Michael Dwyer - Australia

Australia

Dwyer arrived in Sydney on 14 February 1806 on the Tellicherry and was given free settler status. He was accompanied by his wife Mary and their eldest children and also by his companions, Hugh 'Vesty' Byrne and Martin Burke, along with Arthur Devlin and John Mernagh. He was given a grant of 40.5 ha (100 acres) of land on Cabramatta Creek in Sydney. Although he had originally hoped to be sent to the United States of America, Michael Dwyer was later quoted as saying that "all Irish will be free in this new country" (Australia). This statement had been used against him and he was arrested in February 1807 and imprisoned. On 11 May 1807, Dwyer was charged with conspiring to mount an Irish insurrection against British rule. An Irish convict stated in court that Michael Dwyer had plans to march on the seat of Government in Australia, at Parramatta. Dwyer did not deny that he had said that all Irish will be free but he did deny the charges of organising an Irish insurrection in Sydney. Dwyer had the powerful support of Australia's first Jewish policeman, John Harris, who expressed the opinion in court that he did not believe that Dwyer was organising a rebellion against the Government in Sydney. On 18 May 1807, Dwyer was found not guilty of the charges of organising an Irish insurrection in Sydney.

Governor William Bligh disregarded the first trial acquittal of Michael Dwyer. Bligh who regarded the Irish and many other nationalities with contempt, organised another trial for Michael Dwyer in which he was stripped of his free settler status and transported to Van Diemens Land (Tasmania) and Norfolk Island. After Governor Bligh was overthrown in the Rum Rebellion in 1808, the new Governor of New South Wales, George Johnston, who was present at Dwyer's acquittal in the first trial, ordered that Michael Dwyer's freedom be reinstated. Michael Dwyer was later to become Chief of Police (1813–1820) at Liverpool, New South Wales but was dismissed in October for drunken conduct and mislaying important documents. In December 1822 he was sued for aggrandizing his by now 620 acre farm. Bankrupted, he was forced to sell off most of his assets, which included a tavern called "The Harrow Inn", although this did not save him from several weeks incarceration in the Sydney debtors' prison in May 1825. Here he evidently contracted dysentery, to which he succumbed in August 1825.

Originally interred at Liverpool, his remains were reburied in the Devonshire Street cemetery, Sydney, in 1878, by his grandson John Dwyer, dean of St Mary's Cathedral. In May 1898 the coincidence of the planned closure of the cemetery and centenary celebrations for the 1798 rebellion suggested the second re-interment of Dwyer and his wife in Waverley Cemetery, where a substantial memorial was erected in 1900. The massive crowds attending Dwyer's burial and the subsequent unveiling of the monument testified to the unique esteem in which Irish-Australians held the former Wicklow hero.

Dwyer had seven children and has numerous descendants throughout Australia. In 2002, in Bungendore near Canberra, a family reunion took place, with Michael Dwyer's descendants joining descendants of related Australian Irish families, the Donoghues and the Doyles. In 2006, a reunion also took place to mark the 200th anniverary of the arrival of the Tellicherry in Botany Bay. One of Michael Dwyer’s sons was the owner of The Harp Hotel in Bungendore, New South Wales in circa 1838. Dwyer’s nephew, John Donoghue (1822–1892), built The Old Stone House, Molongolo Rd, Bungendore, in circa 1865. This dwelling is a strongly constructed Bungendore landmark and a monument to pioneering and hard-working Irish Australian settlers.