Screening Thu 3 July @ 12 Noon

Sarah Riley Theatre

The Waltzing Matilda Centre

 

The Shiralee

Leslie Norman, 1957

An itinerant rural worker named Macauley —sometimes described as a “swagman” or “swaggie”—suddenly finds himself taking responsibility for his child. Having returned from “walkabout”, he finds his wife entwined in the arms of another, and so he takes the daughter, Buster, with him. The child is the “shiralee”, an Irish or Aboriginal word meaning “swag”, or metaphorically, a “burden”.