I have set up a research website in honour of Francis MacNamara aka
Frank the Poet in the year of his bicentenary
Since he died in 1861 it also in the 150th anniversary (sesquicentenary) of his death

Certainly something to celebrate amongst his greatest admirers and carriers of
his work ... the Australian folk community

Frank was perhaps the first industrial poet song/writer in Australia ... most of his compositions were based around protests a conditions, refusals to work (particularly in the Newcastle coal mines) or were celebrations of convict escapes, bushrangers, seizure of ships and of course the death of the monstrous commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal
settlement Captain Patrick Logan. His epic poem The Convict's Tour To Hell (often wrongly titled) is perhaps his best known composition, but his introductory epigram most perfectly sums up his political creed

My name is Frank MacNamara
A native of Cashel, County Tipperary
Sworn to be a Tyrant's foe
And while I live I'll crow

http://www/frankthepoet.com/

My research has turned up a heap of reports from Australian newspapers
as well as the full report of his trial in Kilkenny in 1832

see

http://www.frankthepoet.com/2011/03/kilkenny.html

also a complete report from the Mudgee Western Mail of the coroner's
inquest into his death in 1861

see

http://www.frankthepoet.com/2011/03/poet-death.html

suggestions, corrections, additions etc most welcome

cheers

Mark