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Jack Riley’s early days
There is an old Irish saying that states that 'reputations last longer than lives'.
It aptly relates in many ways to the life of Irishman and Upper Murray stock
man, Jack Riley, immortalised by A. B.'Banjo' Paterson's iconic Australian
poem, The Man From Snowy River.
John
'Jack'
Riley
was
born
in
Castlebar,
County
Mayo,
Ireland,
in
1841.
Nothing
much
is
known
of
his
family's
background
or
why
Jack,
as
a
thirteen
year
old,
travelled
to
Australia.
Young
Jack
arrived
in
Sydney,
New
South Wales, on 15 March 1854, aboard the ship, 'Rodney'.
Jack
travelled
to
Omeo
in
the
Victorian
high
country
to
find
his
sister,
Mary
Anne,
Mrs
Joseph
Jones,
and
her
family.
(After
her
first
husband
died,
Mary
Anne
married
a
Mr
McGowan
and
moved
to
the
busy
gold
mining
area
at
Cassilis,
near
Omeo).Jack,
for
a
time,
worked
as
a
tailor
in
a
shop
directly
opposite
the
Golden
Age
Hotel
in
Omeo.
It
has
been
suggested
that
he
learnt
this
trade
during
a
small
stint
in
gaol
after
having
been
caught
and
sentenced for horse theft.
It
is
known
that
Jack
loved
to
work
with
horses
and,
during
his
time
in
Omeo,
he
broke
in
horses.
Eventually
he
became
a
full
time
stock
man
and,
for
a
number
of
years,
he
spent
a
good
part
of
each
year
in
the
high
country
around
the
Snowy
River
and
the
Victorian
and
New
South
Wales
border.
Several
times
a
year
he
returned
to
Omeo
to
replenish
his
supplies and to trade stories with his sister and her children, and his friends.
In
1884
Jack
Riley
obtained
work
as
a
stock-man
for
John
Pierce
Sr.,
who
owned
land
at
Tooma
and
Greg
Greg.
At
that
time,
the
Pierce
family
owned
many
thousands
of
acres
of
land
in
the
Upper
Murray
and
owned
and
held
leases
on
20,000
acres
of
land
at
Tom
Groggin,
west
of
the
main
range
of the Snowy Mountains.
John
Pierce
gave
Jack
Riley
a
management
role,
supervising
his
cattle
in
the
high
country
over
the
summer
months
and
then
the
job
of
mustering
the
animals down from the mountains to the home paddocks before winter.
“The Man From Snowy River’ Country
of North-Eastern Victoria & Southern NSW