DEATH OF A NOTED FENIAN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1269, 25 June 1886, Page 4

DEATH OF A NOTED FENIAN.

A recent issue of the ‘New York Times ’ records the death in that city of Michael Harrington, the eldest of the six Fenian prisoners who were rescued from Western Australia by the American whaler Catalpa in 1876, The ‘Times’also gives some particulars of the career of this adven.i tnrer, and of the interesting episode referred to, and in doing so falls into the curious error of representing the escape from Western Australia as having been made from an isolated island at New South Wales.” “The fifty* four years of Harrington’s life,” it is said “were full of romantic interestHe was born in Cork. While a young man he enlisted in Her Majesty’s 61st Eegiment just in time to serve in the Sepoy rebellion and Indian Mutiny. He fought in thirteen engagements, was wounded and returned to England where he continued his military sem ■vice until he lacked but one year of the time to retire on a pension. That was in 1866 when the mine o Fenianisra was about to be fired in Harrington deserted his regiment, and haste.nod to Ireland to join the up« rising but was arrested at Dublin, and was brought before a court-martial, charged with desertion and high treason. Ho was sentenced to be ahor.; but the penalty was commuted to penal servitude for life, and he was transported with a number of others, to the isolated Island at New South Wales. In 1875 the Clan-na*Gael Society in New York secretly discussed a plan for the rescue of the pi isoners. The result was that the whaler Catalpa was purchased at New Bedford, and put in readiness for a whaling trip. MeanwhileJ Jolfn J. Bresliu reached Australia and began to pose as an American millionaire. He sought the convict island and was quickly iu communication with tbe Fenian prisoners without any suspicion ou the part of the guards. The Catapla had left San Francisco with a crow totally ignorant of the real object of the expedition, (he cap*a n alcue knowing that Dennis Duggin, the agent of the Claivma Gael Society, who had shipped as car-* penter, had fixed ou New South Wales as the destination of the vessel. The blind was successful. In April, 1876, Bresliu and Duggin complete! their communications, and on tho day of tiro English Easter .festival the six convicts began theigfpprilous journey of 20 mile.s to the distant whaler. The ve-vel was hardly under sail before tbe British corvette Gcorgietta was discovered in chase The escaping Fenians were heavily armed, and desperate to the last Tho American flag was run up, and when the corvette overhau’ed theig Smith proclaimed the neutrality of, the waters, ami dared tho Englishmen to firs ou the American flag. The Catapla pressed ou, and lauded the Fenians in New Yoik city in August 1876. Harrington was married two months later, and subsequently served on the Park police The other five rescued ones are still living, Hassett keeps a saloon on Sullivan street, Hogan is in Chicago, and Wilson, Darrel, aud Cranston are in Plu'adolv phli.”