The truth about how this historic family disappeared from the earth is shocking, I told a version of this story on West Bremer Radio.

John Hennessy was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1847 in the middle of the Irish Famine. He came to Australia when just a lad of around fifteen-years-old. Apart from a few months spent in Brisbane, he lived continuously in Tiger Street, West Ipswich, Queensland for over fifty years. Almost all of that he was working on the railways. It was probably John who made the introduction that begat this story.

John’s younger sister Ellen Hennessy followed him to Australia. She arrived in Ipswich in about 1870 and was staying with her brother John when she was introduced to another Irishman Thomas McNulty. Ellen and Thomas got married in the old catholic church on Mary Street near where the current St Mary’s Church is today.

The couple then went seeking their fortune in far north Queensland, and in 1879 arrived on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, and that’s where the McNultys entered folklore.

Thomas built the first licensed hotel on the island. It was called the Thursday Island Hotel and after a fire in 1900 it was rebuilt as the present-day Federal Hotel. The Federal was at one time the only first-class Hotel in the straits. I went to the hotel recently – it’s lost some of its popularity, but it’s in a fantastic location right on the water.

Being on the water was a big part of its attraction. You see, when the catholic missionaries first came to the island, mass was held in McNulty’s hotel. The congregation was mostly Filipino pearl fishermen, and they came in their hundreds straight from their boats, onto the beach, and into the pub for mass.

When Thomas died, his wife Ellen continued in the trade. She even built the present Grand Hotel up on the hill. And I can tell you that the veranda of the Grand is the best place to sit at sunset, and just gaze at the changing colours of Thursday Island Harbour (pictured top and below) – it’s absolutely beautiful.

The McNulty children carried on the family business, and the best known was the youngest daughter Maggie McNulty. She was sent to school at All Hallows Convent in Brisbane, and eventually sold the Federal Hotel but kept living there until she died in 1966 as an eighty-four-year-old spinster.

And that was the problem for Ipswich’s McNulty family. You see, although Thomas and Ellen had five children who lived to adulthood, none of them married, and none of them had any children of their own. And so the McNulty family – whose legend started in Ipswich and blossomed on Thursday Island – was destined to end.

It wasn’t for want of trying though. One son Jack went over two thousand kilometres south to school at Nudgee College in Brisbane, but no descendants came of that.

The McNulty’s even adopted the daughter of a Filipino fisherman who was killed while pearl diving. The girl was taught French and Latin, Irish singing and dancing, and went to the interior of New Guinea as a catholic missionary. The adopted daughter does have descendants possibly living in Western Australia today, but there’s none of the McNulty DNA there.

The great hope of the family was the oldest son Edward McNulty. Edward was a strong, good-looking young man. He enlisted for the Boer War, serving as a sergeant with the 3rd Queensland Mounted Infantry. He then did Garrison duty on Thursday Island. By the start of the First World War, Edward was in his late 30s and so lowered his age to enlist again. He joined up as a sergeant with the Second Australian Light Horse Regiment

But Edward had previously worked as a trader in New Guinea. It was there that he caught a fever that probably saved his life because it recurred and prevented him from fighting at Gallipoli. Instead he was sent from Lemnos Island in the Aegean Sea home to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.

Edward then joined the Mounted Police at Borrolooa, which is a remote community on the banks of the McArthur River in the Gulf of Carpentaria. While taking some prisoners to Darwin on a launch, Edward fell off the boat and disappeared. His body was never recovered.

And so ended the great hope of Ipswich’s McNulty family. The founders had survived the Irish famine, travelled the globe to Ipswich, and became legends in the Torres Strait. But none of their children produced heirs, and their favourite son Edward was in fact taken by a crocodile.

The shocking end to this historic family came in the jaws of a croc.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Thursday Island Harbour, 2023 – Harold Peacock.
Federal Hotel Thursday Island, 2023 – Don McMillan.
Thursday Island Harbour, 2023 – Harold Peacock.
Edward Eugene McNulty, Thursday Island – The Queenslander, Pictorial supplement, 3rd March 1900, page 406.