Ned's Irish accent

Abstract

In 1879 the illiterate Ned Kelly dictated a letter to his friend, Joe Byrne before the gang held up a bank in the town of Jerilderie. Kelly expected the letter to be published and it was dictated to Byrne so that the record of the Kelly gang (and Ned’s in particular) could be put straight. The Jerilderie Letter, as it was later called, provides details of the episodes that led to Kelly’s his boyhood run-ins with the law and the circumstances that led to the Kelly gang later becoming notorious bank robbers. This article discusses the language used by Ned Kelly in the famous letter.