Sidney Nolan's painting The Trial, depicting Ned Kelly on trial.

Hi all,

I thought it might be time to introduce you to Ned Kelly, Australia’s folk hero and bushranger. What’s a bushranger, you ask? A bushranger is an outlaw who can hide in Australian bushes. I am getting into my trusty time traveller and heading back to 11 November, 1880, to interview the notorious Irish-Australian legend in Melbourne.

Marcella: Ned, how are you doing?
Ned: I am taking the blame and the shame, so not well.

Marcella: What’s goin’ on?
Ned: I have been caught up with some social contradictions and I am on trial for murdering Constable Lonigan.

Marcella: WHAT! That is terrible! What did the judge say?
Ned: May God have mercy on your soul.

Marcella: Did you really kill that policeman?
Ned: Yes. I asked him to surrender but he drew his gun to shoot me, so I killed him out of self defense.

Marcella: I hear that you are an incredible shot.
Ned: Yes, I have a dead-accurate shot with both rifle or revolver.

Marcella: I understand that you are very loyal to all your friends and supporters.
Ned: I would risk my own skin for the well-being of an ally.

Marcella: What’s the song I hear people singing?
Ned: This is a poem that people are getting fined ($4 or two months in jail) for singing about me.

Marcella: How does it go?
Ned:

My name is Ned Kelly,
I’m known adversely well.
My ranks are free,
my name is law,
Wherever I do dwell.
My friends are all united,
my mates are lying near.
We sleep beneath shady trees,
No danger do we fear.

Marcella: Wow, that will get you 2 months time in the 80’s, huh?
Ned: Such is life.

Marcella: Would you believe me if I told you that you will become a folk hero and national icon?
Ned: Me? I can’t imagine after being hung today that I will be remembered.

Marcella: Oh yes! People write books and produce TV shows about you and your gang .
Ned: What’s a TV?

Marcella: Moving pictures in a box…it sounds a little crazy, but you just have to believe me. Your story becomes legendary. People always love the under dog, the renegade, the rebel,  the rogue and the rascal.
Ned: Yes, but does anyone sing a song about me?

Marcella: Johnny Cash sings a good one.
Ned: I am curious - whatever happens to that pompous aristocrat judge Sir Redmond Barry who gave me this death sentence?

Marcella: He dies 12 days after you from an infected carbuncle.
Ned: Such is life.

Marcella: I know this is a bit of an awkward interview, right before you head to the gallows, but I want to wish you well in the after life.
Ned: All I ask, is that you remember me and the Kelly Gang.

Marcella: I will! I will also write about you in a blog.
Ned: What’s a blog?

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