The Wild Colonial Boy
"The Wild Colonial Boy" is a traditional anonymously penned Irish-Australian folk ballad that tells the story of a bushranger in early colonial Australia who dies during a gunfight with local police. Versions of the ballad give different names for the bushranger involved: some based on real individuals and some apparently fictional. A common theme is romanticisation of the bushranger's battle against colonial authority. According to a report in The Argus in November 1880, Ann Jones, the innkeeper of the Glenrowan Hotel, had asked her son to sing the ballad when the Kelly gang were at her hotel in June that year.[1]
Identity of the bushranger[edit]
Versions of the ballad depict bushrangers with the first name of "Jack" and surnames such as "Dolan," "Doolan," "Duggan" and "Donahue." It is unclear if the ballad originally referred to an actual person.
One possible origin is Jack Donahue (also spelled Donohoe), an 1820s Irish convict who sent to Australia, became a bushranger and was killed by police.[2] Another possibility is that the song refers to an 1860s juvenile Australian convict named John Doolan, who was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, and also turned to bushranging.[3] However the real Doolan was not shot by police, instead being captured and sentenced to an additional convict term. It is also possible that the identities of the histories of Donohue and Doolan became blended over time to produce the modern ballad's lyrics.[4] There's also a possibility that the name of the real person was Jack Donahue, who's name was changed over time to mask the song's origins.[5]
