Help: relation between Ireland & Van Diemen's Land

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 02:00 PM

Can't say 'Strine seems much like Norfolk to me. There's a lot of London in it, and Essex/Kent. The original Estuary English.

I suspect the main source of 'Strine people is having to talk with their lips closed to keep out the flies and the dust.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 10:02 PM

Amos,

No, silly, I'm braising them!

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: GUEST,art
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 05:04 PM

as an addendum so many convicts were sent to australia from east anglia (norfolk and suffolk) due to the majistrates owning land in australia.if you compare the modern australian accent with that of east anglia there is an amazing similarity.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 04:48 PM

G'day Again ChrisE,

It occurred to me after posting last night (Sydney Time) that I may have overstated the case in respect of Tasmania as a 'second sentence' site. Once the settlement built up (founded in 1805) and civilised, convicts were sent there as first destination. Port Arthur even had a special separated prison at Point Puer for juvenile offenders.

Port Arthur also received Irish fenians with a bit higher profile than normal. Smith O'Brien was an Irish Member of Parliament convicted of treason. At Port Arthur, after he signed a parole, guaranteeing not to escape, he was housed in a small separate cottage. During the 1960s I did some restoration work on Smith O'Briens Cottage, which was then being used as the Youth Hostel at Port Arthur. It was up the hill, behind the Women's Prison, next to the Lunatic Asylum - later used as the Town Hall!
Smith O'Brien was contacted by the Irish/American group that financed the American Whaler The Catalpa to rescue Fenians sent to Australia. He explained that he had given his word of honour not to escape - and they carried on to rescue the 7 fenians in Western Australia - look up The Catalpa in the DT.

jofield: The lines are more like -

"They'll yoke you to the plough, my boys,
To plough Van Diemen's Land."

These lines come from the English broadside ballad usually called Van Dieman's Land

This song was proabably of the class of broadsides quietly encouraged by the Government to depict life in the convict settlements as babdly as possible - to counter rumours filtering back to Britain of convicts that served their time and then did well in the new country.

Many of the London poor (including hordes of dispossesed Irish: economic refugees /those evicted by the 'land clearances' of British landlords wishing to run sheep and cattle for the London market / rural labourers left unemployed by changes to broad acre land use / (later) those starved out by the Potato Famine, started to think it might be a good idea to steal something ... and eat that day ... or else get caught and end up in Australia (including V.D.L.) and prosper as they could not in England!

Another example of this class of reverse propaganda broadside is The Convict Maid (should be in DT) - a song that Trish Noakes, in my band of the 1980s Selectors, used to sing as a bit of a weepy. It obviously didn't work on her - she and her husband moved to Tasmania in the early '90s!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 02:24 PM

Are you cheering for breath mints now, Praise?

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 02:21 PM

Come again! Rah certs!

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: GUEST,ChrisE
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 02:20 PM

Thank you all very much!!!!!!! You have no idea how much you helped me! Thanx! :-)

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 01:48 PM

ChrisE,

Are ye gettin' this?

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: annamill
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 12:39 PM

I love this place. We're learning again! Thank goodness!

Love, annap

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:54 AM

AndyG,

Thanks, looks like a great resource, bound to help the thread originator A LOT!

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:42 AM

And stop yelling!

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: AndyG
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:27 AM

Praise,
Follow this link to find out who Van Diemen (note spelling) was.

AndyG

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: paddymac
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:11 AM

Although the Oxford Companion to Irish History is "usually" a helpful place to start looking, I was suprised to find that it does not have an entry on Van Diemen's Land. A glaring ommission. However, the entry on "transportation" reports that transportation to Van Diemen's Land occurred between 1803 and 1868 when transportation was abolished.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Willie-O
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:08 AM

Ask any hockey ref.

W-O

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:03 AM

Crowded goals is still a problem even today! Ask any yuppie...

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: MMario
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 11:02 AM

the goals were so crowded that transportees were kept in hulks anchored in the Thames, often for months, before being shipped out. Many didn't survive long enough to set sail.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Molly Malone
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 10:59 AM

Also, the "7 years transportation" that you will see in songs refers to the trip to Van Dieman's Land. A lot of people didn't even survive the trip.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 10:33 AM

Who was Van Dieman then?

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 09:06 AM

From "Female Transport" (See DT):

Tt hurt me heart when in the coach me native town passed by
To see so many I did know it fairly made me cry
Then to the ship I went with speed along with many more
Whose aching hearts did grieve to go all on Van Dieman's shore.

They chained us two by two and whipped and lashed us all along
They cut off our provisions if we did the least thing wrong
They march us in the burning sun until our feet are sore
So hard our lot now we have got all on Van Dieman's shore.

That pretty well sums up what it was...

We labor hard from morn til night until our bones do ache Then everyone we must obey our mouldy beds to make. We often wish when we lie down that we might rise no more To face our savage Governors all on Van Dieman's shore.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: jofield
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 09:00 AM

Many years ago, a friend of mine used to sing a song about the convicts which contained the lyrics --

"They'll hook ya to the plow, me boys,
To plow Van Diemen's Land."

Anyone know where this comes from?

James.

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: GUEST, Bob Bolton('s home computer)
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 06:05 AM

G'day ChrisE,

Van Dieman's Land, now Tasmania, was the furthest place Britain could send her most undesirable convicts. Botany Bay, the first settlement, these days a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, was first sentence. Tasmania was for worse (more anti-British) types or second offenders.

A lot of Irish were recalcitant enough to spend a lot of time in Tasmania. 'Frank the Poet' - Francis MacNamara, a member of a Protestant anti-British "secret society" was sentenced to (?) 7 years originally and served 17 years with extra sentences. He was last recorded leaving Tasmania with some pungent verse on the subject.

When I first went to Cygnet, south of Hobart, in 1966 the population was 90% of (some degree of) Irish descent (compared to 40% for Australia generally). There I found traces of one of Franks poems from the 1830s, still remembered as a song - celebrating the escape from second (third?) sentence to the hell hole of Macquarie Harbour of several (mostly Irish convicts who seized the brig "Cyprus" when the soldier's guard was down and sailed away, hoping to reach Japan and freedom.

I hope some of this helps. Look for "Cyprus Brig" in the DT.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Lan
From: alison
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 06:03 AM

Van Diemen's Land.. is Australia (possibly Tasmania)..... Irish (and English criminals)were transported here as punishment for their crimes.

If you need a song mentioning it.. look up "Back home in Derry" in the database...

slainte

alison

Subject: HELP ME, IMPORTANT!!!: Van Diemen's Land
From: GUEST,ChrisE
Date: 23 Feb 00 - 05:53 AM

Hi! Does anyone know the relation between Ireland and Van Diemen's land??? Need it for my Cert. (very quick), hope that anyone can help me!? Thanx Chris