Clemson University TigerPrints Publications English Spring 2002 John Boyle O'Reilly & Moondyne (1878) Susanna Ashton Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/english_pubs Part of the Celtic Studies Commons Recommended Citation Ashton, Susanna, "John Boyle O'Reilly & Moondyne (1878)" (2002). Publications. 2. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/english_pubs/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in Publications by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1-------------------------------- ~-·--~-~-- zstor ! LAND VOL 10 1\o. I SPRING 2002 €5. 00 Quarterly ISSN 0791-8224 Farewell to the Irish Pound 0 1 Ulster Volunteers: Force or Farce~ Medieval Wexford John Boyle O'Reilly & Moondyne (1878) by Susanna Ashton rrested for treason against the British Crown and deported to Athe penal colonies of Australia, the Irish revolutionary John Boyle ',\ \\,\• ,, O'Reilly managed to escape to the '~ l United States and within a few years became one of Boston's most promi­ ~; nent political and literary figures, one of the best known Irish immi­ I f grants in the United States, and one of the most charismatic individuals of the late nineteenth century. He wrote some of the most popular poetry of the period as well as one obscure but swashbuckling novel, Moondyne (1878), based in part upon the spectacular events of his own life. O'Reilly was a hero of national and international stature. His reputation, however, rested on more than his personal charisma, staggering life history and notorious achievements as political activist and editor of The Pilot, the most influential Catholic newspaper of the nineteenth centu­ ry. His clout truly stemmed from the way in which other Americans saw him as embodying a cultural role of conciliator, communicator, and given him by his Aborigine friends in john Boyle O'Reilly, 1844-1890. (The Pilot) cross-cultural ambassador. Both the Australian outback. A victim of a O'Reilly's contemporaries and more heartless British system of capital­ ters all end up on the same convict recent scholars have hailed him as ism and cruelty, our hero was arrest­ ship bound for Freemantle. Ostensi­ the great go-between for Brahmin ed when caught poaching deer in bly returning to Australia upon the Boston and what was rapidly becom­ order to feed his starving family. request of the British government in ing a city of Irish Catholic immi­ Summarily transported to the con­ order to reform the land policies and grants. By situating Moondyne in the vict colonies, he manages to escape penal system out there, Wyville/ context of not just the Australian with the help of Aborigines and Moondyne nonetheless manages to penal system, nor even the Irish share with him the secret of an save Alice from both despair and Land question, but in the context of immense gold mine. false imprisonment, re-unite a pair of questioning how America itself might Returning to England under. an lovers, punish the wicked, and make be a model for how cultures could assumed name, the convict, now numerous suggestions for how land work together, Moondyne explores known as Wyville, begins life anew. should be distributed in a just soci­ ideas the shouldn't be overshad­ As a mysterious man of wealth and ety, all before he dies in an attempt owed by its swashbuckling tone. respected humanitarian with special to save a villain from certain death in Moondyne takes on the question of expertise on theories of land distrib­ a raging brush fire. prison justice, yes. And it certainly ution, legal codes, and penal reform There's melodrama to be sure and poses questions about the United he befriends a young man, William troubling themes of race and nation States. But it also asks its readers Sheridan. In the course of his chari­ that complicate much of the novel's how we might imagine models for co­ ties Wyville becomes involved with impassioned goals. And yet, for all of operation among seemingly irrecon­ several sub plots; among other pro­ its exotic setting and themes, the cilable enemies. jects, he takes up the cause of a sense that kindness is ultimately young woman, Alice, who is falsely more important than nationalism, Moondyne's plot accused of murdering her own child. and that charity to the least deserv­ Hapless Alice is transported to Aus­ ing is the only charity worth valuing, The central figure of the tale is the tralia and she, Wyville/Moondyne, allows Moondyne to be a novel of sin­ convict called 'Moondyne'-a name Sheridan, and a dozen other charac- gular beauty and moral significance. 38 IHSTORY IRELAND Spring 2002 O'Reilly's many lives proud of the exchange'. He was to given various clerk and messenger 878) need such bravado, for his hardships jobs with the road crew which The story of O'Reilly's life is spectac­ had only just begun. allowed him considerable freedom. It ular on its own merits and deserves Moved from prison to prison, was at this point that O'Reilly even retelling, but the events and themes O'Reilly reportedly tried to escape developed a friendship with one of in Moondyne closely parallel his own from Chatham, Portsmouth, and his supervisors, warder Henry Wood­ life, and are a reminder that the Dartmoor prisons, although no offi­ man. Woodman introduced O'Reilly melodrama he might easily be cial documents record such to his family and the young and accused of was often very true to his attempts. As a young man with a charismatic, O'Reilly attracted the own experience. long sentence ahead of him and affections of the· warder's daughter, John Boyle O'Reilly was born on working under cruel conditions, he Jesse. Although this romance seems :28 June 1844, in County Meath, the probably thought he had little to incredible, journals and testimonials son of a schoolteacher William David lose. Ironically, his reputation as an vouch that some sort of affair did O'Reilly and orphanage matron, Eliza escape risk may have been what per­ indeed occur and it is tempting to Boyle O'Reilly. Growing up during suaded officials to send O'Reilly read the romantic scenes in Moon­ the Great Famine of the 1840s, O'Reil­ abroad: many of other military Feni­ dyne between Will Sheridan and Alice ly was fortunate to have parents ans languished in British prisons for Walmsley as shaped by O'Reilly's steadily employed with the memories of a hopeless love government rather than affair. Nothing could come of dependent upon the potato such a real life liaison, how­ crop. And so he survived the ever, and O'Reilly's life famine and was educated in instead took another dramat­ his father's school until the ic twist. age of eleven when, after his • · brother fell ill with tuberculo- Escape from Fremantle sis, O'Reilly took over his brother's apprenticeship at Assisted by a local priest, the Drogheda Argus, a local Father Patrick McCabe, and a newspaper. After a couple of settler named James Mc­ years there, O'Reilly went to Guire, O'Reilly arranged to be live with relatives in England, smuggled away on an Ameri­ who set him up with a job at can whaling ship. The plans another local paper. didn't work out as they were supposed to. O'Reilly ran off Joins the Fenians from his work crew on 18 February 1869 and was met In 1863, O'Reilly returned to by McGuire and friends who Ireland and enlisted with the led him to the coast. Hidden Kritish army's lOth Hussars in the sand dunes, O'Reilly then stationed in Dublin. With­ \ spent horrible days suffering in one or two years he was from the elements and wait- 'j,,. sa.me COI1VICt approached by representa­ ' ing to be picked up. He saw '•.'ll>ill1tl<>. Ostensi­ tives of the Irish Republican the ship, the Vigilant, which ,li~'riliia upon the Brotherhood (IRB) and, in per- was supposed to take him ish g1)vernn1ent in haps the most momentous on, but the captain did not · Li!HI policies and decision of his life, he took the see the small boat O'Reilly t ; 'wre. Wyville/ Fenian oath and became part a was on and so passed him lt'lf';l> manages to scheme to infiltrate the British by. Father McCabe and )•'''J despair and army in Ireland: he reportedly Maguire frantically made • r• -unite a pdir of recruited over eighty other Irishmen years. Whatever the reasoning other arrangements and found w•· ked. ami make to the cause. Informers betrayed the behind his selection, O'Reilly ·and another American whaler, the i 1ll ..; fdr how land Fenians and in 1866 the authorities sixty-one other Fenian prisoners Gazelle, which agreed to take O'Reil­ lit·(! !!l a just son­ began a series of raids and arrests, were sent to Fremantle, Western Aus­ ly aboard. h·· Ill an attempt taking O'Reilly in March of 1866. As tralia, arriving there on 9 January Before O'Reilly could be smuggled ·I'J ;•ctain death in an Irish political offender but also as 1868. aboard, however, McGuire's mysteri­ nne of seventeen military offenders When he arrived in Fremantle, a ous errands in the bush came to the \lll tt) bt· sun~ and arrested, O'Reilly's treason was con­ settlement on the mouth of Swan's attention of ticket-of-leave prisoner Jl t .1• t' and nati,_)ll sidered especially heinous and at his River, his skills were quickly put to (essentially a paroled convict), ucl· ()[ ttw novel's court-martial he was initially sen­ use in the comparatively free prison Thomas Henderson, alias 'Martin \,·.cl vet.