Joe Byrne (bushranger)

Joseph "Joe" Byrne (November 1856 – 28 June 1880) was an Australian bushranger born in Victoria to an Irish immigrant. A friend of Ned Kelly, he was a member of the "Kelly Gang" who were declared outlaws after the murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek. Despite wearing the improvised body armour for which Ned Kelly and his gang are now famous (and which he is reputed to have designed), Byrne received a fatal gunshot during the gang's final violent confrontation with police at Glenrowan, in June 1880.

Joe Byrne was born in 1856 in the Woolshed, near Beechworth, Victoria. His father Patrick Byrne came from Carlow, Ireland (1831 Carlow Ireland- Nov 1870 Beechworth). He is buried at Benalla, Victoria. Joe's mother Margaret (née White) was born at Scariff, County Clare Ireland. She was one of the "Irish Famine Girls" who immigrated to Sydney, Port Phillip and Adelaide from workhouses in every county of Ireland. These girls were given free passages to Australia due to poverty or parents dying during the Great Irish Famine. All, including Margaret, ended up in workhouses from where they were chosen to come to Australia via the Irish Famine Scheme between 1848 and 1850. Australia welcomed over 4,000 Irish 'orphan' girls during this period. Aged between 14 and 18, they were given the opportunity to make a new life in Australia. The Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, operated as a depot where the girls were first accommodated, is home to the Irish Famine Memorial. Margaret White was the daughter of Denis White and Margaret Ryan who were both from Scariff, County Clare (Margaret's mother was noted as being deceased at time of Margaret's departure to Australia). She came with many other young women on the ship the 'Thomas Arbuthnot'. The ship's surgeon, Charles Strutt was a kind and compassionate man and accompanied over 100 of these young women on a journey south to Yass and Gundagai where they found work in suitable families. Margaret was indentured a servant girl [as most of these girls were] for an Irishman, Nathaniel Stephen Powell, who was a grazier and the local magistrate for at Bungendore NSW, near modern-day Canberra. She stayed at the Hyde Park Barracks for 40 days until she and many other girls were personally accompanied by Surgeon Charles Strutt to Nathaniel Powell's property 'Turella' in NSW. Sadly many of the records of the workhouses do not survive and that is the case for the Scariff workhouse in County Clare were Margaret was before she emigrated.

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