In April 1876, the Western Australian coast contained many ships carrying out their normal business. It wasn't anything unusual of course, the coasts were busy and it wasn't at all uncommon for there to be commotion on the docks. But one ship in particular off the coast was here for a very different reason. Dropping anchor, it sent out a boat to the mainland and the crew jumped out and seemed to be on a mission. Later that day, the locals would learn of a daring prison escape mounted that very day and it all relied on that one ship, anchored out at sea, seemingly fitting in with every other ship in the bay but really there to aid in the escape of those Irish Fenian prisoners who just escaped from Fremantle Prison. And it's name, was the Catalpa.
Join Conor this week as he takes the gang through the daring escape of six Irish Fenian prisoners from Fremantle Prison in Western Australia and the role the Catalpa played in its success. We'll take you through the history of prisoners being sent to Australia to serve out their sentence, how Irish Fenians were sent there to keep them as far away from Ireland as possible, how Irish Fenians organised the whole escape over 11,000 miles away on the East Coast of the United States of America, and exactly how the Catalpa Rescue went down.
This episode was hosted by Conor Daly and joined by Arron Keegan and Hayley O'Connor. The intro and outro music - Strollin' Along - was recorded by David Renda. Follow us on social media and join our Discord server by following the links below!
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Sources & Further Reading:
- Durney, James, "Jailbreak: Irish Republican Escapes 1865-1983".
- Fennell, Philip, "History into Myth: The Catalpa" in Hibernia Review, vol. 9, pp 77-94.
- O'Connell, Ronan, "The Catalpa Rescue: The story behind one of Australia's most incredible prison escapes", online at CNN (https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/catalpa-rescue-escape-australia-perth/index.html).
- Pearse, Z. W., "The Catalpa Expedition".
- Quinn, James, "Breslin, John J." online at Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://www.dib.ie/biography/breslin-john-j-a0947).
