Padraig and Matilda

I am so pleased that Australia has been placed on the UK green list and is therefore, once again, open to visit.   I say once again, but if fact I have never been there.  Always wanted to go and it might even be said I was a little obsessed by the place.  My favourite TV programme used to be Skippy the Kangaroo and I had a whole menagerie of stuffed kangaroos and kola bears.  It was a bit obsessive, and I recall being utterly thrilled by the story of Ned Kelly and had even made my own steel helmet out of a fire bucket.

I served with Australian soldiers out in Borneo and Singapore.  They were quite impressive, hard drinking, hard fighting down to earth all-round good blokes.   great sense of humour.  Got myself one of those Aussie slouch hats and often dreamed of going over there.

And of course, living in Ireland I was always acutely aware of the legendary story of Padraig and Matilda.

Padraig O’Malley served three years with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers before emigrating to Australia at the beginning of the 20^th century.  He wanted to get in on the later stages of the great Australian Gold Rush.   He spent a year mining up in Tarnagulla, Victoria, but without any success.   He then joined the Australian Army and because of his previous experience with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he was quickly promoted to corporal and became the staff car driver to a senior Aussie officer, Brigadier Loveday.   It was, for Padraig a perfect job as it kept him away from all the Sgt Majors and the regimental bull of military life.

The Brigadier Loveday had a daughter, Matilda, who was about 21 years old.  Padraig and Matilda really hit it off.     Now in the British army that would have been impossible, for officers and their families just did not mix with other ranks.  But the Australians were much more relaxed about such things and it was OK with the Brigadier once he was satisfied that Padraig’s intentions were honourable.  And they were.

Matilda loved to dance the waltz and she and Padraig would often go to a dance hall in Melbourne and together they would waltz the night away.

One afternoon Padraig took Matilda for a drive in the staff car up into the outback, for a picnic.    They stopped by a billabong, which is the Australian word for a small stream or type of lake..  They set their picnic blanket out beneath a Coolabah tree and Padraig brewed up a billycan of tea.  Afterwards they made passionate love on the blanket, in the shade of the Coolabah tree.

Padraig was so impressed by the whole experience that he wrote the words to the now famous song which is sung by soldiers all over the world.   Indeed, you well may have sung it yourselves for it’s a catchy, singalong irresistible tune.

He wrote it in pencil in a small military notebook, the original of which is now held in the National Museum of Ireland at Collins barracks, which is so appropriate for Padraig had been stationed at that very barracks when he had been in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, although they had then, prior to Irish Independence, been known as the Royal barracks.

The notebook is somewhat faded now, but you can make out the dedication, “to Matilda, the love of my life” and you can just about make out the first lines he wrote:

“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go……