Review by Frank West (Part 1)

The time is 1876 and the place is in international waters off the coast of Western Australia. The enormous British steam warship “Georgette” came alongside the much smaller American whaling ship, “Catalpa.” Both captains knew that if it came to a fight the small, unarmed “Catalpa” would lose. On his speaking trumpet the British captain called out: “Heave to.”

The American captain replied: “What for?”

The reply: “You have escaped prisoners aboard that ship.”

The American captain bravely replied: “You’re mistaken. There are no prisoners aboard this ship. There are none but free men aboard.”

The British captain responded: “Are you going to heave to?”

Calmly the American captain pointed up at the Stars and Stripes at the top of the mast: “No, sir.... This ship is sailing under the American flag, and she is on the high seas.... If you fire on me I warn you that you are firing on the American flag!”

This book is filled with excitement and adventure. It is about one of the most colorful and powerful episodes in Irish or in American history. The author has gone to great lengths to make sure that each scene is historically accurate.

Peter Stevens, the author, lives in Quincy, near Boston. He is the News and Features Editor of The Boston Irish Reporter. He has written many books about historical topics and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many other American newspapers. His work has also appeared in such prestigious magazines as American Heritage, American History, America’s Civil War and The World of Hibernia. Some of the work of this prize-winning author has even been made into films.

The action of the book takes place in 1875-1876. The Fenian movement was promoted in America by its branch here, Clan-na-Gael. The goal of the movement was freedom for Ireland. Leaders like John Devoy and John Boyle O’Reilly, both recent survivors of Queen Victoria’s brutal jails, have not forgotten their Fenian friends still in those horrible jails. They are serving life sentences of hard labor for political offences against the Queen. This means they had worked for Ireland’s freedom from Great Britain. Fenians were “transported” to Australian labor camps. These British camps were like Stalin’s labor camps of our time. The prisoners were given only enough food to maintain life (visitors to the penal colonies repeatedly described the prisoners as “thin as scarecrows”) . They were kept in small, solitary confinement cells: only three feet wide, seven feet deep and nine feet high! Many prisoners went mad before they could be worked to death.

The prisoners had fought in the Fenian uprising in the mid 1860’s. They were serving life sentences with no parole possible or even any remission of sentence for good behavior. They had been there ten years and had given up their vision for a free Ireland or given in to despair.

However, Fenians in America, like John Devoy, had not forgotten them. They had raised money and developed a daring escape plan for the six Fenian heroes jailed in Western Australia. The escape plan was master-minded by John Devoy and John Breslin. Breslin was a Fenian hero because he had planned the spectacular prison break of their leader, James Stephens. They “broke” him out of the heavily guarded British maximum security Richmond Prison.

But an escape from Australia, on the other side of the world? Nothing like this had been done before. The plan was audacious and incredibly successful.

When John Devoy and leaders of Clan-na-Gael were looking for a person to lead the escape of the Fenians from Australia, they quickly asked Breslin. They were elated when he accepted.

When people learned that the patriot, John Devoy, was working on a plan to help the prisoners; and moved by his description of the prison conditions they were enduring, people were quick to contribute. “Donations came in from laundresses and ditchdiggers as well as from bankers, attorneys, physicians and Irish men and women all over the United States....”

The British easily learned of Devoy’s efforts to help the prisoners escape but smugly and arrogantly felt it was way beyond the capacity of Irishmen to do and therefore impossible.

In next month’s issue read the rest of that amazing story in the review of this colorful and powerful book—The Voyage of the Catalpa by Peter Stevens.