'Born in Belfast, Eric Earley volunteered for the Navy when he was 18, and spent two years in Australia from 1944 when he was found to be colour-blind and therefore unfit for sea-going duties. In 1950, he returned and started working as a teacher, especially among Aborigines and Indigenous people in Papua New Guinea and Latin America.'
'Earley lived on an idyllic property on the escarpment at Uralba, Northern New South Wales that he brought while on holiday from teaching in New Guinea in 1976. The twice-married father of seven and great grandfather had a colourful past. He had been in and out of radical political movements all his life. In the early 80s he was involved in a variety of demonstrations with Greenpeace and other environmental groups.'
Source: Koori Mail, no. 62 (October 1993).