The Battle of Vinegar Hill - Background
In March 1804, when one third of the 6,000 non indigenous population of Sydney was Irish political prisoners, a plan was hatched to raise a rebel army of 1,000 Irishmen to march on Sydney, take ships from the Harbour, and sail for freedom.
The Castle Hill Rebellion and the subsequent Battle of Vinegar Hill were the first European style armed rebellion in Australian history.
The story of the Castle Hill Rebellion and the Battle of Vinegar Hill was suppressed in the early 1800s so as not to encourage other daring challenges to British rule. It is for this reason that the rebellion and battle are not as well known as the Eureka Stockade which took place 50 years later.
This is a dramatic, daring, captivating and surprising story which retells of the plight of the one third of the non indigenous population of Sydney who were political prisoners Irish who were sent to Sydney for rebelling or conspiring or suspicion of conspiring to revolt against British occupation of Ireland at the original Battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798.
Much is known of the Red Coats, the free settlers and the English convicts who were sent to Botany Bay for stealing a loaf of bread, but very little is known about the Irish who, motivated by a desire to live in an Ireland free of English occupation, were transported for either rebelling, or for being sympathetic activists.
Governor King tried to keep the Irish separated by sending some to Norfolk Island and some to the Government Farms in Western Sydney, and thereby dividing up the population in an attempt to make an Irish uprising all the more difficult to achieve.
However the Irish managed to plan on of the most daring mass escapes in Australian history. On a certain night a password St. Peter was to be sent to each of the groups of Irish in Western Sydney, and on receipt of the password the Irish would rise up, overpower their guards, join each other on a march of over 1,000 men, storm Sydney and take ships from Sydney Harbour and sail for freedom.
A force of 1,000 men in a colony of only 6,000 would be hard to stop, even for the highly trained and well armed British Red Coats.
Death or Liberty was the catch cry of the Irish.
On the afternoon of the 4th March 1804 the password was sent from Castle Hill Government Farm.
Later that night in Castle Hill more than 300 Irish rebelled, over powered their guards, took control of the surrounding area and started arming themselves before marching off to join their colleagues. They armed themselves with guns and whatever weapons they could find in the settlements.
Much happened on that night on the 4th March
A lone free settler raced on horseback from Castle Hill to Sydney to raise the alarm;
Governor King, on hearing the news in Sydney, ordered Red Coats on a forced march for 46 miles through the night to Parramatta;
The Governor then rode alone through the thick bush from Sydney to Government House in Parramatta;
What ever occurred on that night the Password to call the waiting Irish community together to join the rebels was not passed on and thus the rebels were left to stand alone.
By the next morning both Sydney and Parramatta were on full alert, and an army of Red Coats was searching for the rebel Irish army in the bush land along Windsor Road.
No one could miss the red coated officers and men of the NSW Corp led by Major George Johnston as they and their civilian militia and supporters strode along the Windsor Road after a quick march from Sydney Town during the night.
The rebels had marched from Castle Hill to Constitution Hill where they waited for the signal that the Irish had rebelled in Parramatta. Elizabeth Farm was to have been burnt both as a signal to the Castle Hill rebels, and to draw out the Red Coats from Parramatta itself.
Since the messenger had failed to deliver the password to rebel to the Irish in Parramatta, the farm did not burn, and the rebels realised that their plans were going array. They turned north-west and marched along the Windsor Road.
At 11AM the British caught up with them. The soldiers were under the leadership of Major George Johnston. Some of the armed citizens from the Parramatta area joined them. When the opposing sides met, a Catholic Priest, Father Dixon tried to negotiate a truce without bloodshed. The Irish leaders thought that Major Johnston had agreed to talk and stepped up to him. He took them prisoner and ordered his troops to fire on the rebels.
While the government forces were greatly outnumbered they were also much better armed. They had no problem in claiming immediate victory and the convicts scattered during the confusion.
Official records of the day note fifteen rebel deaths on the field (those killed are not named) and over three hundred captured. None of the Government forces were killed or wounded.
Six years previously, in Wexford County Ireland, a similar battle had been fought at a place called Vinegar Hill - the name was transferred to this battle on the outskirts of Sydney. The original battle on 21 June 1798 at Enniscorthy was a victory for the British and many Irishmen were killed or executed and many more were transported to the new colony of Australia.
The name Vinegar Hill was also used 50 years later as the password for entry to the Eureka Stockade.
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