Commemorative Events
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF), Dublin South-Central

On 17 April 150 years ago, an American whaler anchored off Western Australia. It was captained by a US citizen, George Anthony, and it had an ulterior reason to be at that point on the other side of the world from where it had sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Unbeknownst to most of the crew, in fact, it was on a mission other than whaling.
Its story began with a smuggled letter to Fenian and Irish Republican Brotherhood, IRB, leader John Devoy from six prisoners of war incarcerated in Fremantle prison outside of Perth, Western Australia. The six were Thomas Darragh from Broomhall in County Wicklow, Michael Harrington from Macroom in County Cork, James Wilson, whose real name, in fact, was McNally, from Newry, Robert Cranston from Stewartstown in County Tyrone, Thomas Hassett from Doneraile in County Cork and Martin Hogan from County Limerick. That letter set in motion a devious, cunning and audacious plan to rescue the six military Fenians. Military Fenians were Irish men who had been in the British Army and who enlisted and took the Fenian oath. From them, the British sought vengeance. While others in the 1867 rising were pardoned, these men were being made an example of to stop other Irish men in the British Army from joining republican forces.
Considering it was150 years ago, it was against all the odds that the whaler got to the pre-appointed place on Easter Monday, 17 April. The key part of the expedition cost over €1 million in today's money. The men were picked up from the road gang they were involved in by a backup team of sympathisers and IRB men who had travelled to Australia to act upon this plan. They included John Breslin from Drogheda, Thomas Desmond from Cobh, Thomas Brennan from Dublin, John King from Tallaght and Denis Duggan from Dublin. They brought the six men to Rockingham, and they rowed out to sea to make good their escape. Even though they got on board the Catalpa , a standoff of four hours ensued when a police boat pursued them and told them to pull to. They refused, and showed they were flying the Stars and Stripes. They managed to escape and spent the next four months travelling back to New York, where they were met on 19 August 1876 to wild celebrations.
I think this event is worth celebrating. It is being celebrated in Rockingham itself by the Irish there. It should be celebrated in the United States and celebrated here in the museum, etc. I have been involved in events in the decade of centenaries, and going back to the 1798 centenary events, in which the then Minister, Seamus Brennan, was centrally involved. We then had the Famine commemorations, Robert Emmet's bicentenary and the 1916 and decade of centenaries events. This is important. It is strange there is not a commemorative programme by the Government thus far. I think this would fit perfectly into it. It is not just national, but local in all those towns I mentioned and also international, involving Australia and America. It is something our Irish diaspora looks at to try to ensure we celebrate their role in Ireland's freedom.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25