The Catalpa Rescue tells the story of one of the greatest prison escapes in history. A celebrated story in its day, one hundred and fifty years after the event, the extraordinary story of Catalpa Rescue has long since been forgotten.
In 1876, a team of exiled Irish Fenians set out from the tiny whaling port town of New Bedford, Massachusetts to rescue six of their Fenian brothers from one of the most hostile and remote prisons on earth – Fremantle, Western Australia.
A task which took two years to accomplish, which required the financial assistance of over 7,000 Irish Americans and which depended upon the ingenuity of three pivotal characters to pull off the greatest propaganda coup in Fenian history.
Not long after the attempt the three characters published accounts of their role in the rescue. The film pieces together the strands of this complex escape by using excerpts from their stories.
These intimate narratives portray moments of genuine heroism from the Catalpa’s unlikely captain, George Anthony, and reveal the breathtaking exploits of taciturn hero John Breslin and exposes the agenda of the guilt-ridden mastermind behind the escape John Devoy.
The story began in Ireland in 1866, when a group of British soldiers were convicted of treason against the British crown and transported to Fremantle, Western Australia as convicts.
The soldiers had been arrested for joining Ireland’s struggle for independence. The six Irishmen were condemned to spend the rest of their lives building roads for the British Empire in one of the most hostile terrains on earth.
Years later, one of them arranged to smuggle a message to their former Fenian commander, John Devoy. A desperate letter which urged the exiled freedom fighter to mount a rescue bid and release them from hell.
Its potency provoked an extraordinary reaction from the Irish community across America, they banded together and donated vast sums of money to get these men away from the clutches of the British Empire.
A daring escape plan was put together and a whaling ship from New Bedford was sent half way across the globe to bring these men to freedom.
For six months John Breslin, disguised as an American millionaire, based himself in Fremantle and arranged the details of the escape.
On the day of the escape, Breslin’s carefully planned prison break seemed perfect. The Catalpa lay offshore in international waters and a small whale boat with its crew were waiting onshore to whisk the men to freedom.
What should have been a discreet 4 hour row to the waiting ship, turned into 48 hours of harrowing drama in which the rescue party were challenged time and time again. Bad luck and bad weather dogged them, delaying their escape until the West Australian authorities found out where they had gone and set off on a hair-raising chase to get to the prisoners before they boarded the ship.
What followed was a standoff between an unarmed whaling ship and a British ship which had loaded onboard a full compliment of armed police and artillery. The ingenuity of Captain George Anthony and John Breslin equalled the overwhelming odds and finally secured their freedom in one of the most dramatic episodes in the rescue.
The Catalpa escape created a massive international sensation in its day. Its articulate heroes were celebrated as models of Irish wit and ingenuity and their story was handed down to the generations that followed them.
But today, the rescue is largely forgotten and its real legacy remains unacknowledged, the film’s intention is to recreate their poignant memoirs and celebrate their exploits as an extraordinary and unrecognised episode in Irish – Australian history.