Mary Cogan, ex Lady Kennaway
Mary Cogan was aged 20 when she arrived in Melbourne on the Lady Kennaway in 1848. In c.1850 she married George O’Malley; they had six children and lived in Violet Town, near Benalla (about 200km from Melbourne) (see Irish Famine Memorial Database).
Two ‘colourful’ accounts were located about Mary in the local papers. The Ovens and Murray Advertiser on 20 June 1860 reported on a court case in which George O’Malley and Mary O’Malley were charged with “stealing from a dwelling-house at Violet Town, property to the value of £5”. A witness reported that Mary was often “the worse for liquor”, and it was revealed that Mary and George had a 9 year old son, also named George, who was called as one of the witnesses. Despite evidence from several other witnesses purporting to their guilt, the jury found them not guilty, and they were discharged. A second, much later, article in the Argus (3 December 1901) reported on the “upwards of 70 years of age” Mary O'Malley’s adventures after oversleeping her stop at Violet Town and ending up in Benalla shortly after midnight. She started to walk the 30km homeward along the railway line, when she became disoriented. She was found the next morning, having taken off most of her wet clothes and hanging them up to dry. She was arrested and charged with vagrancy, “for her own protection”, but discharged the next day “and sent home to her friends”. Mary Cogan’s name is etched on the glass wall of the Australian Monument to the Great Irish Famine at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney. |
© Barbara Barclay (2015)