'I am a Widow's Son, outlawed and my orders must be obeyed'. With these chilling words bushranger Ned Kelly ended the Jerilderie letter, a detailed written justification of his actions in the year before his death.

Kelly's words, transcribed in the Jerilderie letter, are regarded by some as an early call for an Australian republic.

It would be easy to assume that the Kelly Gang members were tough, ignorant, uneducated men who mindlessly pursued a career in crime. But both Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne could read and write, and wrote letters to the press and others, explaining their situation and calling for justice. The most famous of these is the ‘Jerilderie Letter'.

Written in 1879, the 8000-word long letter details Kelly's thoughts about being ‘forced' into becoming an outlaw. It also calls for the resignation of a corrupt police force that, Kelly maintained, preyed upon Irish Catholic settlers.

Although there is little use of punctuation and correct grammar, the letter is a powerful insight into his feelings and his desire to set the record straight:

I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct off a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police who some call honest gentlemen.

– Ned Kelly

But despite Kelly's threats, Living never published the letter. He took it to the bank's head office in Melbourne, where it was lent to the police for Kelly's trial. It was later returned to Living, whose family donated it to the State Library of Victoria in 2000.

With this letter Kelly inserts himself into history, on his own terms, with his own voice...We hear the living speaker in a way that no other document in our history achieves... The language is colourful, rough and full of metaphors; it is one of the most extraordinary documents in Australian history.

Clive Turnbull claims that 'Ned Kelly is the best known Australian, our only folk hero … Popular instinct has found in Kelly a type of manliness much to be esteemed—to reiterate: courage, resolution, independence, sympathy with the under-dog'. The legend brought into being the phrase, 'As game as Ned Kelly', for describing the ultimate in bravery, inspired numberless imaginative tales and folk-ballads, and has taken new life in Sidney Nolan's series of Kelly-gang paintings. The legend still persists and seemingly has a compelling quality that appeals to something deeply rooted in the character of the 'average' Australian

Describe each of the author's views of Ned Kelly - How does each author portray Ned Kelly - As hero or villain?

Whose viewpoint do you personally believe is most accurate? Is Ned Kelly a hero deserving of being celebrated in Australian history or a villain best forgotten?

2. Which side do you fall on - was Ned Kelly a hero deserving of celebration and remembrance or a murderous villain deserving to be buried in an unmarked grave - give evidence for your answer.

1. How is Ned Kelly portrayed in this article?

2. What reasons does the author give to justify his view?

3. Do you agree with Christopher Bantick's analysis or do you believe that Ned Kelly deserves heroic status - give reasons for your answer.

Let us not cry for Ned Kelly

·  CHRISTOPHER BANTICK

·  THE AUSTRALIAN

·  JANUARY 18, 2013 12:00AM

WHEN news of Ned Kelly's burial makes London's The Guardian newspaper, then we are dealing with no ordinary outlaw. Kelly has taken on monumental proportions in Australia as a kind of colonial voice for all the oppressed, broken and bereft. His burial is undeniably appropriate.

But while I can appreciate that Kelly's family would like him to have his last wish - burial in consecrated ground - the question that needs to be asked is whether he is deserving of the respect his family crave.

"The family wish for their privacy to be respected so that they may farewell a very much loved member of their family," The Guardian reported.

This is understandable but burying a bag of dusty bones will not bury the myth that every primary school-aged child knows as a rite of passage. This is that Kelly was an outlaw who was misunderstood.

The truth is something else altogether. Kelly, for all his tourist dollar potential and funding Glenrowan's survival, was not the kinda guy you want as a neighbour. One unfortunate man had this unhappy experience and Kelly happily sent his wife a pair of bullock's testicles as an elegant statement of her husband's potency.

What is edited out of the myth of Kelly is his deep psychosis. When I worked some years ago on the ABC/Channel 4 documentary Outlawed: The Real Ned Kelly, dealing with Kelly's status as a national hero, a police profiler did a study of Kelly's behaviour and in particular the Jerilderie letter.

The result was damning. Kelly was psychotic and dangerous.

How he has been excused from planning mass murder at Glenrowan is an interesting example of distorted historical revisionism.

The Glenrowan incident was by any measure a calculated bloodbath of Port Arthur proportions.

Kelly's pathological hatred of the police was enough to justify his reasons, but the uncomfortable fact remains that Kelly was a police murderer. There are no grounds for editing this out of his brutal and mercifully short life.

There can be no erasing of the names - Michael Scanlon, Thomas Lonigan and Michael Kennedy - that appear at Mansfield in Victoria and the police monument in St Kilda Road. All shot by Kelly.

The appropriation of the Kelly story as some kind of colonial talisman where we see through the Kelly diorama the reality of the downtrodden Irish is risible. So is the persistent misinformation peddled in classrooms that Kelly was something other than a bit of a bovver boy who was disturbed, violent, pitiless and replete with his own self-aggrandisement. Most mass-murderers are similarly disposed.

It does not take much of a leap of the imagination to see how Kelly would have used social media to get his message across. He would have hate sites aplenty against the police and, sadly, I suspect he would have received plenty of tweets, let alone "friends" on Facebook. I suspect there will be in the offing a colonial Underbelly, with Kelly as the feature.

Given that the family clustering around the graveside will present a tragic picture of grief and loss, let us allow their tears to dry. This is the least any family can hope for regarding a wayward relative.

But let the rest of us not weep for Kelly. Let us remember that we, the mythmakers, are culpable in aiding and abetting the promotion of a callous murderer every time we say the good old Aussie epigram: "As game as Ned Kelly."

Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer

1. How is Ned Kelly's life described here - does the language used paint him as a hero or a villain?

2. Compare this description to what you know about Ned Kelly's actions - is there any evidence of bias or missing information?

3. Do you believe that Ned Kelly was a hero deserving of celebration in Australian history or a villain best left forgotten?

1. Describe each the author's views of Ned Kelly's murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek - Why does he believe the public excused Kelly's murders?

2. In light of his murderous deeds, although for a just cause, Is Ned Kelly a hero deserving of being celebrated in Australian history or a villain best forgotten?

… there was never such a thing as justice in the English laws but any amount of injustice to be had …

If a poor man happened to leave his horse or a … calf outside his paddocks they would be impounded.

I have known over 60 head of horses impounded in one day … all belonging to poor farmers …

The trooper [Fitzpatrick] pulled out his revolver and said he would blow her [Ellen Kelly's] brains out if she interfered in the arrest [of Dan Kelly] … The trooper … invented some scheme to say that he got shot which any man can see is false … the Police got credit and praise for arresting the mother of 12 children one an infant on her breast … I heard nothing of this … I being over 400 miles from Greta when I heard I was outlawed …

… they must remember those men [Kennedy, Scanlan, Lonigan and McIntyre] came into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush and yet they know … I have been wronged …

Edward Kelly

1. Identify evidence of injustice against Irish people and police corruption.

2. Using evidence from the letter explain why Ned Kelly felt justified in murdering the three officers at Stringybark Creek.

3, Using your knowledge of Ned Kelly's life explain whether you agree with Ned Kelly's description of himself as a heroic victim or whether you believe he was a villain.

2. We believe the Ned Kelly was indeed courageous and heroic in his actions at Stringy bark as he stood up against the corrupt police force and because he killed them in self defence as they were obligated to kill Ned