According to the migration figures for the nineteenth century, Queensland experienced an extensive influx of migrants from Ireland. Given that these Irishmen were the key source of recruits for the Queensland police, including Commissioner David Thompson Seymour (1864-1895) hailing from Ballymore Castle, Galway and Commissioner William Geoffrey Cahill (1905-1916) from Strokestown, county Roscommon, the degree of resemblance between the new colonial force and the policing institutions of Ireland was high. The organisations shared common structures, makeup, culture and traditions, and a professional identity. Characteristically, a policeman was popularly described as ‘a man with a uniform, a brogue, and a big free thirst’.
Migrants with varied backgrounds sought employment in the Queensland police as it was one of the means of gaining a firm hold in the new country. An overwhelming number of recruits listed Ireland as their country of origin. The Royal Irish Constabulary provided the highest number of supernumeraries for the Queensland Police, among other forces were the Dublin and London Metropolitan Police. The Land Wars of the 1880s contributed to the largest influx of the Irish migrants during the second half of the nineteenth century.
As Ireland continued to be shaken up by sectarian and nationalist violence, land clearing, evictions, and protection of the land owners during the years of the Land Wars fell under responsibility of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Many of the RIC men resented these duties and subsequently left the service. The migration wave included a significant number of the ex-RIC men, with a few DMP officers, who chose to resign and emigrate. Queensland statistics illustrates that approximately 2,000 Irishmen migrated into the colony in 1880 alone.
The Irish-born were amply represented on both sides of the law. Queensland crime statistics for 1865 demonstrate that nearly 2,000 apprehended offenders were Irish, and similar trends were noted across the rest of the Australian colonies. A few of the most memorable offenders of Irish background were Jack Donohoe, shot dead in 1830, and Ned Kelly, hanged in Melbourne Gaol in 1880. By chance, Kelly was shot at and arrested by a policeman with an identical surname, Senior Constable Kelly of the Victoria police.
This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available at the time of writing.
The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
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