The Wild Colonial Boy

Van Diemen's Land is a hell for a man
To live out his whole life in slavery
Where the climate is raw and the gun makes the law
Neither wind or rain cares for bravery

Sam Nolan wasn’t a rebel, except when it came to people telling him what to do. He grew up on the grimy streets of Dublin in the early 19th century and had committed many felonious acts before the law finally caught up with him. It was slippers that got him in the end. The Jewish shoemaker on Bachelor’s Walk went to the Synagogue every Friday and being a holy day, he naively assumed that he could leave his shop unlocked. Sam had less respect for religious protocol and helped himself to six pairs of fine silk finished slippers. What he intended doing with them was unclear as the sewer like dwelling in which he lived wasn’t exactly suited to fancy footwear.

Unfortunately for Sam, his escape coincided with the departure of two Policemen from Murray’s Tearooms next door and almost before his feet touched the ground he was heading towards Botany Bay and seven years at the mercy of her Majesty’s Government. While Australia seemed like the end of the world in those days, in figurative speech it wasn’t like that at all. For most transportees the trip over in the musty hull of an English sailing ship was the worst part of their punishment. Once arrived, they were allocated to a free settler to work on farms or in the businesses around Old Sydney town. They didn’t wear shackles and they didn’t sleep in prison cells. The banishment itself was seen as the punishment and for those who came to terms with this; Australia could be a bright new start.

Sam was one of the large minority however, who were recidivist criminals and would have started a row in a phone box. He quickly worked his way up the Imperial punishment system, getting 200 lashes for turning up drunk for work and a month on a chain gang for bashing his overseer for having the temerity to ask Sam to do some work. When he stole two sheep from his master and sold them to the local butcher, Sam had committed the most heinous crime in that colony that didn’t result in hanging. The punishment was considered to be the harshest available. Imprisonment in Port Arthur on the south east corner of Van Diemen’s Land.

His cell is still visible in the magnificently restored prison that sits 100km south of Hobart in modern day Tasmania. It’s an eerie place, haunted by ghosts of the poor creatures who were tortured there in a place that resembles Guantanamo Bay. Many of them were Irish and I was most drawn to their stories.

We Irish have a romantic view of transportation of course. In our mind the English who were banished to Botany Bay were Dickensian scallies caught dipping their criminal fingers into the pockets of passing Gentlemen, or indulging in unnatural but loving acts with the animals that roamed Albion’s hills and dales.

The Irish on the other hand were brave rebels, plucked from the bosoms of their family by a cruel coloniser. They were a gallant band of political prisoners punished for patriotic acts such as stealing Trevelyan’s corn or liberating Irish cows from the land of absentee English landlords. Our songs and ballads mythologise these convicts and nowhere are they described as criminals. “The Fields of Athenry” is probably Ireland’s most famous songs and is sung at sporting matches and whenever two Irish people meet each other in a pub while outside the country. The song’s hero, Michael, is sent to Botany Bay and we’re asked to see this as a family tragedy.

Likewise, the lads chained below decks in “Back Home in Derry” were all gallant rebels, with not a pickpocket among them. The truth of course is messier. Sam Nolan was just one of thousands of petty criminals sent from Ireland to Australia in the 19th Century. You can see details of their crimes and transportation in a database kindly supplied by the Irish Government in 1988 as part of the 200 year celebration of Australia’s settlement. While most countries made gifts to the Aussies along the lines of a set of steak knives or a nice book, we sent them a list of all the criminals we had off-loaded to their continent over the past two centuries.

There were some genuine political prisoners of course, such as William O’Brien and the rest of the Young Ireland brigade from 1848. When you get to Port Arthur however, you discover that these gallant rebels were housed in a comfortable cottage apart from the general prisoner population. It’s a crushing disappointment as we like to think of our heroes being abused by the cruel British captors. Not invited down to the Commandants House for Tea and Tiffin every Sunday afternoon.

The irony of Port Arthur is that it is the Irish common criminals who provide a sense of pride to the modern visitor. Their stoic faces stare out from pictures adorning the museum wall and the records tell of their fortitude in facing the lash. But their finest moment came in the 1840s. The fine church of St David had been built to provide religious instruction to the prisoners. Attendance was obligatory but the arrival of a papist hating Irish clergyman led to a revolt among the Irish convicts. They refused to attend church and insisted on the appointment of a Catholic priest and a separate service. Despite punishments that would make an Al-Qaeda suspect crack, they refused to budge and eventually the authorities gave in to their demands. And so Australia got its first Catholic prison chapel.

I like to think that Sam Nolan was one of those who fought for the right to speak to God in the way he saw fit. It seems to me that this is how they retained some dignity in this dehumanising place. It’s odd the things that make you proud to be Irish.