The Wild Goose: A Collection of Ocean Waifs was a hand-written newspaper created in late 1867 by Fenian prisoners aboard Hougoumont, the last ship to transport convicts to Australia.
Seven issues of the newspaper were produced, and each issue was carefully laid out and decorated by hand. Only one copy of each issue was made, which was then read to the convicts aloud. The aim was to provide entertainment and encouragement aboard the ship during its long and arduous voyage to Fremantle. The title refers to the Wild Geese: the Irish soldiers who had left to serve in continental European armies since the 16th century.
The major contributors were John Flood, John Boyle O'Reilly and John Sarsfield Casey. The documents provide insight into life aboard ship. The documents contain songs, stories, articles, advice, poems, and even comedy. In addition to the diaries of Denis Cashman and the journals of Casey and Thomas McCarthy Fennell, the journey of Hougoumont was well recorded.
One passage describes Australia and its history with more than a little sarcasm:
This great continent of the south, having been discovered by some Dutch skipper and his crew, somewhere between the 1st and 9th centuries of the Christian era, was, in consequence taken possession of by the government of Great Britain, in accordance with that just and equitable maxim, "What's yours is mine; what's mine is my own." That magnanimous government in the kindly exuberance of their feelings, have placed a large portion of that immense tract of country called Australia at our disposal. Generously defraying all expenses incurred on our way to it, and providing retreats for us there to secure us from the inclemency of the seasons…
O'Reilly penned several poems for the paper, including The Flying Dutchman and The Old School Clock.
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.
James McNally, better known by his alias 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.
The Flying Dutchman is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and of Dutch maritime power. The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the Flying Dutchman might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. It was commonly believed that the Flying Dutchman was a fluyt.
Clan na Gael was an Irish republican organization 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.
John Devoy was an Irish republican rebel and journalist who owned and edited The Gaelic American, a New York weekly newspaper, from 1903 to 1928.
The convict era of Western Australia was the period during which Western Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. Although it received small numbers of juvenile offenders from 1842, it was not formally constituted as a penal colony until 1849. Between 1850 and 1868, 9,721 convicts were transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages. Transportation ceased in 1868, but it was many years until the colony ceased to have any convicts in its care.
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.
Moondyne is an 1879 novel by John Boyle O'Reilly. It is loosely based on the life of the Western Australian convict escapee and bushranger Moondyne Joe. It is believed to be the first ever fictional novel set in Western Australia. In 1913, Melbourne film director W. J. Lincoln made a silent film of the same name.
Wild Goose may refer to:
Denis Bambrick Cashman was an Irish political prisoner and diarist who was transported to Western Australia due to Fenianism and wrote of his experiences in a diary.
The word Fenian served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, 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.
The Clerkenwell explosion, also known as the Clerkenwell Outrage, was a bombing in London on 13 December 1867. The Irish Republican Brotherhood, nicknamed the "Fenians", exploded a bomb to try to free one of their members being held on remand at Clerkenwell Prison. The explosion damaged nearby houses, killed 12 people and caused 120 injuries. None of the prisoners escaped. The event was described by The Times the following day as "a crime of unexampled atrocity", and compared to the "infernal machines" used in Paris in 1800 and 1835 and the Gunpowder Treason of 1605. The bombing was later described as the most infamous action carried out by the Fenians in Britain in the 19th century. It enraged the public, causing a backlash of hostility in Britain which undermined efforts to establish home rule or independence for Ireland.
Rockingham is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located 47 km south-south-west of the city centre. It acts as the primary centre for the City of Rockingham. It has a beachside location at Mangles Bay, the southern extremity of Cockburn Sound. To its north stretches the maritime and resource-industry installations of Kwinana and Henderson. Offshore to the north-west is Australia's largest naval fleet and submarine base, Garden Island, connected to the mainland by an all-weather causeway. To the west and south lies the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park.
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.
Cornelius O'Mahony 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.
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.
Charles Underwood O'Connell was a Fenian activist from County Cork, Ireland. He was part of The Cuba Five who were exiled from the U.K. in 1871.
Henry (Harry) Mullady was a Fenian activist. He was part of The Cuba Five who were exiled from the U.K. in 1871.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
