WEST AUSTRALIANA FENIANS CATALPA HISTORY
xvi, 336 p. : ill., facsims., ports. ; 22 cm. Bibliography: p. 326-334. First Edition. #150423
John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890) was a remarkable figure: a man who was an internationally renowned journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. Born in Meath, O’Reilly later worked in England before joining the British army. Ostensibly a proud soldier, O’Reilly lived a double life as a recruiter for the revolutionary Fenian Brotherhood. He was discovered and convicted, serving time in a succession of prisons from Mountjoy to Dartmoor. He was eventually transported to Western Australia from where he made a spectacular escape to the United States.
It was in the US, during a time of intense economic and social turmoil, where O’Reilly’s brilliance flourished. As editor of The Pilot, a Boston newspaper, he became a powerful advocate of the rights of workers and African-Americans. He retained a strong commitment to Ireland and was an important part of the Land League and Home Rule movements, working closely with Michael Davitt. A good friend of John Devoy, O’Reilly played an organisational role in the famed Catalpa rescue. In tandem with his journalism, O’Reilly was one of the most famous literary figures of his day, publishing four volumes of poetry and two novels. A complex and charismatic personality, O’Reilly’s popularity transcended race, religion and nationality and, among his friends, he could count figures as diverse as Walt Whitman, Wendell Phillips, and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.
O’Reilly would be remembered as a great and generous man but, in later accounts of his life, he was often dismissed as a ‘dreamer’ and safely de-politicised through selective use of his writings. Memorials to his life were erected in Boston and Ireland but as the years passed the historical memory of O’Reilly became fractured. He diminished, became smaller than the sum of his parts. O’Reilly’s poetry was remembered fondly but the social commentary which underpinned his musings was often overlooked. O’Reilly’s early life was the subject of a series of myths and misconceptions. O’Reilly’s role as a pioneering civil rights activist was ignored outside of African-American communities.