When celebrity restaurateur Matt Moran felt an impulse to buy a pub in Rockley last year in central New South Wales, he couldn't explain it.
The pub was located in a village a four-hour drive away from Sydney, just south of Bathurst. With just 10 streets and under 200 people it was a world away from the high-end restaurants Moran operated in the city.
As one of eight prominent Australian personalities who delve into the mystery of their ancestral pasts for season 13 of the SBS series Who Do You Think You Are? Moran was shocked to discover on the show that his great-grandfather Charles Moran actually got married at Rockley Church.
"Why did I buy a f***ing pub that my great-grandfather got married at and, and what drew me to that town? Why did I buy that country pub? I don't know," he said.
"Who's to say that after he got married that he didn't go and have drinks at that pub or stayed in the pub? And [that] my grandfather wasn't conceived there?
"It's just uncanny that there's all these connections."
Delving deeper, Matt was surprised to find that a childhood story he heard about, of an ancestor who was forced to walk from Sydney to Bathurst, was true. It was none other than Charles Moran, who made the long journey by foot as a six-year-old child with his father George.
Matt Moran. Source: Supplied
George had a rough start in life. He was the product of a shipboard romance between a sailor and his mother, a convict named Mary Moran. She was unable to raise him on her own so she gave him to a local family – the Smiths.
George went on to become a butcher and to father children of his own but his life was plagued with alcohol and violence, including stints in jail. He decided to take the name Moran again after his criminal reputation as George Smith.
In turn, his son Charles also had a difficult childhood, but he eventually transcended his past by buying land around Rockley, raising a family and growing his farm.
"(Charles) had everything going against him with his past and his father and mother and grandmother; and to be this pillar of society and do what he did was quite remarkable. I saw a lot of myself in him in many ways," Moran said.
Moran grew up in Sydney's western suburbs and was only 15 when he left school and entered the food business.
"I never really envisaged (owning) any restaurants or building an empire or anything like that. I just started cooking because I fell in love with it.
"Those hundred hours that I used to do as an apprentice and young chef, it never really felt like work. I may not have been paid properly… but I saw it as a trade.
"I didn't want to work for anybody anymore. I didn't want to be told what to do anymore and that just snowballed… I look back at it and think… how amazing it is… how lucky I was to be in certain positions at certain times."
Moran jokes he went into the show hoping he was related to royalty only to be chagrined "to find out that really everywhere, the whole family were bloody convicts!"
Matt Moran. Source: Supplied
Moran is nonetheless proud of his roots and the hardships his ancestors experienced as working-class people criminalised for surviving.
One ancestor, William Green, an orphan boy, was jailed and condemned to an iron gang for stealing fruit at 14 years of age. He later established a farm and family as a free man but tragically died at 53 by choking on food.
"A convict was someone who was just trying to f***ing survive life… those days were bloody tough and being Irish and of Irish descent was always sort of frowned upon."
The family’s history with food, farming and butchery has helped Moran understand his own trajectory, and his passion for farming.
"It's just ironic though, isn't it? It was a nice surprise. It didn't shock me as much. It was just nice to know that there was that history," he says.
"Why am I so passionate about where our food comes from? Maybe it made me a better chef, just realising that so many of my ancestors were all bloody farmers!"
Who Do You Think You Are? airs Tuesdays at 7:30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand starting 21 June. The show is produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia for SBS. Who Do You Think You Are? season 13 will be subtitled in Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean on SBS On Demand. Matt Moran's episode will air on Tuesday 26 July.
Head to SBS On Demand to catch up on previous episodes of (with subtitles available in Arabic and Simplified Chinese). Join the conversation #WDYTYA.
