The Battle of Vinegar Hill is the name given to the clash between convicts and soldiers on Monday March 5 1804 following on from the Castle Hill uprising the night before. It was the first battle between Europeans on Australian soil.
Convicts, mainly Irish, who were working on the government farm at Toongabbie joined with convicts and settlers in the district.
They planned to march to Hawkesbury and team up with other rebels, then on to Parramatta and finally Sydney where they had planned to commandeer a ship home.
News of the uprising spread quickly to Sydney and Governor King dispatched soldiers of the NSW Regiment — later to be known as the infamous "Rum Corps" — who after a forced march faced the rebels at the place later known as Vinegar Hill.
Vinegar Hill was named after a similar hill in Ireland, which was also the scene of battle in the 1798 United Irishmen's uprising. Some of the rebels at Sydney's Vinegar Hill were veterans of the Irish Vinegar Hill.
The convicts' leader, Philip Cunningham, was sent to parley with the commander of the soldiers under a flag of truce, but the soldiers disregarded the flag and fired on the rebels.
The result was more of a massacre than a battle, with 11 rebels killed in the hunt that followed and a further nine court-martialed and hanged over the next few days. Cunningham, at first thought to have died during the skirmish, was hanged without trial on the steps of the government store. His grave is located at Windsor, in Sydney's west.
The Battle of Vinegar Hill is commemorated at the Vinegar Hill Memorial, Castlebrook Memorial Garderns, Windsor Road Rouse Hill at 3pm on the first Sunday of March each year. The commemoration for 2008 will be on Sunday March 2.
My husband Thomas Gleeson and I arranged the commemoration on behalf of the Irish National Association first in 1996 and each year since then leading up to the bicentenary of the battle in 2004 when the Blacktown Council joined the organising team.
In 1988, a monument was erected at the site of Vinegar Hill. It bears the names of many politicians and councilors at the time, but none of the names of the men who fell in 1804. This was remedied by placing a plaque with the names on the monument in 2004.
The aim of the annual commemoration is to honour those who died and those who survived. It also stresses the love of freedom that Australian society has inherited from the Irish struggle. It also celebrates the kinship of all people.
[Christine Gleeson and her husband Thomas are founding members of Friends of Vinegar Hill. For further information please visit