Sir, – Joe Joyce’s column (From the Archives, July 18th) reminds me that the most famous graduate of the Royal Hibernian Military School at Phoenix Park was Pte John King from Moy, Co Tyrone. Although long forgotten in Ireland, King was the only survivor of the first crossing of Australia by the Burke and Wills Expedition in 1861. His superhuman achievement made King a celebrity and he was honoured by a number of Australian and British institutions including the Royal Geographical Society in London.
In all, seven explorers died and the Quaker-educated King only survived by making friends with an Aboriginal tribe who kept him alive for three months before he was found. While his colleagues treated the natives with contempt King realised they were his only hope of survival as the party ran out of rations and succumbed to disease and malnutrition.
Among those who died was the leader Robert O’Hara Burke from Galway. As an “Anglo-Irish aristocrat” Burke too has been forgotten in Ireland, although he remains Australia’s most famous explorer.
Contrast that with my 2009 visit to Galway’s main tourist office where, as I sought directions to his ancestral estate, St Cleran’s Manor House, I had to explain to staff who Burke was. Nor did they know that in the mid-20th century the Manor House became the home of the legendary film director John Huston and that famous guests ranged from film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando to writers John Steinbeck and Jean Paul Sartre. – Yours, etc,