Anna was born in Rosnamulteeny, Glenkeen on 01/01/1817, daughter of John Burke and Mary Tynan.  She married a local lad, Timothy Harrington on 07/02/1837 in Borrisoleigh. Timothy was also from Rosnamulteeny. They had three children born in Ireland before embarking from Plymouth as assisted migrants on the ship Chowringhee on 12/03/1852.  A fourth child Philip was born on board ship, 7 days into the voyage.  After a trip of 114 days they reached Hobson’s Bay, Melbourne. The trip had been marred by illness with 17 onboard fatalities from Cholera and Fever.

 

Timothy and Anna made their way to Ballarat and 'gold fever'. Timothy worked as a mason and Anne was employed as a schoolteacher in Ballarat. 

 

In August 1851 Gold was first found in the area by two prospectors panning for gold. By the time Timothy and Anna arrived, the Ballarat Gold Rush was now in full flight. However, the government wanted it’s share. They set up a system whereby in order to dig a claim you had to purchase a licence at a cost of 30/- shillings a month. This pre-supposed that anyone mining was already making a fortune and could afford the fee. On top of that you would have to pay for food & supplies which was sold at exhorbitant prices. Everyone wanted a slice of the pie. It was therefore an unpopular tax. The miners, mostly newly arrived immigrants, some with families in tow had no voting rights and were unable to have an input on matters concerning such as the licence. The penalty for mining without a licence was £5 for the first offence and six months imprisonment for subsequent offences. If you were imprisoned your claim could be forfeit or perhaps sold to someone more amenable to the administration. A successful claim could quite easily afford the tax but there were plenty with claims with little or nothing to show. Yet the monthly tax still had to be found. Many chose to dodge the payment. To combat the non-payers the authorities held 'digger raids' frequently. The police had it down to an exact science, using skirmishers and mounted troops to drive miners before them and collect 'diggers' for imprisonment. It didn't matter that some may not have been carrying the actual licence on their person, they were still rounded up. Its worth noting that the licences would have perished in the wet and muddy working conditions. In December 1853 the licence was reduced to £1. However, despite an official record existing, miners could still be imprisoned for not physically carrying the licence.

If you struck Gold the cost of the licence increased and had to be paid immediately. If this wasn't forthcoming, the stake was offered to one of the Government lackeys, thereby throwing the original claimant off their claim. The miners had no representation or means to right this wrong. In an act of protest, the miners burned their licence. The Government responded by sending in the Police and Army to quell the unrest and enforce the licence. 

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There was also a major concern over the various political meetings held by the miners. The miners had organised themselves politically and were were talking of democracy, freedom of workers, a labourers charter and universal suffrage. On 11/11/1854 the Ballarat Charter is proposed by the Ballarat Reform League, a political group inspired by the Chartist movement in Britain. The Charter is accepted by 10,000 Diggers at a mass meeting at Bakery Hill on 29/11/1854. The Eureka Flag, the Southern Cross, is unfurled for the first time.....

 

"This maiden appearance of our standard, in the midst of armed men, sturdy, self-overworking gold-diggers of all languages and colours, was a fascinating object to behold. There is no flag in old Europe so beautiful as the "Southern Cross" of the Ballarat miners, first hoisted on old spot Bakery Hill. The flag is silk, blue ground, with a large silver cross, similar to the one in our southern firmament....

 

This did not bode well for the old order and their positions of privilege who had brought their method of rule and governing from the Motherland. It may have been a new country but the establishment were determind to continue as was. These revolutionary stirrings would have to be put down and put down hard. There couldbe no threat to the status quo and such Chartist ideals would not be allowed to foment in this colony.

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Outside Ballarat the miners had built a crude defence perimeter, the Eureka Stockade was their main base. They were led by Laois native Peter Lalor, brother of James Fintan Lalor. Peter wrote in the Ballarat Star.....

 

“......If democracy (means) opposition to a tyrannical press, a tyrannical people or a tyrannical government, then I have been, I am still and will ever remain a democrat.”

 

 Peter would lose his left arm after multiple wounds in the battle. 

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Timothy and Anna took part in the rebellion. Anna was one of three women (Mrs McCauley & Ann Hayes) who were mustered to accompany Father Smyth to the stockade to assist and administer to the wounded. Anna is said to have made and hoisted a flag to advise the participants when mass services were being held. Unfortunately the miners mistakenly thought that Government Troops wouldn't attack on a Sunday and so had spent the previous Saturday night carousing. 

 

On Sunday morning at 04.30 hours, 03/12/1854, 276 soldiers and mounted police approached the stockade however they were spotted. They were surprised by the strength of resistance with which they were met. There were only 120 remaining in the camp, as many had left for an outpost 5 miles away at Warrenheip where they had hoped to engage with the military. However, the miners were to be no match for professional soldiers. The one sided battle was soon over. They had few weapons and only makeshift Pikes and whatever digging implements were to hand. They did however have a few Californian miners and vererans of the '49 Gold Rush who arrived on the Goldfields with Colt pistols.There was 10 minutes of concentrated firepower from the diggers as the army advanced. However, once the army broke through, the main obstacle they faced was the forlorn hope of a group of pikemen with homemade pikes who were easily disposed of by shot from a distance. One of those pikemen was red-haired Raffaello Carboni who would afterwards write a definitive record of the battle. He was a veteran of the Papal Wars in Italy.

Meanwhile, the army had fixed bayonets which at the time indicated there would be no quarter and so they advanced. Although official estimates state that 29 miners were killed against 6 Government forces, Reverend Taylor estimated as many as 50 were killed with many fleeing into the bush where they would later die of their wounds. In the middle of all of  this turmoil, Anna was tending to the dying & wounded.

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Other Tipperary men who were present at Eureka that morning and who took part were Michael Hanley previouly of Mount Catherine, Tipperary. He was badly wounded in the left arm. Michaels younger brothers 13 year old Jeremiah and 14 year old Simon also took part. Simon was armed with a revolver and a pike. Another Tipp man, Michael Francis Ryan was also present. He would later marry into the same Hanley family and the daughter of that union would marry another member of the Tipperary Harringtons….. thus linking all the participants. 

The only other Tipp men I could find who were present were Edward McGlynn who died of his wounds and Tobias McGrath who survived the battle.

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In the aftermath, Martial Law was declared on 06/12/1854 and thirteen diggers were charged with High Treason. They were acquitted so the government retried them when they were again acquitted. One of them however was charged with Seditious Libel for articles he printed in the Ballarat Times and was sentenced to six months. His wife took over as editor and launched a public outcry resulting in him being released after 3 months. Not wanting to lose face, the authorities insisted the battle was a riot but the popular press presented it as a defiant stand by the diggers against an oppressive and draconian regime and as thus it has been remembered. Soon after the miners licence was abolished and one man one vote for men over 21 was introduced to Victoria in 1857. Women and Aboriginals were not included.

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Anna was later to become Headteacher at St Alpius School in Ballarat where she was known as Hannah and held in high regard by the locals. 

Anna died in November 1906 at the age of 87.

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