THIS year, the Eureka Centre is keeping annual Stockade anniversary commemorations in the family.<\/p>\n
On Friday, 3 December – the 167th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade – musician Shane Howard will perform his concert Rebel Songs <\/em>on site.<\/p>\n Howard is the great-grandson of arrested Eureka rebel Patrick Howard, known for his work as lead singer-songwriter of the band Goanna.<\/p>\n He said the Eureka Day gig at 8pm will be \u201cintimate\u201d as he sings and plays guitar alongside pianist Richard Tankard, reflecting on a 19th century world \u201caflame with change,\u201d and the \u201crebel voices\u201d heard since 1854.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m interested in the social and historical conditions that led to such an incident in Ballarat in 1854. It\u2019s timely to reconsider the struggle at Eureka and the contribution the events made to Australian democracy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, it\u2019s not really appropriate to refer to the diggers at the Eureka Stockade as rebels. They certainly didn\u2019t launch an attack on government forces, nor were there any plans to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cThey knew that burning their licences was a provocative act in the eyes of the law, but they built a stockade to defend themselves against the authorities, and swore to protect and defend each other, and that\u2019s what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n