Off to visit the O'Rowdies

Post date: Apr 22, 2013 10:24:48 AM

Hi all,

Back to work today - pretty stressful. Late start tomorrow though, got to take a work car home as I have a meeting out in the country at 10.30am so won't have time to go to work first. Heading to a town called Kilmore about an hour north of here - apparently one of the oldest inland towns in Victoria. According to wiki:

Kilmore was a stronghold of early Celtic settlers from Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall, and remains a strong Celtic area to this day. In the mid-1850s Kilmore was the electorate of the Irish-born Premier of Victoria (1857–59), John O'Shanassy (1818–83). O'Shanassy, an Irish Catholic, was the bane of the Protestant establishment in Melbourne and that rubbed-off of those who lived in Kilmore. O'Shanassy's supporters were referred to as 'O'Rowdies' and O'Shanassy as the 'Rowdy King".^[5] A Melbourne Punch cartoon "Freedom of Election at Kilmore" depicted the 1859 election day in the town as a wild barney of Irishmen.^[6][7]

I'm interested to meet some of these O'Rowdies myself