The Wild Goose: A Collection of Ocean Waifs was created on board the Hougoumont, the last convict ship to come to Australia. The ship departed from Portsmouth on 12 October 1867, with 280 convicts (including 68 Fenians) and 108 passengers, and arrived in Fremantle on 9 January 1868.
During the voyage, those on board 'started a journal, to which the most talented were contributors ... Each number was read in public, and so much applauded, that towards the end of the voyage the convicts were obliged to write out copies of the journal for the mates.'
Source: 'Diary of a Fenian Convict', Freeman's Journal, 19.1321 (1 August 1868): 11. The quotation is a paraphrase from the diary of John Boyle O'Reilly.
Masthead created by Denis Cashman who described it, in his diary, as 'a wreath of shamrocks with the name peeping thro' it'.
Source: Quoted in Johnston, Conor, 'Fenian Life on the Convict Ship Hougoumont, Denis B. Cashman on Board the Hougoumont 1867-1868 by Fenian Diary; C. W. Sullivan', Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 8.1 (Spring, 2002): 269-274
Walter McGrath examines documents produced during the voyage of the convict ship the Hougoumont. The ship carried 62 Fenians including some with a literary bent. The documents examined are Denis B. Cashman's Fenian Diary and the hand-written periodical The Wild Goose: A Collection of Ocean Waifs.
McGrath provides details on some of the Wild Goose contributors, particularly the convicted Fenians John Edward 'Ned' Kelly, John Flood and J. B. O'Reilly, and the ship's chaplain Father Bernard Delaney. Some of Kelly's, Flood's and O'Reilly's Wild Goose poetry is re-published in the article.
The Freeman's Journal paraphrases, and quotes from, portions of John Boyle O'Reilly's diary from the period September 1867 (just prior to O'Reilly's transportation) to 13 November 1867 (while on board the Hougoumont en route to Australia).
The writer for Freeman's concludes by stating: 'At the close of the diary are given copies of poems written for the Wild Goose. The best of them are by a convict named J. B. O'Reilly, who seems to be a man of no ordinary talent. Several of the poems by this writer are of a very superior description.' (The journal publishes one of O'Reilly's poems, written from his cell in Dartmoor Prison, at the end of this article. The poem, with the first line 'A plaintive tale is briefly traced on yonder new-raised stone', did not appear in Wild Goose.)
The Freeman's Journal paraphrases, and quotes from, portions of John Boyle O'Reilly's diary from the period September 1867 (just prior to O'Reilly's transportation) to 13 November 1867 (while on board the Hougoumont en route to Australia).
The writer for Freeman's concludes by stating: 'At the close of the diary are given copies of poems written for the Wild Goose. The best of them are by a convict named J. B. O'Reilly, who seems to be a man of no ordinary talent. Several of the poems by this writer are of a very superior description.' (The journal publishes one of O'Reilly's poems, written from his cell in Dartmoor Prison, at the end of this article. The poem, with the first line 'A plaintive tale is briefly traced on yonder new-raised stone', did not appear in Wild Goose.)
Walter McGrath examines documents produced during the voyage of the convict ship the Hougoumont. The ship carried 62 Fenians including some with a literary bent. The documents examined are Denis B. Cashman's Fenian Diary and the hand-written periodical The Wild Goose: A Collection of Ocean Waifs.
McGrath provides details on some of the Wild Goose contributors, particularly the convicted Fenians John Edward 'Ned' Kelly, John Flood and J. B. O'Reilly, and the ship's chaplain Father Bernard Delaney. Some of Kelly's, Flood's and O'Reilly's Wild Goose poetry is re-published in the article.
