Quarantine and Barricades
Tuesday 16 March.
The second of our History High Tales with curator and City of Sydney Historian Laila Ellmoos and an Irish flavour filled musical experience with The Shelaylees.
Please note: This is an outside courtyard, all weather event. Please bring appropriate clothing/umbrellas.
Doors open at 4.30pm with a welcome complimentary cocktail. Choose from our signature cocktails: Ngara Negroni (Ngara is Gadigal for the Rocks); Farrelly's Wharf (because there was one, down in the Rocks near Windmill St) or the Kent St Killer.
Between 5 – 6pm Playing foot-stomping Celtic jigs and reels, and jazz traditionals, The Shelaylees cover all of this and more. Multi-instrumentalist Clare O’Meara, fiddler, vocals, guitar and accordion joins fiddler/vocalist/guitarist George Washingmachine to bring their combined extensive live performance legacies as the energetic and highly entertaining duo The Shelaylees.
6pm - 7pm Laila Ellmoos
Bubonic plague and urban change in Kent Street 1900 to 1901
In 1900, an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in densely populated foreshore areas, sparking widespread panic. Parts of the city were quarantined. Armed police patrolled barricades where people lived and worked. The quarantine area bounded by Kent Street was one of the most infamous. Despite the static restrictions of quarantine, the effects of this year on Kent street led to rapid urban change. Laila tells this story using streetscape photographs from the current exhibition, Developing Sydney: Capturing Change 1900-1920.
Guests are invited to stay on to enjoy quality eats and drinks from the Sily bar.
COVID-19: attendees will be seated in line with current NSW Public Health regulations. The current regulations allow patrons to be seated alongside each other and not socially distanced within the bar. You are invited to, but not required to, wear a mask.