Cornelius O'Mahony | |
---|---|
Born | 1840 Macroom, County Cork, Ireland |
Died | 5 March 1879 Melbourne, Australia |
Nationality | Irish |
Occupation | Teacher |
Cornelius O'Mahony (1840 – 5 March 1879) was a Gaelic scholar, teacher, Fenian and staunch supporter of Irish independence. He was tried and convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to prison, only to be later transported to Australia.
O'Mahony was born about 1840 in Macroom, County Cork, Ireland but later moved to Dublin. He grew up in a time where starvation and disease were commonplace, particularly in the countryside, during the period commonly referred to as the Great Famine. Given his later pursuits, it is fair to say he came from a family which either owned land or had the money with which to educate him.
By the time O'Mahony was 20 years old he had become a close follower of James Stephens and his fight to create a free and independent Ireland by removing the perceived tyranny of the British. To this extent, he became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Joseph Denieffe (1906) writes of him as "good and earnest Cornelius O'Mahony ...an unsophisticated but gifted school teacher". [1] In 1862 O'Mahony was working as a schoolmaster in the 'training school' located in Marlborough Street, Dublin, [2] and was useful in introducing like-minded educated young men to the cause.
O'Mahony resigned from his post with the National Board of Education, and the National schools of Ireland, in 1863 to concentrate on his work with the IRB and its newspaper The Irish People. He remained on the paper's staff as assistant bookkeeper and part-time journalist until it was raided and closed down in 1865 when the British felt that an armed uprising was imminent. At that time he was arrested along with Charles Kickham, Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, Jeremiah O'Donovan and others. The charges laid at Kilmainham Gaol included, "Conspiring To Depose The Queen, To Compel Her Majesty To Change Her Measures And Counsels, To Move And Stir Foreigners To Invade Ireland" [3] An abortive uprising known as the Fenian Rising took place in 1867 but was quickly put down.
For his participation in the rebellion O'Mahony was convicted at the Assizes in Dublin on 16 January 1866 following a retrial, as the first jury was dismissed by the judge. The defence implored the subsequent jury to show leniency in his case and he was eventually sentenced to five years penal servitude. [4] His sentence was subsequently commuted to transportation to colonial Western Australia. In October 1867, along with more than 60 [5] other Fenians, including O'Donovan and Hugh Francis Brophy, he set sail on board Hougoumont. [6] This ship was to be the last to transport convicts to Australia. [7] The voyage was a relatively peaceful one, monotony being one of the major concerns, and the ship docked at Fremantle on 9 January 1868.
Within a year of his arrival in Australia, O'Mahony had been granted a ticket of leave and on 18 May 1869 he received his Certificate of freedom as part of a general amnesty granted by the government led by William Ewart Gladstone. [8] Following his freedom he was engaged as a teacher of senior grades at the Catholic Boys' School, Perth, later known as the 'Assisted' school. While carrying out his teaching duties he also held the position of Honorary Secretary of the Catholic Institute in Perth which was responsible for assisting local Catholic schools and their teachers.
In 1874 O'Mahony married Mary Butler and they went on to produce two children, O'Connell Daniel in 1875 and Honora Mary in 1877. [9] Mary, born in Kilkenny, Ireland arrived in Western Australia in 1864 at age 15 and later worked in a number of important businesses including a draper's. Hundreds of locals, including members of government, attended her funeral in 1914 as she was a well-known and well-respected member of the local community.
Following the birth of his daughter Honora in 1877 O'Mahony left Western Australia to seek better conditions in Victoria. He left behind both the grim reminders of his convict past and his young family. On arriving in Melbourne he chose to settle in the suburb of West Melbourne which had a large Irish population. With his prior experience he was asked to take up the position of head teacher at St Mary's Primary School, West Melbourne. In 1878 he was made an honorary member of the Melbourne branch of the St Patrick's Society which was dedicated to supporting local Irish Catholics, promoting Irish culture and independence for Ireland.[ citation needed ]
O'Mahony worked at the school for less than two years before he was taken ill, dying shortly after of typhoid fever on 5 March 1879. [10] A contemporary newspaper report indicated that the death rate from typhoid in the suburb was extremely high for that period and that that figure exceeded the worst statistic for equivalent towns in Great Britain during times of epidemic. [11]
Following his death O'Mahony's funeral took place at St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne and then in procession moved to his burial at the Melbourne General Cemetery. Hundreds of people, including schoolchildren, took part, many wearing green scarves. As a sign of respect and in recognition of his life and work his friends within the Irish community, assisted by Morgan Jageurs, collected funds to construct and erect a fitting memorial for him. One such method was to raffle his personal library at the cost of one shilling per ticket. [12] Shortly after his burial a carved Celtic cross made of local Bluestone was raised over the grave, its plaque bearing the inscription, "In Memory of Cornelius O'Mahony, Macroom, County Cork, Ireland, Released Political Prisoner, Died 5th March, 1879. R.I.P."
The Fenian Brotherhood was an Irish republican organisation founded in the United States in 1858 by John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny. It was a precursor to Clan na Gael, a sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Members were commonly known as "Fenians". O'Mahony, who was a Gaelic scholar, named his organisation after the Fianna, the legendary band of Irish warriors led by Fionn mac Cumhaill.
The Catalpa rescue was the escape, on 17–19 April 1876, of six Irish Fenian prisoners from the Convict Establishment, a British penal colony in Western Australia. They were taken on the convict ship Hougoumont to Fremantle, Western Australia, arriving 9 January 1868. In 1869, pardons had been issued to many of the imprisoned Fenians. Another round of pardons was issued in 1871, after which only a small group of "military" Fenians remained in Western Australia's penal system.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924. Its counterpart in the United States of America was initially the Fenian Brotherhood, but from the 1870s it was Clan na Gael. The members of both wings of the movement are often referred to as "Fenians". The IRB played an important role in the history of Ireland, as the chief advocate of republicanism during the campaign for Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom, successor to movements such as the United Irishmen of the 1790s and the Young Irelanders of the 1840s.
James Wilson or Séamas Mac Liammóir, was an Irish Fenian and soldier of India. In 1867 he was transported as a convict to Western Australia and later escaped during the Catalpa rescue.
Clan na Gael (CnG) (Irish: Clann na nGael, pronounced[ˈklˠaːn̪ˠn̪ˠəˈŋeːlˠ]; "family of the Gaels") is an Irish republican organization, founded in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
John Boyle O'Reilly was an Irish poet, journalist, author and activist. As a youth in Ireland, he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians, for which he was transported to Western Australia. After escaping to the United States, he became a prominent spokesperson for the Irish community and culture through his editorship of the Boston newspaper The Pilot, his prolific writing and his lecture tours.
Hougoumont was the last convict ship to transport convicts to Australia.
Thomas McCarthy Fennell was a Fenian political prisoner transported as a convict to Western Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1868 in Australia.
Denis Bambrick Cashman was an Irish political prisoner and diarist who was transported to colonial Western Australia due to Fenianism and wrote of his experiences in a diary.
Charles Joseph Kickham was an Irish revolutionary, novelist, poet, journalist and one of the most prominent members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
John Francis O'Mahony was an Irish scholar and the founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Despite coming from a reasonably wealthy family and being well educated, the primary pursuit of O'Mahoney's life was that of Irish Independence from the United Kingdom, a calling that ultimately left him in poverty. O'Mahony fought in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 as well as the US Civil War, and was involved organisationally in the Fenian Rising of 1867 in Ireland and the Fenian Raids on Canada.
Thomas Clarke Luby was an Irish revolutionary, author, journalist and one of the founding members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
The word Fenian served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood. They were secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. In 1867 they sought to coordinate raids into Canada from the United States with a rising in Ireland. In the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence, the IRB led the republican struggle.
Edward (Ned) Duffy was an Irish Fenian.
Hugh Francis Brophy was an Australian rules footballer who played with Fitzroy in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Joseph Denis Nunan was an Irish born patriot and builder transported to Fremantle for wounding a policeman. He became an architect and building contractor involved in significant buildings in Perth, Fremantle and York. He never gave up his Fenian beliefs and died before he could return to Ireland.
St Mary's Primary School began life as a Roman Catholic co-educational primary day school with single-sex classes located in West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The school was part of the parish of St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne.
Hugh Francis Brophy was a leading Fenian and staunch supporter of Irish independence. He was convicted for his part in a plot to overthrow British rule in Ireland and establish a republic, and was sentenced to penal servitude. This sentence was later commuted to transportation to Australia.
John Flood was an Irish revolutionary and convict exile, and later Australian newspaperman, mining secretary and politician.