O’Leary of the Underworld by Kate Auty | Black Inc.
O’Leary of the Underworld

Kate Auty’s powerful and passionate work is a timely reminder that our colonial past should not be a foreign country.
—Patrick Dodson

O’Leary of the Underworld: The Untold Story of the Forrest River Massacre

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About the author

Kate Auty

Professor Kate Auty is a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Chair of Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority. She has formerly held appointments as a magistrate in Victoria and in the goldfields and western desert of …

More about Kate Auty



Praise for O’Leary of the Underworld

‘Kate Auty deploys her extensive knowledge of the Kimberley region to brilliantly dissect the evidence of the key perpetrator, Patrick Bernard O’Leary, who vehemently denied his involvement. A major contribution to the study of frontier massacres in Australia.’ —Lyndall Ryan

‘In her investigation into the life and character of Patrick O’Leary, one of the rogue males who prowled the Australian frontier in the 1920s, Kate Auty has chased down the sort of detail that scaffolds the dark side of the pioneering narrative we are only just learning to hear. … A forensically researched document of the persistence of frontier violence into the twentieth century.’ —Kim Mahood

‘Through research and writing that pulls no punches – and a compelling, often confronting storytelling style – Auty restores respect and humanity to those who deserved it, while tearing apart those who did not. A truly powerful book for all times.’ —Sandy Toussaint

‘With the forensic eye of a legal scholar, [Kate Auty] dissects the evidence and testimony of O’Leary and the others involved and reveals the lies, deceptions, and subterfuge that ensured the guilty went unpunished. This is a book for all Australians, a book we need, a book we must read, in all its uncomfortable detail. Kate Auty is to be commended for her contribution to truth-telling. Without truth, we can not have reconciliation.’ —Professor Lynette Russell, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre

‘Forensically researched and brilliantly and engagingly written, it is likely the authoritative account of the characters in the notorious 1926 Kimberley Forrest River Massacre.' —Chris Owen, author of Every Mother’s Son is Guilty: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882–1905

‘Kate Auty’s powerful and passionate work is a timely reminder that our colonial past should not be a foreign country: it’s our place, and we all need to know the awfulness of what happened here. … Her meticulous research also reveals how the cynical response of the Western Australia government – a compromised royal commission and a doomed criminal trial of two police officers – was calculated to bury the truth and deny justice to Aboriginal people.’ —Patrick Dodson

‘This is a story of a merciless thug, but it is also much more than that. It isn’t a pleasant read but it is a necessary one – particularly if Australia truly is committed to the project of truth-telling for a better future.’ —Celeste Liddle, The Saturday Paper

‘The court case and royal commission that followed the massacre uncovered a web of false testimony and duplicity. But thanks to Auty’s hard work, the daughter of time, truth, is finally revealed.’ —Steven Carroll, The Age

‘This is a sobering story. The injustices were entrenched. The community attitude, the police response and the court system were all stacked against the Aboriginal people.’ —Jamie Bolic, Law Institute Journal