BBC News Magazine, Ned Kelly: The outlaw who divides a nation

[Gerald]

More than 130 years after he was hanged, Australia's most notorious outlaw is being buried, as old tensions resurface about what he really means to the country.

To many Australians, Ned Kelly, the son of poor Irish Catholics, was a heroic anti-establishment figure who fought corrupt British colonists in the 19th Century.

To others, he was a vicious thug who murdered three police officers.

Kelly's descendants have insisted that by burying him, they were not seeking to glorify the notorious bandit, but to give him a dignified and proper farewell.

"It's good to see that Ned will get the funeral he finally deserved in the first place," says Anthony Griffiths, the outlaw's great-grandnephew.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21077457


Note: 20 January 2013 Last updated at 00:09 GMT