People Australia

Denis ‘Dinny’ Connell was born in 1832 at Dromtarriffe, Cork, Ireland, and on 12 November his parents William and Margaret (née Barrett) baptised him Roman Catholic.[1] By 1845 Dinny had just entered his teenage years and soon he began to endure poverty, hunger, disease, and displacement. In the context of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852,) by the early 1850s the urban area of Cork was inundated by the exceptionally poor migrating from rural areas in search of subsistence.[2] Crime increased by sixty percent, with hunger-related issues, disputes over employment and land tenure, and protest crimes rising.[3] The Irish prison population increased significantly: in 1850 Cork had an average of 1,172 prisoners a day, with many gaols containing four times as many prisoners as they were built to accommodate.[4]

In 1850 Connell was a single eighteen-year-old facing starvation and a lack of employment opportunities as a weaver.[5] On 7 August that year he was charged with stealing shirts and admitted to the Cork County Gaol, Ireland, where he was held until his trial.[6] Due to a prior conviction, on 2 October 1850 he was sentenced to transportation for seven years in the penal colony of Western Australia.[7]After his sentencing he was most likely relocated to the Mount Joy prison, which was built to deal with overcrowding and the deplorable condition of the Cork gaol.[8]

After enduring three years in goal, on 31 May 1853 Connell was assigned convict number 2344 and transferred from his prison cell to Kingstown, Dublin, and placed on the ship Phoebe Dunbar.[9] He was now a twenty-year-old with a scar above his left eye and a cut across the knuckle joint of his left hand.[10] When he boarded the ship he may have been clutching a bible, washed, and wearing regulation clothing consisting of a jacket/waistcoat of blue cloth/kersey, duck trousers, check/coarse linen shirt, yarn stockings, and a woollen cap.[11] On 2 June 1853 the Phoebe Dunbar, captained by T. Michie, embarked with the ship’s surgeon J.W Bowler stating that the 295 Irish male convicts (aged fifteen to fifty-two) on board were free of any major disease symptoms but were malnourished, pale, and depressed.[12] Their appalling condition was possibly due to arriving from long confinement at the Mount Joy prison where they were subjected to unbearable mistreatment, including the ‘Silent System’ where they were isolated in their cells for the entirety of their incarceration.[13] 

Irish Roman Catholic convicts were subject to discrimination and ill-treatment in colonial settings, and this was apparent from the outset of Connell’s journey on the Phoebe Dunbar. His name does not appear in the daily sick book, although it was evident from Bowler’s medical journal that illness emerged early in the journey with most of the passengers becoming ill with diarrhea and fever.[14] On 30 August the Phoebe Dunbar reached Fremantle, Western Australia, being the last ship to carry convicts directly from Ireland to Australia.[15] 285 convicts survived the treacherous non-stop voyage, which lasted 89 days. Sixteen passengers died while forty individuals were admitted to the hospital on arrival suffering from scurvy. Due to this high mortality rate and no mention of scurvy onboard, Bowler’s conduct and diagnostic skills were raised at an inquiry.[16] This possibly illustrates either his incompetence or wilful neglect of the Irish convicts in his care.

Following disembarkation, Connell was stationed at North Fremantle/Freshwater Bay and worked on the Fremantle and Perth roads.[17] He faced prejudice and religious discrimination in the penal colony due to a wider cultural perception of the Irish as being violently inclined, poor, and uneducated.[18] Officials also restricted the Irish from owning land, voting, receiving education, practising their religion, and attaining government positions.[19] By 1854 he was relocated to the area of Vasse and granted his ticket-of-leave, meaning he was not permitted to leave the colony but was able to work for private employers for standard wages or work for himself, although he still had to report to local authorities.[20] On 15 of June 1856 Connell married Judith Leahy and, with his sentence expiring on 2 October 1857, they built a house in the nearby area of Ludlow and went on to raise nine children.[21] He became a farmer, taking advantage of the system he had been through, where he subsequently employed a ticket-of-leave man in 1866.[22] 

By 1887 life’s hardships may have taken a toll on Connell, as he started acting eccentrically, and on 20 of June 1887 his wife left him.[23] Just twelve weeks after this separation, aged fifty-five, he shot himself in the head and died. An inquest was conducted with the jury returning a verdict that the deceased died by suicide while suffering temporary insanity.[24]  This verdict permitted Connell to have a Christian burial, where today his name is etched onto a marble plaque at the Busselton Pioneer Cemetery.[25]

[1] Baptism of Denis Connell, baptised 12 November 1832, in Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620–1881 Database, Dromtarriffe, County Cork, Ireland, (index only; no image currently available), FamilySearch.

[2] Geraldine Curtin, ‘The Child Condemned: The Imprisonment of Children in Ireland’, 1850–1908, Irish Economic and Social History 47, no. 1 (2020): 78-96.

[3] Nicholas Woodward, ‘Transportation Convictions during the Great Irish Famine’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37, no. 1 (2006): 59–87,

[4] Curtin, ‘The Child Condemned’, 78–96.

[5] Declan Curran, ‘The Great Irish Famine 1845–1850: Social and Spatial Famine Vulnerabilities’, Handbook of Famine, Starvation, and Nutrient Deprivation, 2019, 17–29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55387-0_47, accessed 29 May 2024.

[6] Prison Record for Denis Connell, age 18, admitted 7 August 1850, Cork County, Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924, The National Archives of Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Ireland Prisoner Registers, Ancestry.com, accessed 14 May 2024.

[7] Trial Registration for Denis Connell, trial 6 April 1850, Ireland-Australia Transportation Database, Cork County, Ireland, 3346/TR10, p 37 (index only; no image currently available), The National Archives of Ireland.

[8] Paul O’Mahony, Mountjoy Prisoners A Sociological and Criminological Profile, Government of Ireland, 1997, 13, https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/3464/1/616-mountjoy.pdf, accessed 29 May 2024; ‘Irish Convicts Transported to Australia’, RootsWeb, 1997, https://sites.rootsweb.com/~fianna/oc/oznz/pasconau.html, accessed 14 May 2024; Prison Record for Denis Connell, Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924.

[9] Medical and Surgical Journal of Her Majesty’s Hired Convict Ship ‘Phoebe Dunbar’, between 4^th May 1853 and 21^st September 1853 during which the said ship has been employed in conveying male convicts from England to Western Australia  – General Remarks, https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/12108914/general-remarks-and-sick-list-of-the-phoebe.

[10] Convicts to Australia - A Guide to Researching Your Convict Ancestors, ‘Physical Descriptions of Convicts on the Phoebe Dunbar website, 1853’, n.d.,  https://www.perthdps.com/convicts/conwad10.htm,accessed 14 May 2024.

[11] RootsWeb, ‘Irish Convicts Transported to Australia’.

[12] Medical and Surgical Journal of Her Majesty’s Hired Convict Ship ‘Phoebe Dunbar’.

[13] Paul O’Mahony, Mountjoy Prisoners A Sociological and Criminological Profile.

[14] Medical and Surgical Journal of Her Majesty’s Hired Convict Ship ‘Phoebe Dunbar’.

[15] Shipping Intelligence ‘Arrived’, Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 2 September 1853, 2.

[16] Medical and Surgical Journal of Her Majesty’s Hired Convict Ship ‘Phoebe Dunbar’.

[17] ‘Domestic Sayings and Doings’, Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 23 September 1853, 3.

[18] John McMahon, ‘Sketches of the Early History of Australia’, Fitzroy City Press, 16 November 1912, 3.

[19] McMahon, ‘Sketches of the Rarly History of Australia’.

[20] ‘Tickets of leave / Certificates of freedom / Pardons’, National Library of Australia, n.d., https://www.nla.gov.au/research-guides/convicts/tickets-of-leave#:~:text=A%20Tcket%20of%20Leave%20allowed,could%20not%20leave%20the%20colony, accessed 7 June 2024.

[21] Heritage Council, Government of Western Australia ‘Dinny Connell's House, National Pk’, Heritage Council, Government of Western Australia, Website, 2017, https://inherit.dplh.wa.gov.au/public/inventory/details/a0d8b2da-1450-4029-b43b-703828281b49, accessed 4 June 2024; Marriage Record for Denis Connell and Judith Lahey, married 1856, Vasse, Western Australia, Australia Marriage Index, 1788-1950, Ancestry.com, accessed 16 May 2024.

[22] Carnamah Historical Society ‘People in the Colony of Western Australia 1863-1897’, Carnamah Historical Society Website, n.d., https://www.carnamah.com.au/WA-directories?page=431, accessed 8 June 2024.

[23]  ‘Notes from Busselton’, Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth), 5 October 1887.

[24] ‘Notes from Busselton’; Death Record for Denis Connell, aged 55, 1887, Western Australia, Australia Death Index, 1787-1985, (index only; no image currently available), Ancestry.com, accessed 5 May 2024.

[25] ‘Notes from Busselton’.