What do we know about the Lahy family?

There are few records to tell us the details or even the broad scope of Michael Lahy's life and those of his family. We have only scraps of disconnected information we can seek new threads to weave a picture of a faint image of what their life was. Much of our work must be done in the imagination. Empathy. Compassion. They are needed to make history come alive. Not objectivity. That is needed to kill the historic imagination.

Michael Lahy, Criminal

Michael Lahy (pronounced "Lackey") was no London pickpocket or petty forger. He was an agriculturalist, in the long tradition of Irish freedom fighters referred to by that man of God Ian Paisley and other direct descendants of the British colonists who to this day occupy Northern Ireland, as 'terrorists'. Michael Lahy was an underground fighter resisting an occupying power. Like the French Resistance fought against the Nazis. Ireland has been fighting for its freedom from English occupation since the 1100's when it became the first colony in the British Empire, first invaded and occupied under Prince John, Richard Lionheart's brother who has entered legend as the usurper of the throne and the enemy of Robin Hood. The Irish had been under the English yoke for centuries. Northern Ireland is still considered occupied territory by many Republicans.

Lahy's crime was to destroy by fire a building that was to house a contingent of British bobbies sent to protect the tax collectors as they extracted the "tithe" or 10% of the produce of his farm which he now farmed as a tenant farmer.

Lahy travelled on foot some 20 miles in a night to reach the barracks building and destroy it, returning to his home by day break. He was with a dozen men. (This was the way local farmers could strike without being recognised. Groups of farmers, called 'white shirts', would travel to other districts to attack. All of this was taking place in what is today the Republic of Ireland.) The attack on the barracks was serious. The leader of the attack was hung and his 12 accomplices transported.

Paying tax to an occupying power? The taxes Michael Lahy was forced to pay were especially offensive because they were to support the Church of Ireland (no, this was not Lahy's Catholic Church, but the local branch of the Church of England). To force Roman Catholics to support the work of Protestants was a special kind of torture. The Catholics and the Protestants had been murdering each other since Martin Luther nailed his "Protest" to the church door.

The power of freedom to loosen a man's prejudice can be seen in the contribution Michael Lahy made (£5) to the erection of the Anglican Cathedral in Mudgee. And he is said to have had a good relationship with the Anglican Rector.

Michael Lahy, the Convict

Lahy was successful because replaced his hostile attitude to the British and became cooperative. He is a young man, yet he is made overseer for big projects by his colonial masters. He may have enjoyed the reversal of fortunes. As a skilled agriculturalist, he could read the countryside and extract a living from this hard, uncompromising land. He felt more at home here than the "bunyip aristocracy" that grew up in the colonies Lahy became trusted. He was a fixit man. When a situation needed to be mended because a former overseer had offended many, Lahy was the man for the job. While other convicts could be expected to run away or steal goods from their masters, realists like Michael and many others saw a future for themselves in the new community. Lahy got time off for good behaviour.

His ability to get on well with fellow convicts and aborigines as well as his masters tells us he was a likeable fellow, probably with the gift of the blarney. Reports that he was known for his hospitality once he became a landholder confirm that he was a people person.

Michael Lahy, the husband and father

There are incidents that reveal Lahy as a jealous, possessive man who ruled his family with a form of terror. His daughter Mary Ann eloped with an 'uncle' (a term used braodly at the time to describe any senior male relative not a brother). Lahy was enraged, probably by the defiance of his wishes, so much so he left her one shilling in his will and forbade that her name be mentioned in the family. (This behaviour is very common among Irish Catholic men of my great-grandfather's generation and back.)

His wife, Mary Alice Thurston, was to be able to live in the ancestral home at "Uamby" so long as she remained a widow. If she remarried, she was to be evicted. This jealousy was not considered unusual in these days when a man's property rights were dominant over a woman's.

When his youngest daughter Alice died from being bitten by a brown snake, Lahy buried her in the plot he was to occupy, with his wife beside him. Such intermingling of remains might be seen as a loving act if we knew it was Lahy's expressed wish. As he was conscious for the 48 hours he took to die of 'apoplexy', he could have given these instructions.

(NB. Some of the facts included need verification, ie. 48 hours, 'apoplexy'. I am writing from memory as I have my files elsewhere. But Edward Perroy wrote the definitive book on the Hundred Years' War with no access to his notes because he was on the run from the Nazis in the French Resistance.)



PICTURED: From the famous Holterman Collection, this photograph reveals the severity of life in the 19th century. Women wore layers of hot clothing, even in sweltering summers. They were also oppressed by their menfolk. This was before women were given the vote. They were discriminated against in every way, especially in their legal rights. However a glance through the newspapers of the day reveal that wives were handy with rolling pins when husbands took to drinking or other disorderly behaviour.