NSW & ACT Family History Conference :: Sep 14

Botany Bay Family History Society is proud to be hosting the 28th Annual Conference of the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies. There is an exciting lineup of speakers, exhibitors and events to entertain and inform you. We'll be there to help with your Irish ancestry questions and for our big book sale!

Where: Tradies, 57 Manchester Road Gymea - click here for map

Time: 10:00am - 3:00pm

When: 14 - 16th September

The theme for the event - Endeavour Resolution Adventure Discovery - takes its inspiration from the names of the ships associated with Captain James Cook's Pacific Voyages

We're looking forward to meeting everyone at the Expo. Don’t forget to check out our series of books on Irish convicts, and because stocks are running low and we are clearing the decks for the latest book on the Minerva convicts, all books will be reduced from $50 to $30 just for the conference! Hope to see you there!

Visiting the Irish Memorial in Waverley Cemetery

Recently we visited the Irish Memorial at Waverley cemetery in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The marble and mosaic structure was built in 1898 to commemorate the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and the part played by Michael Dwyer, 'the Wicklow Chief'.

Michael Dwyer, born in Wicklow, Ireland, in 1772, was 26 when the 1798 Rising against English rule began. He led the English on a merry dance until December 1803, when he surrendered on condition he and his colleagues be sent to America. The English reneged and sent them to Botany Bay aboard the Tellicherry in 1806.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie gave him a full pardon in 1814. Dwyer died 11 years later, aged 53, and was buried in Sydney's Devonshire St cemetery (where Central Station now stands).

In the lead up to the centenary of the uprising, the Irish community in Sydney campaigned to have a memorial erected for the Wicklow Chief and his colleagues. The £2000 needed was raised by the Irish in Sydney, country towns in NSW and in Queensland, Victoria and New Zealand.

On 22 May 1898, Dwyer's remains, and that of his wife's, were moved from Devonshire St to the memorial in Waverley. It was the largest funeral Sydney had seen with 400 horse-drawn carriages following the hearse in a procession of 10,000 people watched by 100,000 others.

Image courtesy of State Records NSW: Devonshire Street Cemetery, Sydney, 1902

Image courtesy of State Records NSW: Surveying for Central Station, 1900

More than 100 years, the memorial still stands in tribute in by the sea.

Grave of Michael Dwyer - Wicklow Chief Waverley cemetery Irish memorial, Sydney Source: Irish Wattle

Useful links for your own research:

[1] Old Sydney Burial Ground - City of Sydney

[2] Archives In Brief 69 - Cemetery records, State Records NSW

[3] Waverley Cemetery, NSW transcriptions & index, Randwick Library
[4] Waverley & South Head Cemetery Transcriptions, Findmypast AU
[5] Waverley Council Local History Fact Sheets
[6] Waverley Cemetery Who's Who
[7] Society of Australian Genealogists :: Camperdown Cemetery guide