Proud to be Irish

The Journey of Henry McIllree from Ireland to Horse Breeder in Colonial Victoria, Australia

By Jane Morrison

ISBN: 9780646821146

Paperback

$39.95 + $9.65 Postage (Australia Only)*

PDF version

$20.00

Proud to be Irish is also available in Australia from the National Library of Australia Bookshop and from the Royal Historical Society of Victoria’s History Victoria Bookshop.

*Overseas buyers interested in purchasing a hard copy of Proud to be Irish, please contact calicobagbooks@gmail.com

An e-Book version will be available soon.

Proud to be Irish recounts the journey of Henry McIllree (1824–1882), born in Belturbet, County Cavan, from Ireland to Australia. Runaway, sailor, miner, pastoralist, grazier, and horse breeder, he was a determined, enterprising early pioneer of Wodonga and the Upper Murray, Victoria, Australia. 

Before his early death, aged 58, McIllree packed a lot into his life. After many years at sea, he arrived in South Australia in 1849, heading for the Victorian goldfields about two years later.

After no luck at Bendigo, on the Woolshed goldfield near Beechworth, McIllree found enough gold to set himself up, marry, start a farm, buy some land, and run a vineyard at Belvoir (Wodonga). In 1855 he became Wodonga’s second pound-keeper, holding the position for 19 years.

Active in local affairs, McIllree served on Wodonga boards and committees. In 1868, Irishman Henry James O’Farrell’s attempted assassination of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, as he was opening a sailors’ home at Clontarf, Sydney, caused uproar throughout the Australian colonies and back in England. “Indignation Meetings” were held to express anger and popular antagonism against the Irish. Henry McIllree, with ties to Britain through his naval service and relatives, chaired the Wodonga “Indignation Meeting” that sent a message of strong support to Queen Victoria. Despite the very strong anti-Irish sentiment at the time, McIllree declared that he was proud to be Irish.

Henry McIllree (1824–1882)
Henry McIllree (1824–1882)

Once established in Wodonga, McIllree leased and bought Upper Murray grazing lands for cattle and horse breeding. In 1875 he accompanied horses to India on the British General for sale as remounts for the British Army. An encounter with Ned Kelly at Wangaratta on one trip, while taking horses to market in Melbourne, is part of “family legend”.

Henry McIllree’s marriage to young Irish Bounty Immigrant, Isabella Johnston (c. 1835–1898), produced 11 children. Short bios of them are included in this family history as well as background on the Irish McIllrees and related families in Ireland and Australia.