Shamrocks in the Bush (4 June '05)
If you have a spare day in Canberra, get Jeff to pick you up, and take you
west past Yass, with his books at your elbow - local histories and the poems
of Banjo Paterson.
How Gilbert Diedı needs to be recited as you approach the old police horse
paddock where Gilbertıs grave is marked with white stones and a legend.
He was one of the bushrangers in Ben Hallıs mob, and of course he was
betrayed...
Every child on the Watershed can tell you how Gilbert died.
While you stand about impressed and perplexed, Jeff from behind a tree
tootles a sad old Irish melody on his wooden fife (carved from a mulga stump
from some local shearing shed by his friend Terry McGee).
At Binalong we recommend the Devonshire teas at the Old Royal Guesthouse,
Bookshop and Café.
Nearby is Galong Castle, built by an Irish ex-convict called Ryan.
Transported from Tipperary for helping burn a barracks or something, he did
well with sheep, and at his death owned more land than all of Tipperary.
The Catholics have added a brick college to his castle, and the resident
priest said we were welcome to look round.
We skipped the long walk to the shrine dedicated to a French saint.
We drove to the next hill where the graveyard sits beside a derelict rail
line.
Enclosed on all four sides by a stone wall, Ryans and Corcorans (also from
Tipperary) compete for posthumous dignity with tall marble angels by
Rosconi, for long the regionıs top monumental mason.
The regular excursion of the annual Shamrock in the Bushı historical
conference culminates here.
Jeff from behind a monument tootles a sad old Irish melody on his wooden
fife (which heıs also played in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, he mentions),
while the Irish-Australian historians watch the sun go down behind the
angels and the grazing sheep and the far hill.
Further on, at Boorowra, a spacious town with 42 historic features and three
Shamrock Trailsı, the old St Patrickıs Catholic Church of 1855 is notable
for Good Friday 1865 when a portion of the ceiling fell on worshippersı.
The second St Patrickıs (1877) has windows from Ireland depicting saints
Patrick, Bridget and Columbia, and Daniel OıConnell the Liberator.
Without Jeff we would have experienced none of this.
Wednesday 15 June 2005
Max Richards, Melbourne
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