This year the city of Sydney is celebrating the diamond jubilee of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, probably its greatest monument, writes Rónán O'Brien
The bridge, recognised the world over as the symbol of Sydney, is colloquially known as the "Coat Hanger". It was completed in 1932 after more than 30 years of planning. It joins the city's northern suburbs to what the Australians refer to as the "central business district".
While Ireland's contribution to Sydney's development is considerable, beginning with the arrival of the "First Fleet" in 1787, it is the intrusion by an Irishman into the official opening of the bridge on March 19th 1932, that is perhaps the single most notorious contribution by an Irishman to the city's history.
The opening was a huge occasion for the city. Completed amid the industrial depression at a cost of 16 lives, the bridge stood for far more than an engineering achievement. It was a symbol of hope and optimism for the city in difficult times. Sydneysiders watching its gradual construction wondered whether or not the arches emanating from the two towers on either side of the harbour would ever meet in the middle.
The 1930s in Australia, as elsewhere were politically fraught times. Sydney's post-first-World-War prosperity had collapsed. A radical Labour government under the populist premier Jack Lang was re-elected to office in 1930, to the deep resentment of the wealthier and more conservative elements of Sydney society.
Among those people was an Irish furniture manufacturer called Francis de Groot, born in Dublin in 1888 of Huguenot stock. De Groot was a British war veteran, starting the first World War as a 2nd lieutenant in the King's 15th Hussars, before becoming a tank commander after the generals realised the futility of cavalry regiments in 20th-century warfare. While his allegiance to the crown and empire became a determining feature of his politics, he had entered 1914, politically, as a moderate Redmondite.
De Groot volunteered unsuccessfully to join the British support for the Russian White Army, an early manifestation of his militant anti-communism. Eventually he returned to Sydney - he had been in Australia initially between 1912 and 1914 - where he made a considerable fortune in the importation and manufacture of reproduction furniture (a family business in Ireland) in the 1920s. After returning to Australia following a spell in Ireland in 1929, de Groot closed down his business, recognising that there was no immediate future for fine reproduction furniture during the great depression.
He spent the next two years living relatively peacefully in Sydney until growing unease at labour unrest and the possible rise of communism propelled him in September 1931 into an organisation called the New Guard, which, like the Blueshirts in this country, aped continental European fascism.
It is likely that de Groot himself was a reactionary conservative rather than an ideological fascist, though a recent biography by Australian labour historian Andrew Moore is entitled Irish Fascist Australian Legend. He was certainly no anti-Semite and later in the 1930s he split from the New Guard movement as its leader, Eric "Colonel" Campbell, buoyed by a trip to Europe, advocated fascist corporatist ideology.
For a while in 1932, the New Guard was feared as a threat to New South Wales's democracy, fears which came to a head around the proposed opening of the new harbour bridge. Costs in those difficult times had not allowed for the importation of a British royal to open the bridge. That honour was to fall to the man most detested by the New Guard, Jack Lang.
The association between the bridge, the best of Sydney, and Lang - in their eyes the worst of Sydney - was too much to bear for the New Guard. Campbell repeatedly vowed that Lang would not open the bridge. Understandably, in view of past New Guard violence, these threats were taken seriously.
As the opening day approached it became clear to de Groot that his leader had no plan to interrupt the opening of the bridge so he took it on himself to act. Donning what remained of his old army uniform, borrowing a horse and buying a cap, he inveigled his way undetected onto the bridge, appearing as part of an army cortege.
Just as Lang prepared to cut the ribbon to open the bridge, de Groot trotted forward and, after a few hacks from a blunt sword, declared the bridge open "on behalf of the decent and respectable citizens" of Sydney. He was promptly arrested, tried and eventually fined a meagre £5.
De Groot's act has made him a folk hero in Australia. His fame also reached his home shores. The Irish Press told its readers: "How Dublin man opened world's greatest bridge". In 1982, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the bridge was marked by a series of de Groot copycats. A second cousin, Bob de Groot, attempted to interrupt the opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973.
Speculation continues to this day as to how de Groot, at that stage well known to the police, was able to pull off his stunt.
As usual, the case for conspiracy is less convincing than that of the cock-up. Simply, the manner of the de Groot protest was so surprising, and his ability to portray himself as an officer and horseman so natural, that the police were caught off guard.
His place in history secured, de Groot remained a patriotic Australian and, though unpopular with the political left, served his country again in the second World War before returning to Ireland in 1950 to effective retirement. He died in 1969.
This year, as the "Coat Hanger" celebrates its 75th anniversary, a few beers are being lifted to the temerity of de Groot in the bars of Sydney.