Convict Special Interest Group
02nd June 2026
By Engagement Committee
CONVICT SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING: Wednesday 10 June at 7.30pm. (In person at the FHACT Education Room, Cook Community Hub, Templeton Street, Cook, or online via Zoom]. Members Only.
Topic: Irish Convict Marriages
Special Guest Speaker: Dr Damian Gleeson.
Family History ACT invites members to its upcoming Convict Special Interest Group meeting.
In this presentation, Damian will draw on themes from Irish Bigamy: New Insights into Colonial New South Wales (Colonial Press, Goulburn, 2025) and also provide a glimpse into his upcoming work John Joseph Therry: Irish landlord, merchant and priest in the Australian colonies (Colonial Press, Goulburn, July 2026).
Drawing on many unpublished letters from convicts and their families, the findings in these works contradict dominant stereotypes of convicts in the penal colony of New South Wales. Damian will examine relationships and bigamous marriages amongst Irish convicts (of all religious affiliations) and the clandestine and often illegal behaviour of Cork-born Fr John Joseph Therry, who was titled ‘Parish Priest of New South Wales’ in the 1820s.
Whereas bigamy was relatively uncommon in Pre-Famine Ireland, the practice was widespread in penal New South Wales. Curiously, the State (British officials) condemned unofficial cohabitation but condoned bigamy between 1788 and 1825. The Catholic Church condemned Irish male convicts in bigamous marriages but generally permitted women to remarry illicitly.
About our Speaker: Damian John Gleeson is an Australian-qualified genealogist and historian, with a distinctive Irish heritage. In 1983 he completed a Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists. He holds doctoral qualifications in history from the University of New South Wales (2006) and the University of New England (2024).
Damian’s works include An Enduring Flame: St Patrick’s Mortlake, 1885-2020: An Irish-Australian Working-Class Community (Mortlake, NSW, 2021), winner of the City of Canada Bay Heritage Award in 2021, and The Rock of St George: celebrating the 125th anniversary of the first St Joseph's Church/School, Rockdale (Rockdale City, NSW, 2017), winner of the Ron Rathbone Local History Prize, Bayside Council, 2017. He regularly published in journals, including the Silvermines Historical Society Journal, County Tipperary, Ireland.