It all began with a letter sent from inside an Australian “tomb,” a document so convincing that it prompted a US gang to sail some 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) to execute what could arguably be ...

The Irish Fenian prisoners known as the Fremantle Six. Photos: Wikipedia The plot they hatched was as audacious as it was impossible—a 19th-century raid as elaborate and preposterous as any Ocean’s ...

Last week a model replica of the American whaling ship Catalpa was lent to the new Bunbury Museum to commemorate a daring prison escape that took place almost 140 years ago. The Catalpa embodies the ...

“Remember this is a voice from the tomb. For is this not a living tomb? In the tomb it is only a man’s body that is good for worms, but in this living tomb the canker worm of care enters the very soul ...

Editor's Note: The following piece has been shared with IrishCentral from the American Irish Historical Society's (AIHS) Treasures of Time, stories from the collections and archives of the American ...

Have you heard the one about the noble whale ship and commander, who came to Western Australia, then took six poor Fenians away? Those are often among the opening lines of one of Australia's most ...

The “Fremantle Six” were Irish political prisoners who made an audacious escape from the notorious British prison in West Australia aboard the U.S. whaling ship “Catalpa” in 1876. Following is a brief ...

For the Fenians had ‘sliddered’ right off in a row. So stated John Breslin, one of the masterminds of the escape of six Irish Fenian prisoners from Fremantle Gaol in 1876, in his poem "The Cruise of ...

Rescue of ‘Catalpa Six’ in 1876 involved a secret agent posing as a wealthy investor and a whaling ship flying the Stars and Stripes The Catalpa, the ship used to rescue the Irish prisoners from ...

Had the captain of the Catalpa not raised the Stars and Stripes above the mast of his ship, he and his crew could have perished. At the very least, his actions 150 years ago this week saved six Fenian ...