Patrick O'Donoghue (Young Irelander)

Patrick O'Donoghue also known as Patrick O'Donohoe, from Clonegal

Clonegal

Clonegal, officially Clonegall , is a village in the southeast of County Carlow, Ireland. It is in a rural setting, 5 km from Bunclody, County Wexford, 22 km from Carlow and 17 km from the proposed interchange of the N9 and N80 roads at Rathcrogue. It is just over a mile north of...

, County Carlow

County Carlow

County Carlow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Carlow, which lies on the River Barrow. Carlow County Council is the local authority for the county...

, was an Irish Nationalist revolutionary and journalist, a member of the Young Ireland

Young Ireland

Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...

movement.

Young Irelander Rebellion

In the aftermath of the failed Young Irelander Rebellion

Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848

The Young Irelander Rebellion was a failed Irish nationalist uprising led by the Young Ireland movement. It took place on 29 July 1848 in the village of Ballingarry, County Tipperary. After being chased by a force of Young Irelanders and their supporters, an Irish Constabulary unit raided a house...

at Ballingarry

Ballingarry

Ballingarry is a village in the barony of Slievardagh, South Tipperary in Ireland. It is also a parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. The village is situated near the Kilkenny border on route R691. Ballingarry is located near Slievenamon.-Amenities:On the Main Street may be...

, County Tipperary

County Tipperary

County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...

, in July 1848, he was placed in October 1848 before a British 'Special Commission' at Clonmel

Clonmel

Clonmel is the county town of South Tipperary in Ireland. It is the largest town in the county. While the borough had a population of 15,482 in 2006, another 17,008 people were in the rural hinterland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian army which sacked both...

in County Tipperary

County Tipperary

and sentenced to death for treason. As with other prominent Young Irelanders, this was later commuted to transportation for life to the penal colony at Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...

(Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

Transportation to Van Diemen's Land

In 1849 he, together with William Smith O'Brien

William Smith O'Brien

William Smith O'Brien was an Irish Nationalist and Member of Parliament and leader of the Young Ireland movement. He was convicted of sedition for his part in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, but his sentence of death was commuted to deportation to Van Diemen's Land. In 1854, he was...

, Terence MacManus

Terence MacManus

Terence Bellew MacManus was a radical Irish rebel who participated in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Sentenced to death for treason, he and several other participants were given commuted sentences in 1849 and transported for life to Van Diemen's Land in Australia...

, Thomas Francis Meagher

Thomas Francis Meagher

-Young Ireland:Meagher returned to Ireland in 1843, with undecided plans for a career in the Austrian army, a tradition among a number of Irish families. In 1844 he traveled to Dublin with the intention of studying for the bar. He became involved in the Repeal Association, which worked for repeal...

and many others were on board the prisoner transport ship the Swift for a six-month, 14,000-mile journey under difficult conditions which some fellow prisoners did not survive.

On January 26, 1850, "Using materials he had begged and borrowed" as one account gives it (see http://1169andcounting.blogspot.com/2003_07_27_1169andcounting_archive.html), Patrick O'Donoghue started publishing in Hobart Town

Hobart

Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...

a weekly newspaper named The Irish Exile, aimed mainly at fellow Irish prisoners and deportees and considered to be the first Irish Nationalist paper to be published in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

The paper featured Irish ballads and poetry, articles about Irish history, and a regular column by John Martin

John Martin (Ireland)

John Martin was an Irish nationalist activist who progressed from early militant support for Young Ireland and Repeal, to non-violent alternatives such as support for tenant farmers' rights and eventually as the first Home Rule MP, for Meath 1871-1875...

reporting on the situation of the Repeal Movement

Repeal Association

The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell to campaign for a repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland....

(campaigning to repeal the Act of Union

Act of Union 1800

The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...

under which the Irish Parliament had been abolished). There were also local news of the Irish deportee community, then numbering in the thousands, and of Hobart Town daily life in general.

Publication of the paper was not in itself illegal, but was highly displeasing to the Governor, Sir William Denison

William Denison

Sir William Thomas Denison, KCB was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1847 to 1855, Governor of New South Wales from 20 January 1855 to 22 January 1861, and Governor of Madras from 1861 to 1866....

, who found that the paper could be suppressed by arresting O'Donoghue and charging him with having "left his allocated district". He was sentenced to one year's work in a chain-gang - a time spent at hard labour, living in a convict station and wearing a convict uniform, mainly in the company of non-political prisoners such as "rapists , muggers and thieves".

In March 1851 he was released and taken back to Hobart Town. Undeterred, he immediately restarted his paper, prominently featuring an extensive personal account of his year with the chain gang. The governor reacted by sending him again to a chain gang, at a more distant location this time - the Cascades Penal Station

Cascades Female Factory

Cascades Female Factory was an Australian prison in South Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.The site comprises five yards, cemetery and outbuildings and is contained within a rectangular city block....

. Three months later the governor ordered him released from there and sent to Launceston

Launceston, Tasmania

Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...

.

On the way there, he succeeded in escaping from his guards with the help of fellow-prisoners, who managed to smuggle him on board the ship Yarra Yara, on its way to Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

Escape to America

There, he successfully hid from the British authorities (who may have been tacitly happy to see the last of him) and with further help from Irish sympathisers managed to get to San Francisco, where some of his fellows such as MacManus and Meagher also ended up.

He died in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

on January 22, 1854, shortly before the arrival of his wife on a ship from Ireland. The time spent in the chain gang may have contributed to undermining his health.

Young Irelander Rebellion

Transportation to Van Diemen's Land

Escape to America

Further reading