Joe Byrne (1857 – 28 June 1880) was an Australian bushranger born in Victoria to an Irish immigrant. A friend of Ned Kelly, he was a member of the Kelly Gang, who were declared outlaws after the murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek. Despite wearing the improvised body armour for which Ned Kelly and his gang are now famous (and which he is reputed to have designed), Byrne received a fatal gunshot during the gang's final violent confrontation with police at Glenrowan, in June 1880.
Read more about Joe Byrne: Early Years, The Kelly Gang, Siege of Glenrowan, Byrne and His Role in Creating The Kelly Legend, Modern Discoveries
Famous quotes containing the words joe and/or byrne:
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sleep, and forget all things but one,
Heard in each wave of sea,—
How lonely all the years will run
Until I rest by thee.”
—John Byrne Leicester Warren, 3rd Baron De Tabley (1835–1895)