Home 2025 July 16 The Catalpa Escape Podcast Series – Episode 2

The Catalpa Escape Podcast Series – Episode 2

in Life, Law & Culture

The Catalpa Escape was the escape, on 17 April 1876, of six Irish ‘military’ Fenians from the ‘Convict Establishment’, now Fremantle Prison, in the then British colony of Western Australia.

A number of Fenians were initially transported on the convict ship Hougoumont to Fremantle, arriving on 9 January 1868. In 1869 and 1871, pardons had been issued to many of the imprisoned Fenians. But not to the ‘military’ Fenians who remained in Western Australia’s penal system.

In 1874, one of these ‘military’ Fenians, James Wilson, secretly sent a letter to New York City journalist John Devoy, who worked to organise a rescue. Using donations collected by Devoy from Irish-Americans, a merchant ship, Catalpa, was purchased and crewed and sailed into international waters off Rockingham, Western Australia.

On 17 April 1876 at 8:30 am, Wilson and five other Fenians working outside the prison walls – Thomas Darragh, Martin Hogan, Michael Harrington, Thomas Hassett, and Robert Cranston – boarded a whaleboat and soon after were were taken aboard the Catalpa, and made their escape to New York.

In the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series, leading up to 17 April 2026 and the 150th anniversary of the Catalpa Escape, Fremantle writer and Catalpa historian Margo O’Byrne tells Fremantle Shipping News Editor Michael Barker just how the Fenians came to be in Fremantle, how the plot to free them was hatched in the USA, and how it was dramatically carried out.

Enjoy the story!

In Episode 1 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series, our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, set the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia.

In this, the second episode of the Podcast Series, Margo narrates how the escape plan was hatched in New York, Boston and New Bedford.

Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gale – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape.

Devoy sets out for Boston to meet up with JB O’Reilly and Denis Cashman, who had both been imprisoned in Fremantle. They discuss various options and encourage Devoy to travel to New Bedford and meet with Henry Hathaway.

Hathaway, a former first mate on the whaling ship Gazelle, had also been to Western Australia, and was now the chief of the night police in New Bedford. He and Devoy immediately liked each other and spent days together talking through options. In the end, they trusted each other completely.

Another component of the plot was to find an ‘on shore opprative’, someone who could pass messages to the Fenian prisoners and prepare everything needed for the escape.

It was Hathaway who convinced Devoy to purchase a whaler, find a skilled Captain and have him sail to Western Australia, and it’s Hathaway who introduces Devoy to the whaling agent, John T Richardson.

Things are hotting up – as you’ll hear in the podcast below!

* In case you missed Episode 1 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series here it is again!

By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News

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*Here’s the PODCAST. Enjoy!

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© 2025 Fremantle Shipping News / Site by Super Minimal

© 2025 Fremantle Shipping News / Site by Superminimal