from friends in Dublin. He was amazed to find that what should, in the circumstances, have been consumed in a month, was apparently not lessened at all. Although the crowd asking for food increased daily to over eighty people, there was no reduction in the quantity of the supplies he had left. I do not remember if we were shown the miraculous bin.

4 II

We were to sail on the S S Perthshire from Tilbury Docks, London. I have forgotten the date, it would have been about the middle of October 1911, a few days after my nineteenth birthday. That sad morning we knelt down for our parents blessing and said our farewells to the family and the old neighbours calling in to wish us well and say “God speed you”. After many tearful goodbyes and ‘God be with yous’ at the Goolds Cross railway station, we got on the train to Dublin. Nell, Margaret and Jocie had caught the train at Dundrum and Jocie O’Hehir came from Limerick that morning. We visited our Dublin relations, the Ryan (Castles) and Lysaghts that day. It was my first and last time in Dublin. I remember walking over O’Connell Bridge across the Liffey. Jim and Joe Ryan (Castles) saw us off on the boat that night for England. We got in early in the morning and it was very cold and wet when we got off the boat at Hollyhead and took the train to London. Uncle Michael came to England with us and would have seen us off on the ship to Queensland but the Perthshire was delayed some days because of a dock strike so he did not wait. We were taken to a big hostel. There must have been hundreds of girls there, some of them were coming to Queensland on the same ship. We met Minnie Carmody, a County Clare girl at the hostel. Minnie was a schoolteacher and was going to her uncle who had a hotel in Laidley. She got into a school soon after we arrived. She had come to the warm and dry climate for her health but died a few years later.

Although we had that delay in London, we did not see much of the big city; we were afraid of getting lost. We went with Nell and Margaret to see their two sisters, May and Bridget, in the Convent. We had three other cousins, also nuns in England but they were not in London.

I don’t remember anything eventful, happening on the voyage; there were about 400 on board, mostly Scotch and English; some family groups and a few foreigners. We were all bound for Queensland. Agents had been sent to England and Scotland at the same time. The voyage took about 9 or 10 weeks. We arrived in Brisbane about a week before Christmas. I have forgotten all the dates now.

The Captain held a religious service every Sunday for those who wished to attend. During that time we gathered on the lower deck and said the Rosary. There were only about 10 Irish Catholics and a few English who joined us in the Rosary. There where evidently no Scotch Catholics. For the first few Sundays a few curious people used to stand around and stare at us on our knees praying. One of the English women had no Rosary Beads and Nell gave her one of the dozen we were taking to our cousin in Queensland. She was very pleased with the gift. Quite early in the voyage, Nell had made friends with a nice Scotch girl named Maggie Burns. She was sick most of the time and died when we were only a few weeks at sea. The Captain read the burial service and the body, wrapped in sailcloth, was slipped into the sea. It was a very sad little ceremony and cast a gloom over all of us at the time. There was a doctor and nurse on board; I think, working their way to Queensland.

Our matron was a fine woman and strict on girls who did not obey the rules. The most important rule and the one most often broken, was ‘women and girls had to be off the decks by 9pm’. A few of the girls used to dodge the matron to stay a while longer. There were, of course, a few romances started on the ship. A merry little lass, Priscilla and another they called Topsy, were particularly elusive.

There were dances once a week and we also had a concert and a fancy dress ball. When we were crossing the line, Father Neptune, with flowing white beard came on board and caused a mild sensation. He was one of the ships officers.

5

The men had deck sports organised by a young Scotchman named William Forgan Smith who became a Labour Premier of Queensland. We were allowed to sleep on deck if we wished, after the heat got too much for us. In the crowded bunks below it was very close and airless. The portholes had to be closed when the sea was a bit rough; it used to dash in on us. So most of us carted our little thin straw mattresses up on the rear deck. It was lovely in the cool fresh air to lie and watch the stars and the beautiful sunrise. We had to pick our beds up again at 6am, go below and make them up. The matron made a tour of inspection every morning.

We did not see the Captain much; he used to talk a lot to a young couple from Finland, he was teaching them a little English. The ship called at Townsville where a great many of the people were booked to land. Their straw mattresses were tossed overboard and the beds stacked and the space quickly filled with cargo.

We were three or four days in Townsville. The ship called at Aden, Port Said and Thursday Island also but only made a brief stay, only the ships personnel were allowed to go ashore. We came through the Suez Canal.

We went ashore at Townsville every day, although, because of the heat, most of the people never left the ship. We used to take turns going into town, some in the morning and some in the afternoon. We had our meals on the ship. Some of us got Mass one morning and another time we called at the Convent. They were Sisters of Mercy and were so pleased to meet us straight from Ireland. They told us they needed postulants and wanted us to stay with them.

On one of those days we were strolling along the street and saw a peculiar looking bird in a backyard. We had never heard of emus and thought it must be an ostrich but where were those lovely ostrich feathers, then so fashionable in ladies hats.

We went into a fruit shop one day, most of the tropical fruit and vegetables were strange to us and Peg, who was game to try anything once, picked up a little red chilli. The Chinese behind the counter told her it was “velly nice to eat”. Peg took a bite and yelled, “I’m poisoned”. The shop man thought it was a good joke on the newchum. His wife came running from behind the shop and gave Peg a drink of water to cool her burning mouth.

One afternoon some of us were entertained by the YWCA. Some of the other girls asked us to come along with them. After a short service a minister gave us a talk full of good advice. I remember he told us not to be led away by false religions. The good Ministers’ idea of false religions was, no doubt, different to ours. A lady addressed us too. There was a Hibernian Hall in the town but none of its members showed any interest in us.

Two young Irishmen came one day on board to see if there was any Irish on the ship. They were Jack Burkett and Con Tangney from County Kerry. Some time later we met them again in Brisbane.

Another pleasant incident, as we walked back to the ship one evening, a woman called to us. She said she heard us talking on our way into town and knew we were from her own country and was looking out for us on the way back. We enjoyed our brief visit with her and I’m sure she did too. This break on our journey back to the ship was one Nell never forgot. She often recalled the Irishwoman who asked us into her home to have a talk with us.

6 Several prospective employers came on board at Townsville to interview migrants who were to disembark there. I think about half the people left the ship there, including Mr Forgan Smith.

We arrived in Brisbane a few weeks before Christmas. Cousin Bill O’Keeffe met us at the ship; we recognised him standing on the wharf, he was so like the cousins at home. My most lasting impression of our landing in Brisbane was the doing we got from the mosquitos. Bill took us to a hotel where we stayed the night. We got an early train to Laidley next morning. It was Sunday and we met the cousins and Aunt Eliza before Mass. Some of the family were riding and a sulky and buggy served to take the rest of us to our uncle’s home at Blenheim. It is about 7 miles from Laidley.

The home was named ‘Hollyford’ after the place from which Aunt Eliza came in Ireland. It was the typical old bush home of those days. The built in brick oven and the wide fireplace where logs used to burn on the hearth, was replaced by a stove. The two eldest girls, Ellen and Annie, were married and Bill was to be married after Christmas to Mary Fitzgerald, a Gatton girl. Bill showed us over his new house, all ready for his bride.

One of the boys had killed a snake and showed it to us. I made the naïve remark, “It’s very small”. The cousins were amused, I told them I had expected a snake to be at least ten feet long.

We all sat down to dinner at the long kitchen table. There would have been at least fourteen of us. Father Denis would have been there too but it was soon after his ordination at Manly and he was home on holidays before being appointed to his first Curacy at Dalby with Father Nolan.

Denis was sent to Ireland in 1902 at the age of 16 years to be educated for the Priesthood. He was a student for some years at Mt Melleray before going to All Hallows, Dublin. He returned to Australia a year before his ordination. We knew Denis quite well during the years he spent in Ireland. He left before his ordination because of failing health.

Father Denis said Mass in the home every morning. The Catholic neighbours, the Dempseys and the Sidenspinners used to attend. We were at a dance in Dempsey’s barn and attended Bill and Mary’s wedding in the Gatton Church. They were married by Father Denis.

The wedding breakfast afterwards at Mary’s home, set out on a long verandah, was in the usual old bush style. Nell gave the newlyweds the teapot we brought with us from Ireland. It was a brown enamel one with white flecks on it.

Uncle Mick had told us the tea on our ship would most likely be tasteless stuff and so it was. Mother gave us a supply of sugar and good tea and we got condensed milk. We made tea most afternoons. Except for the tea, the food on the ship was quite good and plenty of it. We were joined in our cuppa by a few of the Irish boys who used to say the Rosary with us on Sundays; Bill Moran, Mick O’Brien and Myles Ryan.

When our supply of tea was finished, the boys bought some at the first port of call. They could get tobacco and cigarettes at the little bar that was open for an hour or so every day. Sometimes we could get little buns from the baker and this was, no doubt, a little private graft of his own.

We had to tip the cook for the boiling water we got for the tea.

The boys used to have pieces of ships biscuits in their pockets, they were as hard as granite and made in slabs nearly a foot square. Kelly, the pantry man, used to break them up with a hammer

7 to make them easy to handle. After a concert or dance on our slow old ship, we were given supper – a mug of cocoa and those biscuits. Each of us dipped our enamel mugs into the big cauldron of cocoa placed on the middle of the deck for our use. Bill Moran had an uncle on a cane farm.

We met Mick O’Brien and Myles Ryan in Brisbane a couple of years later. Bill evidently stayed in the north.

Margaret had her 20th birthday on the ship; I had my 21st in Kerry.

During the First World War the old Perthshire was used to convey supplies to the front and was sunk by a German submarine.

8 III

For a couple of months after we arrived I stayed with Annie, Uncle Mick’s daughter. Her husband Jim Carew was an instructor at Gatton College. They had three young children and a quiet old horse named Melody. Their home on the college property was good way from the town of Gatton. I found it very lonely there. The big orchard was in front of the house and there was no stint of fruit.

Paddy Aheran, who was an old neighbour of Glenough, asked for one of us to come and help his wife; they lived in the Rosewood district. Margaret went to Aherans and the others got work in Ipswich. Within a few months we had all moved to Brisbane. I did not take to city life like the others. I used to beg Nell to take a job with me in a country town or even on a station out west. I was reluctant to go on my own.

When we were leaving home, mother said, “I hope you will always be able to stay near each other”. The wild bush, as she used to call it had no attraction for Nell, or indeed, for any of the others.

Then one day she introduced me to a Mr Ted Power who had been asking her to take a job in his father’s hotel in Kerry, near Beaudesert. I knew there was a town named Beaudesert, as people from Beaudesert district used to stay at McGuires Hotel in Elizabeth Street where I worked.

I remember uncle Matt Horan being there. Lucy McGuire told me Mr Horan came from Kerry but not Kerry in Ireland. The McGuires got to know the Beaudesert district well when they had a lease on the Grand Hotel from Grandma Ward, who was the owner of the hotel.

Ted Power told us that Kerry was a settlement of Irish people just like our own. Nell told him I wanted to go to the country and that I might take the job. I told Ted I would like to go to Kerry, if only for six months. After nearly two years in Queensland, I was still homesick. About a week later I left for Kerry and it was my address for the next four years.

Jack Power, who shared the business with his father and stepmother, met me at the station and we went to the Railway Hotel for dinner. Mrs Massey and her daughter, Mrs Bourke, were the owners and licensees of the hotel. Mrs Massey and Mrs Power were cousins.

I met Eileen Brightwell and Reene Benyon at the dinner table. Eileen was the Kerry schoolteacher and was going on her Easter holidays. It was Holy Thursday 1914. She stayed at the Kerry Hotel and I was pleased she would be there for company.

Eileen Brightwell would have been the last teacher at the Kerry Church School as the government built the Kerry State School that was opened on 1st July 1914. Miss Mary Donovan was the first teacher, later marrying Tom Ward.

After the journey in the slow train from Brisbane that morning, (it stopped at every station picking up and dropping off cream cans) and the ten mile drive in the sulky over the rough black soil road, deeply rutted by the bullock wagons, I felt that I was really in the bush. I arrived at the Kerry Bridge Hotel late that afternoon.

9 Mr and Mrs Power made me feel at home straight away. Mr Power came from Waterford and was an old friend of uncle Michaels. They were neighbours at one time when Mr Power had a farm near Gatton. He said, “I did good electioneering for your uncle to get him into parliament”.

Mr Power was fairly deaf and could not hear Mrs Power whisper to me, “He never forgave your uncle for not him making a JP”. Mrs Power was born in Roscommon and came to Queensland with her parents. They settled in the Rosewood district. She told me she did not remember much about Ireland, except that she was glad to get away from it and the poverty and misery caused by the restrictions on the peoples’ liberty. When as a girl in Rosewood, she knew Paddy Aheran and had some funny tales about him. Mrs Power’s first husband was Charles Luton from England. They were grandparents of the Luton Whites. They had 14 children.

Nearly all of those Irish born pioneers were still living when I came to Kerry. It was a very pleasant experience for me meeting them. Some of them were from my own County Tipperary. Our dear old Parish Priest, Father Enright, was a Limerick man. When I told him my parents lived in the parish of Clononety and that Cannon Arthur Ryan was our Parish Priest, Father Enright said that the Cannon was a Professor at Thurles Diocesan Seminary when he was a student there.

When I first came to Kerry and for some time after, we had Mass only once a month or six weeks and it was not always on a Sunday, as it meant leaving nuns and people of Beaudesert without Sunday Mass, unless there was a temporary Curate.

Father Enright drove out to Kerry the evening before and always stayed at Tandoor, as had all the Priests who came to Kerry in those days. Mass was seldom over by 11am, then sometimes he drove over the range to Christmas Creek. Father Enright always came to offer Mass for the family anniversaries in the home at Tandoor. Most of the relatives around attended the Mass and the big breakfast afterwards, presided over by grandma and Father Enright. I am sure all of them thoroughly enjoyed those family gatherings.

Sometimes there was a turkey to carve and grandma liked Father Enright to do the carving. The turkey would be one of auntie Minnies flock; she used to raise a lot of turkeys.

Whenever Irishmen met, their conversation would soon drift to a discussion on the unhappy state of their native land and Father Enright and Larry Dunne would become so absorbed at times, there would be long pauses in the carving process.

The topic one day was the split in the Nationalist Party caused by the divorce scandal. I remarked to Father Enright that it was a pity the people did not stand by Parnell when he had done so much good for the country during his years as leader of the House of Commons and the great work he did for the Land League. Father Enright replied, “The Irish people have always demanded moral integrity in their leaders”.

As I have told you in the first part of my narrative, all about the Land League, Charles Stewart Parnell lost favour with the Prime Minister, Mr J Gladstone and the majority of the hierarchy and people of Ireland after he was co-respondent in a divorce case.

10 IV

Bishop O’Quinn, the newly appointed first Catholic Bishop of Queensland, arrived in the new colony in 1861. He had for his Diocese an area eight times the size of Ireland. The new Bishop brought with him five Priests and six Sisters of Mercy, the pioneer nuns of Queensland. At that time there was only one church, old St Stephens, and one priest in the little town of Brisbane, which was to become the capital of the new colony.

Bishop O’Quinn used to tell that one of the first things he noticed on the day of his arrival, was a bullock team stuck in the mud in Queen Street. In 1860 the total population of Queensland was only 28,056. The new Bishop saw the need of people to colonise this vast new land and thought of his own countrymen crowding the ships bound for America, having been ejected from their houses and farms.

The Bishop decided to arrange for the Queensland Government to have some of them come to this sparsely populated colony and the Queensland Settlement Scheme was organised. Father Dunne, who was in Ireland at the time, was appointed by the Bishop to select families who could avail themselves of the Queensland Government land orders. In all, 6,000 people arrived here to take selections on this scheme. There were some English and Scotch among the 6,000.

Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony from New South Wales in 1859 and the transportation of convicts ceased.

The majority of those 6,000 who came during those three years settled on the area of the Darling Downs. Our Kerry pioneers were among the first 400 who came in the ‘Erin go Bragh’ in 1862. Many of those 400 got land in the area around Waterford and the Logan.

They were tenant farmers evicted to make room for cattle raising which had become more profitable to the landlords than crops because of the repeal of the corn law. Those tenants who were not evicted for arrears of rent got some small compensation.

This Irish settlement on the Logan became known as Tullamore, the name of the native place of so many of them.

The Rafter family first used the name for their own selection and it soon became known as the name of the whole settlement. The first church was built and the old Catholic Cemetery, where so many of those old pioneers are now laid to rest in the Tullamore Churchyard.

After many of the original settlers left the Logan to take up farms on the Albert, the name Tullamore was changed to Gleneagle but it is still often called Tullamore. The town of Tullamore is in Offaly, then known as Kings County.

Many of the menfolk took up work tor a time to earn money to stock their properties – at railway construction, goldmining, timber felling etc. This influx of Irish colonists was stopped in 1865. Some rumour was started that the newly established colony of Queensland was becoming know as ‘Quinns-land’ after Bishop O’Quinn.

John and Catherine Horan and their eight children came in the ship ‘Ocean - Chief’, in November 1862. Their first selection was in the area now known as Creek Street, Brisbane. They left Brisbane after a short time and joined the Irish settlement on the Logan and Waterford.

11 The ship, ‘Fiery Star’ came in 1863. Many of them, also settled in the same area, Waterford.

Patrick Ward and his brother John came out on the ‘Fiery Star’ in 1849.

The Fiery Star made several voyages to Australia returning to England on her last voyage she was destroyed by fire off the south island of New Zealand with great loss of life.

Bishop O’Quinn encouraged his people to grow cotton. It was then a very lucrative crop. Owing to the Civil War the American cotton trade had declined. Your grandma Ward, who was then Annie Horan, was said to be an adept cotton picker.

Cotton growing was a government scheme, land orders were offered to migrants a 1 pound per acre.

My genial old friend, Mr Larry Dunne, never let me forget he was a Tipperary man; he used to call me Townie. Mrs Deerain and her sister Mrs Doyle were from Tipperary, grandad Ward from Cumertha Co, Monoghan, Mrs Dunne from Co, Caven. The Rafters, Doyles and possibly the Dempseys and some of the others that came about the same time were from Tullamore Co, Offaly, then called Kings Co.

They were probably all tenants evicted off the same estate.

None of those first settlers, as far as I can ascertain, came from Kerry. This area along the Albert River comprised about 22,000 acres and was, for some, years, a sheep station before it was opened for closer settlement in 1871.

The 22,000 acres on the Albert River was divided into 80 acre blocks on long term payment. The number of blocks taken by each selector varied. The Horan family became owners of an extensive acreage.

Kerry was first called ‘Greenvale’ and Edward and William Finch were the licensees in 1842. In 1843 Henry Manning had it and it was known as ‘Kerry’.

Mathew, the eldest of the Horan family, was eighteen years old when they left Ireland. With his brother Jim, they worked for a time with the diggers in the goldmines of North Queensland and came on the first gold rush to the newly discovered mines in Gympie.

It was in Gympie they met Paddy Ward from Commertha County, Monaghan. Their sister, Mary had married Tom Doherty, a black smith, in Gympie. Annie was on a visit to her sister, Mrs Doherty and so it came about that your grandparents met for the first time.

When the rich farmland on the Albert River became available for selection, several of the families who had settled in the Waterford area left there and came to make new homes in the beautiful valley of Kerry.

The first selection in Kerry, was taken up by John Dempsey in 1873, and Matt Horan and Patrick Ward took their selections in 1874. The Horan parents moved up from Waterford in 1877. Their selections joined Paddy Wards.

12 Aunt Magg tells us in her memoirs:

“They brought with them from Ireland a pair of brass candlesticks, an alter stone and the brown habits they were buried in. Also a wooden churn filled with butter for the long voyage. The people used to bring some food with them on the long voyage as the food supply on the ship was not always adequate and parents had to make sure their children would not be hungry”.

Aunt Magg continues:

“My father worked in goldmines up north, then selected his land here in 1874. Arriving here with a horse and dray, pickaxes, spades and hoes and two bags of seed potatoes, he camped under the dray while he built his slab home. They brought my mother and their first child, Mary Ann.

Having no plough, he just dug a sod and planted a potato under each one and harvested over a ton of potatoes.

They found the native people very friendly, except three who frightened mother one day. Coming in when dinner was cooking, they lifted the lids off the saucepans and after a look around the white woman’s home, they went away laughing. The three natives would have looked a fearsome sight. They were almost naked and decorated with painted designs all over their bodies and a headdress of feathers in full native regalia. Mother took the children outside and sat under the dray until they had gone”.

The Albert River had low banks and was quite easy to step across in places. The blacks told them that when in flood they had seen the river spread to the ranges of Jimbroken and Canungra. Fish were plentiful. A line thrown in while he was ploughing, her father would bring a couple of cod home for dinner.

They made the long trek to Brisbane to sell their produce with a dray drawn by three horses. They grew a great variety of fruit and vegetables and would have several fletches of bacon and ham of their own curing. On the return trip they brought a six months supply of flour, sugar, tea and other items for the home.

Although John Dempsey, who was the eldest of the four Dempsey brothers, was the first to take a selection, your grandparents, Patrick and Annie Ward, were the first to settle in a home - ‘Tandoor’– an aboriginal name for box trees -in Kerry. The Rafter family would be next. The various selections were all taken up by 1885 - about one dozen families in all.

Some of the good old names have now vanished from Kerry – Dempseys, Millbanks, Rafters, Gormans and Bishops. The Horan name has also gone, although there are numerous descendants still there. In 1874, Patrick Ward could be said to have turned the first sod and planted the first crop in Kerry.

The Millbanks family came in 1875. Their food supply got very low before they could replenish it and Paddy Ward gave them a bag of potatoes from his first crop. Mrs Millbanks was fond of telling this tale of Paddy Wards kindness. She would always add, “We were never hungry after”. I had the tale retold to me by grandma.

13 Mrs Millbanks, herself, deserves a special mention in the annals of Kerry and Christmas Creek for her many good, neighbourly acts – especially when her midwifery skill was needed. Often riding across flooded creeks to come to the aid of a mother in her hour of need.

The Millbanks old slab shingled-roof home, the last of its kind in Kerry, was still in existence for many years after I came to Kerry – although in a sadly ruined condition. It was rebuilt in Beaudesert, by the Beaudesert Historical Society. Some of the old shingles and handmade nails are preserved by the Society.

Uncle Johns’ selection was on Duck Creek. He later bought David Sheehans’ selection that joined his and gave him a good Albert River frontage. Uncle John moved in from Duck Creek and lived for a time in Davey Sheehans hut on the river flat. He later moved his living quarters to the top of the hill, near where there used to be a sheepfold, before building his house - ‘St John’s Lodge’ - where he lived for the rest of his life – and which became our home a few years after his death in 1924. Uncle Johns old slab hut near the river was there for many years after we moved to Kerry. It was still a sound little structure when it was pulled down to make room for farming.

This spot on the Albert River was a favourite camping ground for the native people. They found good fishing there. They still came to fish at the crossing and sometimes brought me fish in exchange for some bread.

Auntie Magg tells us in her memoirs that they used to attend dances in Dunnes, Dempseys and Johnstone’s barns.

As a child in 1889, she remembers the ball held at Uncle John’s home. The dance floor was built outside with timber from the Darlington Mill. Green branches and vines formed the walls and an arch over the entrance. Chinese lanterns hung everywhere. It was like fairyland. They had violin and accordian music. Hurdy- gurdys were popular – an instrument something like the barrel organ. Uncle John was the first to own a hurdy-gurdy. Tom used to dance a hornpipe to a tune played on it.

During the years he spent working with surveyors in North Queensland, Uncle Tom Horan had become a fully qualified and competent surveyor himself. Mark Horan, his younger brother had ability in veterinary work and was of great value for the man on the land in those days. The Horan family had the unique art of bone setting. A skill that was greatly prized in Ireland in olden days and was handed down from father to son. Great grandfather Horan was a good bonesetter and had some medical knowledge also.

14 V

All the old timers built their homes close to the rivers or creeks to be near water in the days before galvanised iron tanks were used to store rainwater. Great havoc was caused among the homesteaders when floods overflowed the river flats before they built their permanent homes on higher ground.

The 1893 flood was most disastrous over a great part of Queensland. Although the 1887 was and still is the biggest flood ever in Kerry. And the 1902 drought that wiped out almost the whole of their stock was another great calamity they had to contend with. Although there were many droughts both before and after 1902, the old people told me the drought in1902 was the most drastic.

I could say I saw the end of the pioneer era in Kerry. I loved to hear of their early struggles from the old ladies. How they contrived to keep their perishable food above the floodwater and taking their washing to the river. This was often an enjoyable task when two or three neighbours would get together on the grassy riverbank and help one another to do a big wash.

The church school was built by the people in 1883 and was still in use till 1907. Rev Father Scortechini was the first resident Priest.

The locals pronounced the Priests name Scoteena.

He bought a house from a Captain O’Mahoney at Logan Village and later moved to Tamborine. The first baptism by Father Scortechini was on the 28th December 1874. He , was succeeded by Rev Father James Enright in 1884. Father Enright built a presbytery in the little village of Beaudesert that had started to develop when the new railway line from Brisbane, made Beaudesert its terminus. Mass was offered in the presbytery for three years. Then Father Enright had the first St Mary’s built in 1887, which by 1907 had become far too small for the growing congregation.

Likewise, the little church school at Kerry was no longer adequate and the Beaudesert Church was moved to Kerry and the present St Mary’s built in Beaudesert. The old Kerry Church was still used as a school until 1914 when the new State School was built on the reserve beside the river.

The second generation was enrolled in the new school, which was opened by the new teacher, Miss Mollie Donovan. Like the national schoolteachers in Ireland, Mollie gave religious instructions and prepared the children for the sacraments.

In the old days, when Mr Magroarty, the School Inspector, came on his annual visit to the little pioneer school, John Horan always went along to welcome him. Possibly they were old shipmates.

Tom was the adventurous one of the Horan family. He seems to have gone to North Queensland before the rest of the family moved to Kerry. He worked with a surveying party and was an experienced bushman.

While still a young man, Tom Horan was accidentally drowned on one of his journeys by sea.

15 Mathew, as well as being the eldest of the family, outlived them all by a great many years. He died at the age of eighty-seven. His wife was Susan Doran. Her father was a schoolteacher in Ireland and continued as a teacher here.

The late Mr Ben Barnes was one of his pupils. Two of their sons, Joe and Matt, were among the first selectors in Kingaroy. Jack Alexander, who married their daughter Susan, was also an early selector in the Kingaroy district. Bill Carew, who married Ellen O’Keeffe, was another early selector. They were the parents of Father James Carew.

Mark Horan, who had a butchering business in Beaudesert, died at the early age of forty-five. Jim married Mary Freeman, a niece of John Finnegan Smiths’. At one time they had an extensive property across the river from the other members of the family. When your paternal great grandfather was on his deathbed, in September 1888, Father O’Reilly was sent for. He had to come from Nudgee. He missed the train to Beaudesert and rode all the way. With a change of horses, he arrived in Beaudesert before the train.

This differs from Bernard Wards account in that it was his grandmother Catherine who was on her deathbed and when Father O’Reilly arrived she had recovered and said, “I made a fool of you father!”

John Horan would have been about the oldest man in Kerry at the time and was the second to be buried in the new cemetery on the hill behind the church. Great grandma died in 1899. Dad (who was born 1.1.1882) remembered his grandparents. He used to be with them a lot. His grandmother used to call him Avic (My Son). They would have used Gaelic words sometimes in their conversations, as did my own grandparents.

Father Enrights first baptism in the parish was on February 12th, 1884. The baby was Francis Mylett. His parish was very much larger then.

On those days they had a great shortage of priests here. From time to time Father Enright got an assistant priest when there was one available. Father O’Reilly came in1887, followed by several others. During the thirty-seven years he was Parish Priest until his tragic death in 1921 by a stroke of lightening.

Father Enright was a familiar and well-loved figure as he travelled about his large parish with his old grey horse and sulky.

To continue with auntie Magg’s part:

“About 1878 we selected land at Kerry Creek, where we bred horses for the Indian Army and beef cattle which drovers delivered at Romourne Meat Works, New South Wales, where they were butchered and boiled for their tallow. In 1899 we selected land at Cainbable from which we sold cedar and pine. There was a sawmill at the old Kerry Bridge owned by Mrs Smailes. Andersons had a mill at Kerry Creek. The old Kerry Bridge, now demolished, was built by Pat Egan, Frank Egan’s father.

We started dairying in 1904, when the Beaudesert Butter Factory was built. In the same year my mother had the Grand Hotel built with timber from the Cainbable property. The fine cedar staircase came from the old Land Office in Brisbane.

16 In 1909 the Nindooinbah property was purchased from Mr Pat Talty and was used for dairying and general farming. With a brother and sister, I helped with this property”.

17 VI

Lorraine Ward, a young descendant of the fourth generation, when a pupil at Beaudesert High School, wrote a charming little poem on the valley of Kerry and pays tribute to her ancestors.

The Valley of Kerry

Smiled on by the range of Jimbroken Away from the dust of the town Is the rich little valley of Kerry With beauty of world-wide renown.

Where the Southern Cross seems to shine brighter Low in a jewelled sky Where the blue mountains and cheeky rosellas Flash speedily, brilliantly by.

On the hill in God’ own holy acre In the shade of an old holly tree At rest in the sleep of the blessed Lie those who gave Kerry to me

They toiled that my life may be richer This brave little pioneering band And I know that their work was not wasted For I cherish this lovely land.

…………….

Uncle John Horan and his strange old companion, John Bahl is now a tradition of Irish hospitality and Kerry folklore.

One evening, having apparently walked a long way, this weary old stranger arrived in Kerry. He must have been seeking a peaceful haven in which to end his days and he found it in the home of the kindly old bachelor, Johnnie Horan.

John Bahl was an odd looking character. I heard uncle John tell the tale many times after.

“I thought he was a ghost standing there in the dusk of the evening under the pine trees. His long white hair reached to his shoulders and he wore a long white coat and a cap made from a possum skin”.

In his usual hospitable way, John Horan gave him a meal and told him he could stay for the night.

In his home be-side the first river crossing, he kept open house for the riders stranded when the river was high; but this strange guest, who spoke broken English in a soft gentle voice, was up before his host next morning and had taken over the housekeeping as if he had been doing it for years.

18 He proved a real godsend to uncle John with his failing eyesight and it was also a great relief for grandma and the family, who worried about him living alone.

The two old men got on fine together. Every Sunday they walked down to Tandoor for dinner and on Mass Sundays they walked to Mass together.

John Bahl loved to wander over the hills and gullies. No doubt this sparsely populated, peaceful valley was a great contrast to his native land, often ravaged by war. But which particular part of war torn Europe was his native land was never really known. Old John took a great interest in the stones and pieces of petrified wood he used to collect.

We still have a few old pieces of the stalagmite he found in the caves. When Duck Creek was high, old John was fearful of wading across. He was a slight, frail looking little man, so it was not much effort for uncle John, who was a tall, robust man, to hoist him on his back and carry him across the creek.

Visiting Priests were always interested in the two old men living so amicably together. One Mission Priest said John Bahl reminded him of an old Monk. He had the reserved air and ascetic appearance of one who had spent many years in a Monastery. But old John never divulged his past. He died suddenly one summer day while uncle John was absent on his daily visit to his sister, grandma Ward.

It was ten or twelve years after he had come to Kerry and he was laid to rest among the Kerry pioneers. Uncle John had now reached the stage where he could no longer take care of himself and after the death of his old companion, who had been so helpful to him, he spent the remaining few years of his life at Tandoor.

He died in 1924 and pre-deceased his sister, dear grandma Ward, by only two days. St John’s Lodge, as he had named his home, then remained vacant and neglected till we bought the place. He had left it to his nieces.

We moved up from Nindooinbah in 1929. We had to do a lot of repairs on it before it was habitable again. The old shingled roof was in a sorry state and had to be replaced and the semi- detached kitchen, which was a feature of all the old bush homes. Uncle John would be pleased that descendants of his parents’ came to live in his beloved home, grew up in its shelter and loved it too.

In its day, this old house was the finest in Kerry and uncle John took a great pride in it and loved to entertain people. He had a fine orchard and garden but there was only a fig tree and a few quince trees and the shady old Brazilian cherry, which was still flourishing when we took over. The Morteon Bay fig tree he planted has grown to an enormous size and is a landmark in the district.

Mrs Johnstone used to tell how she came to have a fine young fig tree in her garden. She was riding up to the Doyles one day and broke a twig off Johnnie Horan’s fig tree to urge her horse along. When she came home she stuck it in the garden. She surely had green fingers, every cutting she planted, grew. Like all garden lovers, she was generous in giving away cuttings.

Her garden was always blooming with flowers and shrubs in great profusion and the verandahs were covered with climbing plants and vines; there was also a great assortment of pot plants. Aunty Mollie and I spent many pleasant afternoons on Johnstone’s shady verandah. Bella would

19 put the gramaphone on and dear old Mrs Johnstone talked the whole time; she loved having visitors.

I always remembered Bella coming to welcome me to Kerry and Mrs Dunne and Mary walked up to see me too. Indeed, I found my environment in Kerry so homelike, I could fancy myself back again in the hills of Ballysheedy or Glenough. Grandma told me she was very young when they left Ireland but she could still remember the snow. I think all of them were born in Ireland.

Aunty Kate told me her grandparents used to talk about two young men who where hanged in Clonmel not long before they left Ireland. It had caused great indignation among the people. The two McCormack boys were found guilty of killing a land agent. Although it was well know they could have had no part in the crime, they were hanged and burned in quicklime in the jail yard at Clonmel in May 1860. Fifty years after, the law allowed their remains to be exhumed and given a Christian burial.

They were given a most impressive public funeral, a great many religious and civil dignitaries being present at the Requim Mass and in the procession in which hundreds of people took part, to the churchyard where they were laid to rest beside their parents.

A remarkable sight was revealed when the bodies were exhumed. They were found to be still whole and intact. I then told aunty Kate all that had taken place in May 1910, fifty years after they were hanged. This tragic event was of local interest to the Horans as it took place not many miles from where they lived.

I well remember the day of the McCormack boys’ funeral. It was also the year of the comet. On this lovely calm evening in May, we were outside watching it and also listening for the piper’s band that would be returning home from the funeral. The pipers always struck up a marching tune before entering the village.

On Confirmation Day a few years ago I was speaking to Archbishop O’Donnell. He is a Tipperary man himself and knows my native village well. He told me the pipers are as good as ever.

20 VII The eight O’Reilly boys came from New South Wales in 1911 to take up their selections on the plateau high up on the Macpherson Range. These young pioneers caused a pleasant stir among the Kerry people when they rode down to Mass and to dances on the steep track they had carved out of the mountainside. They were already a part of the general atmosphere of Kerry when I came at Easter 1914, the year the First World War started and I had my first horseback ride. One Saturday night, after a dance, a picnic to Cainbable was arranged for the next day. Needless to say, I had never been on a horse and was a bit fearful of taking it on. The girls assured me there was nothing to it on a quiet horse. Nana Deerain lent me her divided riding skirt that was considered very up-to-date then, and in fact, not quite nice by the older generation. Most of the girls were still riding side saddle.

A happy cavalcade set out next day for the tall timbers. Bob Johnstone was there with his camera and I enjoyed my first taste of billy tea. Cricket was played in Johnstone’s paddock. Kerry treated the visiting teams to dinner at the hotel. When the war started all sport was off, a great many of the boys having joined the first AIF.

The timber mills in Darlington and Kerry had closed down before I came over to Kerry and the bullock teams wended their weary way over the boggy black soil road to the timber mills in Beaudesert; some had horse teams.

The hawkers and commercial travellers from Brisbane with their array of samples travelled the country districts and took mail orders. After the big drought of 1902 some of the travellers returned to Brisbane with a load of hides that they had accepted in lieu of cash.

Easter 1915, the Wards, Mollie and I were the guests of Herb, Tom and Mick O’Reilley on the plateau. Norb and Peter were already in the AIF and Mick joined up soon after. Tom Ward left the buggy at Stockyard and auntie Kate, Agg, Mollie and I, with Tom and Dad, started on what I thought in some parts, the perilous ascent up the narrow, winding track to the plateau. It was an awesome experience looking down over that limitless expanse of forest that extended to the horizon where human foot had never trod.

Our first stop was at Joe’s hut where we had lunch. Joe had made a ginger cake for us and it was very good too. With his brothers, Pat and Luke, he was spending Easter in Kerry. We took long walks through this wonderland of tropical vegetation, deep gorges, rare and beautiful birds and cool waterfalls.

A big area of this vast primitive forestland has now been preserved in all its pristine grandeur by the Queensland government and will be kept unspoilt for future generations to enjoy. This is known as the Lamington National Park.

An interesting event in connection with the pioneers of the upper Logan and Kerry took place in 1955, when the old church at Tullamore, now officially known as Gleneagle, was removed to a site beside O’Rielly’s Guest House, Green Mountains on the National Park. In the march of progress, the old first Church was no longer needed and its removal to the National Park was a gracious way of preserving it for future generations, the Church of the Pioneers.

It was blessed and opened by Archbishop Duhig, assisted by our Parish Priest Mgr O B Steele. It was Father Steele who offered the first Mass on Green Mountains in 1922 when he was Curate to the late Rev Father John Hennessey. Archbishop Duhig came to Kerry in 1921 to consecrate the cemetery.

21 After the ceremony he was entertained at a dinner given by the people of Kerry and held at Tandoor. Afterwards, Tom drove the Archbishop and Father Enright over the range to Christmas Creek to consecrate the cemetery there. Tom said he stopped the buggy on top of the range.

The Archbishop wanted to admire the view. Father Enright drew his attention to the fine farms that added to the beauty of the scenery. Christmas Creek was opened for selection a little later than Kerry. The four Cahill brothers were among the first selectors. The Cahills and Enrights came from County Limerick.

Michael Cahill gave a three-acre site for the church and cemetery in Christmas Creek. Our beloved old Parish Priest, Father James Enright, was one of the four Enright brothers. Father Thomas Enright, spent most of his priestly life in Western Queensland.

Daniel, who had a farm near Beaudesert and Michael who established the firm of Enrights in 1885 and their sister Mrs James Cahill of Christmas Creek, comprised the rest of the family.

The four Dempsey brothers were still living when I came to Kerry. Only one of them married. John Dempsey’s wife was a Rafter. They had one daughter, Mrs Fitton. The ruins of their old slab dwelling on the river flat was there for many years, There was a grave of one of the family near it, evidently buried there before the new cemetery was opened.

There were three Horan grandsons in the first AIF. Matt’s son, Ronald, paid the supreme sacrifice.

Dr Kevin O’Doherty, one of the political convicts of 1848 was well known to the pioneers of Logan, Kerry and Christmas Creek. Nine of those men were sentenced to be hanged. O’Doherty, a young medical student, got ten years in Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was called.

Influential friends prevailed on Queen Victoria and the other nine were commuted to life in the penal colonies of Australia. When self-government was granted to the Australian colony in 1851, the transport of convicts was abolished and the 1848 Irish convicts were given a conditional pardon, providing they did not return to Ireland or Great Britain. In 1854 O’Doherty went to Paris where he completed his medical training.

The others, with the exception of Charles Gavin Duffy, went to America where they gained high rank in the USA. In 1871 Queen Victoria was informed that the Charles Gavin Duffy who had been elected Premier of Victoria was one of the men transported for high treason in 1848.

Duffy was knighted for his fine statesmanship when he retired from public life.

His son, Frank Gavin Duffy, became the Chief Justice of Australia and sons John and Charles, played a notable part in the political life of the Commonwealth. After some years, Dr O’Doherty returned with his wife, the poetess, Eva of the Nation and practiced his profession in Brisbane.

The late Mrs Tommerup told me she remembered the Doctor very well. She also knew the poet and writer, Charles Kingsley, who had a property in the Beaudesert district for a time.

Dr O’Doherty was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Queens for some years. He died in 1895.

22 Never yet were men more loyal To the holy ties that bind them And the love they gave their country Made me conscious of my own.

John O’Brien

…………………….

It was the O’Reillys that first got me interested in John O’Brien, the Poet Laureate of the Irish in Australia. His poems had been appearing in the Sydney Bulletin. Then, in 1921 a volume of his poems, ‘Around the Boree Log’ was published. I sent one of the first editions to Ireland. Rev Father John Hartigan wrote under the pen name, John O’Brien. He was the son of Irish pioneer parents in Yass, New South Wales.

Of his mother he wrote:

“With trust in God and her good man She settled neath the spur The old slab dwelling, spick and span, Was world enough for her”

So faithfully did he portray the Irish settlers, it seemed to each of them that he was writing about their own neighbours and themselves.

23 VIII

You also have many pioneer ancestors on the distaff side of the family. Uncle John O’Keeffe, the eldest of my father’s family came to Victoria in 1861; and three cousins, Willie O’Keeffe and his two sisters, about the same time. The cousins were the children of my grandfather’s brother Pat. They were very young when their parents died and were raised by relatives.

The girls married in Victoria; one was Mrs Leahy and the other, Mrs Breen. They have numerous descendants in Victoria. Their brother moved to New South Wales where he settled after he married.

Uncle John worked on the railway construction and later took a farm in Trentham, Victoria where he remained during the rest of his long life. He died in 1922, aged 84. In 1875 his two brothers, Michael and Tom, came to Queensland. Father D M O’Keeffe, Michael’s son, says in his memoirs, “My father carried his swag for a year or two and with another Irishman, named John Wood, built many of the post and rail fences near Gatton”.

In 1905 these fences carried the advertisement, ‘Vote for O’Keeffe’. His father first selected land at Mt Berryman and later at Sandy Creek, near Laidley where he made his home after his marriage. They carried on farming and dairying from 1884. He was active in promoting the dairying industry and in 1900, was an organiser and first Chairman of Directors for Queensland Co-operative Dairying Association.

He had a term in parliament as member for Lockyer. Then in 1911 he was appointed agent for Irish Immigration for the Queensland government. Agents were also sent to England and Scotland at the same time. Uncle Mick’s wife was Elizabeth Ryan of Hollyford County, Tipperary. They had a family of ten children and most of them settled on the land around the Gatton and Laidley districts. Their son, the late Father D M O’Keeffe of Nundah, was at one time Parish Priest of Beaudesert.

Aunt Eliza had three brothers here also. They worked at tin mining for a time and then settled at Allora and Clifton, wheat farming. Uncle Tom took a selection too but gave it up and started a roving life. In 1878 he wrote home from Roma but seems to have spent most of his life in New South Wales. Tom was like the wandering minstrel, wherever he went he had his violin with him that he brought from Ireland. I can imagine him playing for country dances.

After aunt Eliza’s death, uncle Mick retired and lived at Albion. He wanted to retire previous to his wife’s death but she would not leave the home she loved. His youngest daughter, May, kept house for him until her marriage. Uncle Tom lived with them for a few years then took a trip to Sydney to see his old friends and died there. He was very deaf in his old age.

Two of my mother’s uncles came to Queensland in the sixties, Mathew and Michael Hogan. Mathew was on the diggings for a time and settled in a hotel in Warwick. Both he and his wife died young, he was only thirty-five.

They left a little daughter in the care of old friends, Tim Dwyer and his wife. Tim’s people and the Hogans were old neighbours at home. They would have been very happy about the marriage of their beloved foster daughter to Dan Connolly, who hailed from Skibereen County, Cork and became one of the well-known pioneers of Warwick and prominent in its progress.

24 It was due to his insight that the town got its first permanent water supply. The Connolly Dam is named after him. He was Mayor of Warwick till his retirement. They had a family of three sons and three daughters.

Two girls trained for the nursing profession at the Brisbane Mater Hospital; one is now Sr M, the other took a trip overseas before marriage and visited her grandfathers old home in Ballysheedy. Tim Dwyer and his wife remained lifelong friends of the Connolly family, the grand children of their old friend, Matt Hogan. All trace of his brother has been lost. He probably went to North Queensland.

Tim Dwyer died in 1932 at the age of ninety years. The Connollys used to call him Uncle Tim. I remember Tim’s old brother and sister at home in Knockglass. A cousin of theirs, a Mrs Scanlan, cared for them in their old age. Two of Mrs Scanlan’s family married cousins of ours.

My grandfather had a cousin, Jerry Hogan, who went to New Zealand. I remember when he came home for a visit about the end of the agrarian strife, 1902 or 3. Jerry was so happy to be back he decided to end his days among the scenes of his childhood. His wife was dead and there was no family. But first he had to return to New Zealand to fix up his affairs. Unfortunately, Jerry died soon after his return to New Zealand.

I should add that besides his brother and sister, Jerry and Bridget, Tim Dwyer also had a sister, a nun in Ireland. Their cousin, Mrs Scanlan, has two granddaughters, nuns in Ireland also. Their father was our cousin, Dick Tracey.

With their families, some other relatives came to North Queensland from Ballysheedy in 1880, the Breens and the Quillinnans. They were early residents of Mackay; their families moved to Brisbane. Dan Quillinan was a journalist on the old Brisbane Courier or Daily Mail before the two papers became amalgamated as the Courier Mail. His brother, John, was a CPS in various towns and did relieving work in Beaudesert in the twenties. John used to visit us at Nindooinbah. Their sister, Kit was married to Colonel Fred Rosenskjar. They were the parents of Father John Rosenskjar of Mt Gravatt.

Dan Breen, an uncle of the Breens and Quillinans, came to Mackay from Ballysheedy in the early nineties. He was married and hoped to bring his wife and family here but his wife would not leave home and Dan went back. I remember when he came home in 1902. Dan was the typical bushman and loved the life he shared with the pioneers of tropical North Queensland and would have remained if he could have got his family here. Dan was a great yarn spinner and used to tell the neighbours amazing and incredible tales of life in Queensland. He used to sing bush ballads. He had three sons and a daughter; one of his sisters in Brisbane was a Mrs Reody.

25 IX

I have no memories of our O’Keeffe grandparents who had died before most of their numerous grandchildren were born. We have many happy recollections of our maternal grandparents who were still living when we left Ireland. It would have been a great joy to grandfather if his brother Matt had been spared to see them all again, like cousin Jerry Hogan. Their youngest son, John, was a Christian Brother and assistant General of the Order from 1920 to 1947. During those years he travelled extensively in various parts of the world. Brother Hogan had more than one trip to America and had the pleasure of meeting his sisters there.

His sister, Bridget was a nun in Little Rock, Arkansas. He made his visitation of Australia and New Zealand in 1929. He came to see Nell and I in Beaudesert. While in Warwick, he visited his relatives, the Connolly family. Mrs Connolly’s father, Matt Hogan, was his uncle.

The Christian Brothers have been in Australia since 1868. At one time, Brother Hogan was appointed by his Superior General to come to Australia to establish more of their schools here. His parents asked to have him left in Ireland during their lifetime. They lived to a good old age, grandmother being almost ninety. Brother Hogan also ended his days in his native land at the age of eighty-eight and in the 62nd year of his religious profession. He died in 1960.

Those maternal grandparents of ours celebrated their Diamond Jubilee of their marriage in 1914. There was great rejoicing in the old home in Ballysheedy. This event took place less than two years after we left home. Gran had some of the jubilee gifts sent to us in Brisbane. When Mary became a postulant to All Hallows in 1915, she told us all about the Diamond Jubilee.

Uncle Johns visit was shortly before we left Nindooinbah to take up Uncle John Horan’s farm in Kerry. I asked him for an Irish name for our new home. Glenaulin meant ‘a beautiful valley’, (the Gaelic spelling being ‘Gleann Luinn’), so it was the name we chose and uncle John said, “If you will be living on a hill, ‘Ardeven’ means a pleasant height”. This is how Brendan and Kathleen named their home on a hill. Uncle John’s name in religion was Brother Gregory Hogan. There were three sons and eight daughters in my mother’s family.

In 1925 Uncle Michael paid a second visit to his native land and found many welcome changes had been made by the government of the New Republic. With his son, Father Denis, they were members of the Australian pilgrimage to Lourdes, Rome and Ireland.

Father Denis O’Keeffe says on that overseas trip, “My father and I visited Chantilly near Paris to see aunt Maggie’s grave. She died in 1901 and was in the Order of St Joseph of Cluny, entering the Noviciate in 1876. She did not see any of her family again, except one niece, Helena O’Keeffe, who was a governess for a family near Paris and used to visit her”. They found the Convent had been taken over by the Masonic Government and was now used as government offices. A gendarme directed them to the nun’s cemetery where they found aunts name on a huge mausoleum among the names of many other nuns buried there:

Souer Marie des Saintes Evangelists O’Keeffe 1901

In 1925 there was a reunion in the old home in Glenough, of what was left of the old family of eleven.

26 After forty years a monk in Mt Melleray, uncle Denis had the privilege of visiting the home of his boyhood; the old house itself was no longer there; it was demolished by the Black and Tans in 1921.

However, he blessed and offered Mass in the new house and also in the Parish Church, Rossmore. The other members of the family were my father, Tim, uncle Dan, who lived in the old home, Mick and aunt Ellen, who was the mother of Nell and Margaret who came to Queensland with us.

Aunt Ellen also had eleven children. She was Mrs William O’Dwyer of Bonerea. Two daughters, May and Bridget, were nuns in England.

Uncle Dan had a family of thirteen, the last to be reared in the old thatched home before it was destroyed. The boys in this family served under three flags during the First World War. Bill, the eldest, who had gone to Perth, Western Australia in 1909, joined the AIF, Denis, who went to America, was in the USA Army and Joe, Con and Dan were in the fight for National Independence at home.

Paddy and Nora, after some years in America, were home on holidays when the 1916 rising started and remained to do their bit for their native land. Two of their sisters, Maggie and Sara, were nuns in England. Sara, Sr M Benedict, is still living.

Our grandmother O’Keeffe died before she was seventy. She had an old aunt in Thurles who outlived her by over forty years. Great aunt Betsy Danahar lived to one hundred and seven, she would have been born about 1806. Any education she had would have been from a Hedge schoolmaster.

Even our grandmother would have been grown up and married by 1829 when the penal law against education for the Irish relaxed and schools were opened in 1832. Some of the letters written by our grandmother are still extant. One of our grandfathers was written not later than 1869. He died in 1870.

Father Denis O’Keefe says in his memoirs, “Those old letters show a fine command of the English language”. Although they would still speak mostly the old Gaelic in the home. He said, “It is incredible”.

John and Michael treasured their home letters through the years and the letters outlived them. He saw and perused uncle John’s letters when he visited him in Trentham in 1917. Those letters are now in the possession of his granddaughter Mamie O’Keeffe. Father O’Keeffe passed his father’s letters on to his nephew, Denis Scanlan.

Father D M O’Keeffe says, “What strikes me most about those old letters is above all, the tender love and affection that old family had for each other. It is exemplary – also the deep-seated piety and faith of each of them. And, a man feels on reading their letters that he had a good ancestry. The light of Heaven to their souls”.

During 1954 Father O’Keeffe transcribed from the original old letters, all, that were still decipherable. There would be a hundred or more.

During his time as Parish Priest of Beaudesert he took a great interest in the history of the Logan and Albert pioneers. He was, himself, the son of pioneers and would have been the first

27 native born priest of Beaudesert. He succeeded the late Father J Hennessey in 1933. He was especially interested in the history of Kerry and wished to have the spot where the first Mass was offered in Kerry, in the old Horan homestead, commemorated in some way. He loved to converse with the old people of the parish about their early days.

Father D O’Keeffe celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his ordination in1936 and was Parish Priest of Nundah when he died in 1956.

28 X

I was four years in Kerry when dad and I married on 11th February, 1918. We were both of the same old farming stock whose roots are deep in the soil of Ireland.

Our first home was at Nindooinbah. After over ten years there, we moved to Kerry and took over uncle John Horan’s old place. It was vacant for some years then and was in a sadly ruined state by 1929.

In 1927 Bernard O’Reilly aptly describes it in his poem ‘John Horan’s House’

There’s a sad deserted homestead Under dark pines by the ford Where at night the howl of dingoes Cuts the silence like a sword.

There are shingles that are rotted Sun and rain and wind come through And eerie slanted moonbeams From crescent bright and new.

…………

A great deal of renovating was needed to give the old house a new lease of life. And now, after over forty years, the home of their childhood has become very dear to my family.

Mary became a postulant to All Hallows in 1915 and was professed in 1918, shortly after we were married.

The two boys from County Kerry that we met in Townsville, Jack Burkett and Con Tangney, came to Brisbane a year or so later. Con came hoping Nell would marry him. I liked Con and I was sorry Nell would not accept him. Jack was more successful and he and Margaret were married in 1915.

The two ‘Nells’, as we used to call them, became acquainted with their future husbands some time later. Our cousin, Jocie O’Hehir, married Paddy Wright, a policeman, in Brisbane. Jocie O’Dwyer also married but her marriage broke up after her husband returned from the war. She had no family.

We were all married in St Stephens Cathedral by the Rev Father Lane. When Father Lane found that dad and I came from Kerry near Beaudesert and knowing I was from Tipperary, he asked me was I ever in County Kerry. I told him I was in Listowel once to see my aunt, Mother Joseph, in the Convent there.

29 The following details appear on their Marriage Certificate:

When and where married: 11 February 1918; St Stephen’s Cathedral, Brisbane, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Minister/Registrar: Maurice Lane Bridegroom’s name and occupation: Bernard Ward; Farmer Birthplace: Kerry, Beaudesert, Queensland Age: 36 years Usual place of residence: Nindooinbah Estate, Beaudesert Father’s name and occupation: Patrick Ward; Farmer Mother’s name and maiden surname: Annie Horan Bride’s name and occupation: Sarah O’Keeffe Birthplace: Ballagh, Tipperary, Ireland Age: 25 years Usual place of residence: Kerry, Beaudesert Father’s name and occupation: Timothy O’Keefe; Hotelkeeper Mother’s name and maiden surname: Mary Hogan Witnesses: Thomas Ward; Agnes Ward

Father Lane said’ “Listowel is my home town. I know Mother Joseph. I used to offer Mass in the Convent Chapel when I was home a few years ago”. Father Maurice Lane was a brother of the late Dr Morgan Lane of Brisbane.

Mary celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her profession in 1968. Nell and Alf also had their Golden Jubilee in 1968 at their home in Beaudesert. My sister,Nell, married Alf Tutton in 1918 also. They had five children: Mary married Bob Smith, Eamon never married, Tim married Anne McNamara, Denis married Agnes Reid and Frank never married.

Nell and Alf came to the Beaudesert district four years later than I did, shortly after their marriage. Their first home was at Christmas Creek where Nell had charge of the telephone exchange. After a few years they moved to Beaudesert.

Alf and his three brothers arrived in Western Australia a few years before we left for Queensland. Their mother had died a few years before and their father died shortly before they left home. The family home and farm was sold. Frank, Jack and Reg were in the first AIF, Frank was the only brother to survive the war. He returned to Western Australia where he took up farming and married. Hilda, who was, I think, the eldest, came to Western Australia with her husband after the war. They lived in Perth and had no family. Another sister, who was a nurse in army hospitals during the war, married a doctor. Hilda seems to be the only sister to leave England. There were four boys and six girls in the family. Their father had a brother in New Zealand. He was a prominent businessman in the mutton export trade and he had one son.

The Burkett family also lived in Beaudesert for a few years and in other country towns before returning to Brisbane with their large family. They had eleven children and also a baby girl that died in infancy. Margaret and Jack went to North Queensland and had their first home in Mackay. Margaret was the only one of us to take a trip to the old land, which she did after Jacks death in 1957. With her daughter, Maureen, they visited Rome, Lourdes and Fatima and spent some time in Ireland.

Cousin Nell struck grief early in her married life. Her husband, Edgar Hayton, died about six years into their marriage. Ted, as he was usually called, died suddenly, shortly before the birth of

30 their little daughter, Eileen. They had two sons. Ted was born in New South Wales and was of English descent. His mother and sisters used to visit Nell and the family in Brisbane.

Jack Burkett had a younger brother here who was in the First World War. Tom’s wife, Mollie, is living at an advanced age. Tom died a few years before Jack and Margaret. During their time in Mackay, the Burketts got to know the relatives whose parents came out to North Queensland in 1880. They were Quillinans and the Breens and Reodys.

Cousin Josephine O’Hehir, who married Paddy Wright, a policeman in Brisbane, had a family of eight children. One daughter when finished her training at the Mater entered the Order.

Fifty years after we left Ireland the six of us cousins were still living. We talked about a reunion but it never took place. It is now sixty-two years and three of us are left.

Our brother, Jack, came to Queensland a year later than us with Jim O’Keeffe, Mamie and Kay’s father. Jack went to North Queensland and Jim worked on uncle Mick’s farm at Blenheim, Laidley for a year or so. Then he joined the police in Brisbane. After his marriage he took a hotel. They lived at Clayfield after their retirement.

Jack had served his apprenticeship to a blacksmith but did not continue with his trade here. He spent most of his life in outback New South Wales on stations where he often got work at his trade, shoeing horses.

Our young brother, Pat, arrived here in 1928. Jack met him in Sydney. While in Sydney they met many old friends from home. Pat returned to Ireland in 1932.

Several more relatives came to Brisbane a few years after our arrival. They were Ryans, Aherans, Scanlans and Daleys. John Scanlan was a teacher. His brother, Martin, married Lizzie OKeeffe. The late Father H Ryan of Kalinga was another and Rody Aheran, who had a hotel in Clifton.

The three Daley girls had an aunt in Brisbane, a Mrs Donovan of Red Hill. They went to Warwick. Kathie has a daughter a Sister of Mercy.

In the post war depression Pat returned to Ireland and married. He had hoped to bring Jocie to Queensland but the prospects of making a living here were very poor at the time. Pats married life was very short. His lovely young wife died in 1943; leaving seven little children, the three youngest were put in the care of the Presentation Nuns in the Dundrum Convent. Winifred, the baby died soon after her mother.

In 1938, Mary Sr M Urban was sent to Ireland to join the staff of the new noviate at Timoleague County, Cork. She returned to All Hallows in 1947 with a group of novices.

In my quotation from history, I have tried to give you some idea of the background of your ancestors before they left Ireland. Their subsequent history in Queensland is far from being a complete record but it is the best I could do.

Glenaulin. - February, 1973.

31

Sarah and Bernard Ward had five children. Timothy Brendan married Kathleen Keaveny, Anne Bridget (Nancy) married Kevin Duff, Mary Winifred married Roy Gilroy, Bernard Patrick (Brian) married Eileen Keaveny and Ita Margaret married Jack Undery. ( Ita died at the age of 36, leaving four little boys. The two youngest, Tom and Michael now have a lease on Glenaulin).

Brian Ward

32