A St Patrick’s Day jig, appearing in the Australian Town and Country Journal on 27 March 1886.
In Wollongong in 1857 (and, presumably in the absence of any green beer being available) you probably had best been advised to have had a few dancing lessons or otherwise you’d end up a wallflower down at the party held in Market Square.
It has been claimed that St Patrick’s Day has been commemorated on 17 March ever since St Patrick’s death in the fifth century.
Whether or not that is true it would appear that for hundreds of years some Christians have observed it as a religious feast day.
The holiday was officially added to the Church calendar by the early 1600s. But as for the colour green becoming a symbol of the day, this only happened after the 1798 Irish Rebellion against British rule.
Blue, the colour of the ancient Irish flag, had first been identified with St Patrick’s Day. Yet the Irish rebels wore green to differentiate themselves from the British army which clothed itself in red and so green it is today for the Irish rebels decided it was time to “Paddy like it was 1799”.
People do like eating, however, and there was also a big celebratory St Patrick’s dinner organised in Wollongong in 1857.
Some high-profile names turned up in the Gong including the honourable John Robertson MLA – soon to be a prime mover in the passing of NSW’s famous 1861 land acts. Brilliant Dan Deniehy MLA, the highly educated son of two former convicts of Irish birth who had prospered in the colony, was also in attendance.
Deniehy argued that the real issue for poor Irish settlers was control of the vast grazing lands of inland NSW, which the squatter class had seized for themselves.
He accused the conservatives, the squatters and some dozen of their political friends of wanting to “confiscate for their own uses the finest portions of the public lands, to stereotype themselves into a standing government, so that they may retain, watch over, and protect the booty they wrest”.
John Robertson may have also at least pretended to give poorer settlers access to land and to increase farming and agricultural development in NSW, but as usual the toffs (Australia’s bunyip aristocratic squattocracy) won and developed cunning ways to prevent poor settlers encroaching on the land upon which they squatted.
St Patrick’s Day celebrations offered those of Irish descent or political affiliation a chance to let off some steam in honour of a bloke who was supposedly very good at chasing snakes out of Ireland.
The future Sir John Robertson, however, may have only turned up for the party because he is reputed to have had “an enviable capacity to take and hold his liquor”.
Things weren’t quite as much fun the following year.
In 1858 the good burghers of Fairy Meadow apparently believed the best way to honour the patron saint was to make sure a ploughing match took place. Perhaps they felt ploughing up the Fairy Meadow might not only rid it of snakes but possibly even turn up a few leprechauns.
Despite the fact that the gross amount paid in ploughing match prizes “was upwards of £90” a “suggestion was thrown out, and generally approved of, that, next year” a dinner should be held about a week after the ploughing.
Knowing that some were keen on gambling, other Wollongongers decided that “a day at the races” would be a better bet than tilling the soil competitively.
These 1858 St Patrick’s celebrations, however, were much dampened by the scheduling of a funeral of a young man with a very Irish surname: Died at Wollongong on Monday morning, the 15th inst., James, the youngest son of the late Mr Peter Kelly, of Fairy Meadow, in the nineteenth year of his age, of consumption. The deceased had a long illness, during which he suffered the most horrible agony, with a fortitude and patience surprising in a person of his tender years. (Illawarra Mercury, 18 March 1858).
Despite a good number of Irish now living there, Dapto oddly chose that most English of games – a cricket match – to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in 1859. But things got a bit more fancy in 1864 when at “Mr Ziems’ Bulli Hotel on the Bulli Road” not only was dancing offered but “a splendid brass band” as well.
But by 1865 a bet on the gee-gees was back as the order of the day’s celebrations in the Gong.
I guess it was pretty much a case of “if it ain’t brogue, don’t fix it”. Nonetheless back in 1857 at Market Square it was likely that when the quadrilles were over the jig was probably up.
Indeed it had probably all been a jig mistake. But as every leprechaun I’ve ever met says, “Irish you a whole pot of gold!” (boom, tish).
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