Redeeming Fitzpatrick: Ned Kelly and the Fitzpatrick incident

In April 1878 Constable Fitzpatrick was wounded by Ned Kelly while attempting to arrest his brother Dan for horse stealing. The incident triggered the Kelly outbreak that elevated Ned to the status of Australia s most notorious historical figure. Ever since the event Fitzpatrick has been almost universally labelled a liar and perjurer, and the various records of his testimony in two trials and a Royal Commission have been assailed as fanciful and unlikely concoctions. This article reconstructs and vindicates Fitzpatrick s version of events after some 140 years of denigration. Ned and his family and associates various statements and denials about the event emerge as a series of ever-shifting self-serving fabrications that, together with other evidence, raise doubts about much other prevalent Kelly mythology.