HAYES, Anastasia

Anastasia was born around 1818 in Kilkenny, Ireland. She married Timothy Hayes and immigrated with him and their five children to Australia, arriving in October 1852. The family lived in a tent on the gold fields of Eureka where in 1854 Anastasia taught at St Alipius Catholic school. Anastasia quickly gained a reputation as a ‘firebrand’. With two other women she was thought to have sewn the Eureka flag.

She attended Lalor when his arm was amputated in Father Smyth’s tent and threw it down a shaft. Anastasia Hayes reported that she saw the battle and ‘afterwards I saw many of the wounded , and did all that lay in my power to alleviate their sufferings. The sight was one that touched me very much and I shall never forget it. Many of the poor fellows were besmeared with blood and writhing in agony from the wound’.

She died on 6 April 1892 aged 74 years and was buried in the Ballarat Old Cemetery, E2 Section 26 Row 2 Grave 7