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.

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.