Michael Keegan

71

Robin Sharkey on 22nd June 2022

Michael Keegan, aged 27 on the indent record, was transported as a convict for Life to Sydney on convict ship ‘St Vincent’ arriving 5 January 1837. He had been tried at Dublin City on 20 August 1836 for cow stealing. He said he had one previous conviction, for 6 months. He was born at Trim in County Meath, was a labourer, could read & write, was Roman Catholic; married with 3 children (one son and two daughters). Personal details: 5ft 4.5inches tall; Complexion: dark ruddy; dark brown hair and grey eyes, some marks or scars. [ship indent] 1841 – Michael Keegan had been robbed of £5 and the Attorney General was compensating him. The A-G sent a letter enclosing the money care of publican David Dillon at his ‘Currency Lass’ Inn on the Cowpasture Road and on 29 April 1841, Michael Keegan called there to collect it. According to David Dillon’s wife, Keegan was inebriated, as was a woman who was with him, so she declined to give him the letter then, also not actually knowing him. Keegan went to Sydney and returned on the 3rd May to collect it and he gave Mrs Dillon a signed receipt for the £5 “being the money sent by the Attorney General for me and directed to the care of David Dillion.” Signed Michael Keegan, Witness Thomas Howarth. [see SMH 25 Oct 1842, p.2 David Dillon’s Letter to the Editor] 1847 - 48: Keegan had lived with William Dennis and his family (wife Mary, 2-3 small children) at a Burragorang property for the previous nine months, i.e. from about June 1847 to then March 1848. In March 1848, at the time of the trial, he said he was still living with the Dennis family – see from evidence given as witness in a cattle stealing trial of William Bollard. [SMH 7 March 1848,p.2] Keegan gave evidence that he had been present when the prosecutor, James Flynn, bought three cows (now missing) and he, Keegan, had drawn the receipt for their sale. He knew the fourth was missing and recognised the beast outside the Picton Court House as one he’d seen across the river from Bollard’s place a few day after it had been castrated. In 1866 a Michael Keegan DIED, death registered at Picton. NSWBDM death ref: 6227/1866