The Monthly, May 2008, No. 34

When Peter Lalor's moment in history arrived, it caught him by surprise. He'd come to Australia to strike it rich, not to lead a rebellion. The 27-year-old Irishman had shown no interest in politics in his native country. A Catholic from a once-prosperous, famine-bankrupted background, he spent his days down a mineshaft, eking gold from the Eureka reef. Joining the Ballarat Reform League was no more than a reaction to the heavy-handed methods of arbitrary officialdom.

When 12,000 of his fellow diggers gathered on Bakery Hill in November 1854 to hoist...