{"id":735,"date":"2017-07-09T04:43:31","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T04:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/?p=735"},"modified":"2017-07-09T04:43:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T04:43:31","slug":"mulga-mick-osmiridium-field-orator-or-the-poet-laureate-of-adamsfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/09\/mulga-mick-osmiridium-field-orator-or-the-poet-laureate-of-adamsfield\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, osmiridium field orator; or the poet laureate of Adamsfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

‘Mulga Mick’ O’Reilly (standing) and friend at Adamsfield, courtesy of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.<\/p><\/div>\n

He was Irish, he was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Labor Party, and he was a socialist. Those are things we can say with certainty about the \u2018voice of Adamsfield\u2019, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 O\u2019Reilly. Beyond that, a lot of his life is open to debate. This well-travelled digger wrote two books, The Pinnacle Road and other verses<\/em> (1935), which was a collection of his poems, most of them from his Tasmanian days, and the autobiography Bowyangs and boomerangs: reminiscences of 40 years\u2019 prospecting in Australia and Tasmania<\/em> (1944).<\/p>\n

How reliable were they? Mick\u2019s son John O\u2019Reilly recalled his aunts saying that Bowyangs and boomerangs<\/em> was mostly fabrication. In it he claimed tragic beginnings. Having been born at Shinrone, County Offaly, Ireland, in 1879, he lost his first wife and two sons in an influenza epidemic before coming to Australia. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the things that makes it hard to keep track of \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 is his way of acquiring other people\u2019s memories. He loved to compose stirring poetry. He wrote as if he was the spirit of mineral prospecting, speaking for all the diggers. One of his efforts, \u2018The men of \u201893\u2019, was written about times on the Western Australian goldfields he probably never experienced. Perhaps he recorded the stories of old diggers, and then, like a true dramatist, he gave these immediacy by writing them up in the first person.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Whyte River Hotel besieged by motorcyclists, probably in the 1920s. JH Robinson photo courtesy of the late Nancy Gillard.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1933 he wrote a lament for the Whyte River Hotel, which was the watering hole for the Nineteen Mile osmiridium field west of Waratah. The pub burnt down in 1929\u2014and O\u2019Reilly probably never laid eyes on it. Yet he described it with the utmost intimacy. Reading his poem, you would swear he had tied one with Jim McGinty, Tom Rouse, Sammy Dwyer and all the other veterans of the field. Even \u2018old Burly Lynch\u2019 the publican, lining the drinks up on the bar, got a run. Yet Lynch surrendered the licence of the Whyte River Hotel in 1912, many years before O\u2019Reilly arrived in Tasmania.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Likewise, \u2018The Adams River Rush\u2019 described an event he hadn\u2019t attended.[3]<\/a> The rush occurred in the spring of 1925. He was certainly at Adamsfield in 1928, and through the Great Depression years, the toughest times on that osmiridium field. During these years he delivered missives from the diggings that captured many facets of the experience\u2014the longing for loved ones and the comforts of town; the misery of stirring from a warm bed to work in the mud; comic arguments and drunken fist fights; and the general scrap to make money and hang on to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

‘Mulga Mick’ (at right) trucking ore to the bin tip, with harry Hill and James Harrison, from the Tasmanian Mail, 13 January 1932, p.35.<\/p><\/div>\n

Life was very simple for O\u2019Reilly. The world was divided into \u2018haves\u2019 and \u2018have nots\u2019, that is, the parasite (the master) and the exploited (the servant). O\u2019Reilly spelt \u2018Digger\u2019 with a capital \u2018D\u2019, whether that be the diggers of Adamsfield or the diggers of Gallipoli, because to him they were of the same manly ilk. All politicians were parasites who took the food from children\u2019s mouths.[4]<\/a> Miners\u2019 wives and Adamsfield bush nurses were angels.[5]<\/a> The press was also parasitic and should be \u2018cleared from the face of all lands\u2019, except, presumably, when newspapers bore his own copious contributions.[6]<\/a> His penmanship was fluent, eloquent and often sympathetic to the down-trodden and forgotten, like the \u2018heroes\u2019 of Gallipoli, the elderly, the poor.[7]<\/a> O\u2019Reilly saw the Adamsfield osmiridium field as the epitome of the worker\u2019s struggle for survival with dignity. He urged the workers to strike a blow for freedom against \u2018pampered parasites [stealing] our children\u2019s bread\u2019, citing a particularly pathetic example of a large, young family forced to trudge out to the remote diggings.[8]<\/a> \u2018Out latest hospital: is not finished yet\u2019, published in Hobart newspaper the Voice <\/em>in 1931, was a protest about poor public infrastructure. Adamsfield was in the ridiculous situation of having a hospital with no bathroom, patients having to bathe in a passing water race:<\/p>\n

\u2018When the smoke goes curling through the hole<\/p>\n

Where the chimney ought to be,<\/p>\n

And the old black billy on the fire<\/p>\n

To make the evening tea;<\/p>\n

When the hurricane lamp is lighted up,<\/p>\n

Then you can safely bet,<\/p>\n

It looks more like a Digger\u2019s Camp<\/p>\n

That is not finished yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If a patient ever gets a bath,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s on the instalment plan,<\/p>\n

With just a little drop each day<\/p>\n

From out the billy-can.<\/p>\n

He rubs himself both her and there<\/p>\n

Till he is partly wet:<\/p>\n

Some day he may get over all,<\/p>\n

For the bathroom\u2019s not finished yet.\u2019[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

There was plenty of humour in his verse. When Jack Brennan claimed to have found a lode of osmiridium, O\u2019Reilly predicted that it would only bring him enough money to buy a new commode.[10]<\/a> In \u2018The lady dentist\u2019s visit to Adamsfield\u2019 he described the anticipation of some rare female attention when Hobart dentist Olive Shepherd decided to make a business call to the diggings:<\/p>\n

\u2018Some developed toothache that had never had a tooth<\/p>\n

Since their father\u2019s hairy lug they used to bite,<\/p>\n

Another one\u2019s got gumboils all around the ancient root<\/p>\n

Of the one and only molar that\u2019s in sight \u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not for years can we remember when excitement ran so high,<\/p>\n

Or a \u2018shepherd\u2019 caused such stir among the sheep.<\/p>\n

Now the old and toilworn Diggers wear a collar and a tie,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to make the blooming angels weep.\u2019[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

However, O\u2019Reilly\u2019s pet plan to increase digger prosperity and extend the life of the osmiridium field was deadly serious. He wanted the government to fund a scheme to drain about 1000 acres of swampy flats along the Adams River which he claimed he had already tested successfully for metal. Without producing a single assay report as evidence, he claimed this would return about \u00a3200,000-worth of osmiridium.[12]<\/a> The idea was to drain the area by way of a deep tail race terminating at the Adams River Falls, although others hit upon a more radical plan to blast away the falls themselves, thereby increasing the river flow. Asked to report on the scheme in 1931, Government Geologist PB Nye claimed that the area which would benefit from drainage was at most 667 acres and that insufficient work had been done to prove that the ground in question contained payable osmiridium\u2014let alone osmiridium that would justify an outlay of anything up to \u00a310,000 on such a tail race.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly retired to Glenorchy, took a job as a labourer building the Pinnacle Road up Mount Wellington, above Hobart, and continued to fire off instructions for a better world. St Peter probably copped an earful as \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 stormed the Pearly Gates.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> MJ O\u2019Reilly (\u2018Mulga Mick\u2019), Bowyangs and boomerangs: reminiscences of 40 years\u2019 prospecting in Australia and Tasmania<\/em>, Hesperian, Carlisle, WA, 1984 reprint, p.160; John O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Mulga Mick; prospector, miner, author and poet: a lost father rediscovered\u2019, Tasmanian Ancestry<\/em>, December 2013, p.149.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> The old Whyte River Pub\u2019, Advocate<\/em>, 16 September 1933, p.8; reprinted in MJ O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, The Pinnacle Road and other verses<\/em>, the author, Hobart, 1935, pp.62\u201264. The Whyte River Hotel was never rebuilt.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> MJ O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, \u2018The Adams River Rush\u2019, The Pinnacle Road and other verses,<\/em> pp.55\u201357.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> See, for example, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018Stealing the children\u2019s bread: lesson of the Adamsfield Track\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 30 April 1932, p.7.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> For diggers\u2019 wives and bush nurses as angels, see MJ O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, \u2018The ossie diggers\u2019 wives at Adamsfield\u2019, in The Pinnacle Road and other verses<\/em>, the author, Hobart, 1935, pp.28\u201229; and \u2018Sister\u2019s sympathy\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 11 April 1931, p.6.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> For the \u2018parasitic press\u2019, see \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018A poetic exchange\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 16 May 1931, p.2.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> See \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018Armistice Day: \u201cWe\u2019ll ne\u2019er forget the price\u201d\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 7 November 1931, p.1; and \u2018Stealing the children\u2019s bread: lesson of the Adamsfield Track\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 30 April 1932, p.7.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018Stealing the children\u2019s bread: lesson of the Adamsfield Track\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 30 April 1932, p.7.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018Not finished yet\u2019; quoted in \u2018Our latest hospital\u2019, Voice<\/em>, 3 January 1931, p.2.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> \u2018Jack Brennan\u2019s osie [sic] lode\u2019, poem signed \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, dated 1929, and reprinted in CA Bacon, Notes on the mining and history of Adamsfield<\/em>, Report, no.1992\/20, Mineral Resources Tasmania, Hobart, 1992, p.8.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> MJ O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019, \u2018The lady dentist\u2019s visit to Adamsfield\u2019, The Pinnacle Road and other verses,<\/em> pp.47\u201348.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 (MJ O\u2019Reilly), \u2018Osmiridium diggers\u2019, Mercury<\/em>, 2 September 1932, p.8; MJ O\u2019Reilly, \u2018Adamsfield development\u2019, Mercury<\/em>, 7 February 1933, p.6.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> PB Nye, \u2018Proposal to drain the Adams River Flats by constructing a deep tail race at the Adams River Falls\u2019, Unpublished Report, 76\u201379\/1931, Department of Mines, Hobart, p.78; \u2018Osmiridium\u2019, Mercury<\/em>, 16 January 1933, p.5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was Irish, he was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Labor Party, and he was a socialist. Those are things we can say with certainty about the \u2018voice of Adamsfield\u2019, \u2018Mulga Mick\u2019 O\u2019Reilly. Beyond that, a lot of his life is open to debate. This well-travelled digger wrote two books, The Pinnacle Road and other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[427,408,430,77,75,428,429],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tasmanian-high-country-history","tag-mulga-mick-oreilly","tag-adamsfield","tag-bush-nursing","tag-nineteen-mile-creek","tag-osmiridium-mining","tag-poetry","tag-whyte-river-hotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichaygarth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}