AustLit

'In this his final book in a trilogy of works dealing with Ned Kelly and his community. Doug Morrissey presents the definitive account of the Stringybark Creek Police Murders. The ambush murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878 was Ned Kelly’s greatest crime. Ned shot and killed Michael Kennedy, Michael Scanlan and Thomas Lonigan and arrogantly blamed them for their deaths. Sergeant Kennedy endured a two hour interrogation and suffered a particularly callous and coldblooded death. Thomas McIntyre escaped the carnage and wrote a lengthy memoir of the Stringybark Creek encounter, which is annotated and published in Morrissey’s book for the first time. Doug unravels the Stringybark Creek Police Murders distinguishing myth from fact in an even handed and scholarly fashion. Newly researched material in the book provides insight into the family and professional lives of each of the Stringybark Creek policemen. Victim Impact Statements from Kennedy, Lonigan and McIntyre descendants are included. Regrettably, Michael Scanlan has no Victim Impact Statement as no family members could be located. Among the photographs included is Sergeant Kennedy’s gold watch looted from his dead body by Ned Kelly. More than the famous Kelly armour, Kennedy’s watch is a potent symbol of the bushranger’s evil deeds. What he did at Stringybark Creek legally cost Ned Kelly his life. He aggressively chose to confront the police and the die was cast for everything that followed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Doug Morrissey’s acclaimed book Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life (2015) was short listed for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History in 2016. This his second book in a trilogy of historical works dealing with Ned’s life and times, shines a much needed light on the bushranger’s pioneer community. The lives of selectors, squatters, and stock thieves are examined revealing a complex community, significantly different from the Kelly myth fiction of squatter tyranny, police oppression and selector poverty and despair. Morrissey’s book holds the key to understanding the Kelly Outbreak, Ned and his Sympathisers and the neglected ‘silent’ majority of respectable, law abiding residents. It reveals the collaborative fulcrum on which community life turned, based on cooperation not conflict. Settling the land is discussed as a successful pioneering endeavor rather than the usual depressing tale of woe. Cultural beliefs, shared values, community goals and how people conducted and expressed themselves in their daily lives, are at the center of this groundbreaking book. Those writing about the bushranger’s life and times from now on, will need to reference Morrissey’s evidence based research or their writings will not be taken seriously.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The books on Kelly multiply without adding to our understanding. Instead the mythologising becomes more intense and uncritical. Doug Morrissey has something new to say on Kelly and his world. Ned Kelly was very ready with excuses and justifications for his actions. His admiring biographers endorse them. In this book Doug subjects them to close scrutiny. They all fall over and a different Ned emerges – a man who had embraced a lawless life. Doug Morrissey is an expert on life in Kelly country. His previous writings have annoyed the admirers of Australia’s most famous bushranger. This book will cause heated debate. It includes a criticism of the best known Kelly books and a line by line annotation of the errors and misrepresentations in Ned’s own Jerilderie Letter.'

Source: From the introduction.