Barney Duffy

A 1840 map of Norfolk, printed for the House of Commons in 1841, shows “Barney Duffy’s Gully” running southwest from the slopes of Mt Pitt.The legend is that Barney Duffy escaped from the Norfolk prison and lived in a hollow tree for years; and that when he was finally caught he laid a curse on the two soldiers who found him, and they mysteriously drowned soon after. There doesn’t seem to be any documentary trace of this legend.

The Barney Duffy legend probably grew from the story of an absconding prisoner, for it was not an uncommon thing, in penal days, for men to take to the bush, which was more plentiful and denser than at the present time. Barney Duffy was supposed to have avoided capture for seven long years. His hiding-place was said to be an ancient hollow pine near the coast not far from the chapel. One day two young soldiers, who had been fishing down on the rocks in that area, came upon Barney Duffy as he wandered a little way from his tree-home. A hollow tree, said to have been Barney Duffy’s hiding-place, was burnt down some years ago. Local legend ties up the headstone at Headstone Point with the Barney Duffy story - it is said to have been erected to the two soldiers who captured Barney and met their death by drowning, as victims of his curse.