“A Voice from the Tomb”: The Catalpa Rescue at 150

April 17-19, 2026, marks 150 years of one of the most daring episodes in Irish revolutionary history – the Catalpa Rescue. In a meticulously planned transnational operation, six Fenian political prisoners broke out of the British colonial gaol in Fremantle, and took a whaling ship to the United States. The escape immediately became a powerful symbol of Irish republicanism, and cemented the vital role of the Irish diaspora in the struggle for Irish freedom.

 

In April 1876, on a lonely stretch of Western Australian coast, six Irishmen and their rescuers fled across the sand. Behind them loomed the stone walls of Fremantle Prison – “the Establishment,” a place they had come to refer to as a tomb for the living. Ahead lay the open ocean – and the hope of rescue on an American whaling ship, the Catalpa, waiting just beyond the horizon.

 

Their escape, begun on Easter Monday, 17 April 1876, and culminating in a dramatic confrontation on the high seas two days later, would become one of the most audacious rescue operations in modern history. Yet the Catalpa Rescue was no mere escape: it was a carefully orchestrated act of political defiance, a demonstration of transnational Irish resistance, and a propaganda triumph that reverberated across continents and centuries.

 

One hundred and fifty years later, its significance lies not only in the freedom of six men, but in what it signalled to their peers and adversaries on both sides of the Atlantic: that Irish republicanism, though suppressed at home, had taken root abroad, and that this exiled rootstock could strike – even under the very noses of the British Empire – anywhere in the world.

 

Fenians: Soldiers, Rebels, Exiles

 

In a manner all-too familiar to the Irish republican movement, this story begins in storied failure: the Fenian Rising of 1867. Planned and organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the rising collapsed under pressure from informers, arrests, and overwhelming British force. In the lead-up to the rising, the Fenian Brotherhood had pursued a bold and dangerous strategy: infiltrating the British Army. As thousands of Irishmen serving Britain abroad returned home, the Fenians recruited them to the cause in swathes. By 1865, as many as 8,000 of the 26,000 troops wearing a British uniform in Ireland had secretly sworn allegiance to the republican cause.

 

Word of this eventually began to reach the upper echelons of the British Army, which promptly moved many Irish units abroad once more. In September 1865, British authorities then launched a crackdown, rounding up leading civilian Fenians, as well as their counterparts in the military. For the civilian Fenian leaders, the consequences were severe: penal servitude. But for the “military Fenians”, the sentence was much worse: death.

  

After six months of solitary confinement in the horrors of the infamous Dartmoor, Portland, and Millbank prisons, however, the prisoners’ sentences were commuted. For civilians such as John Devoy, it was banishment and exile from Britain and Ireland, while the ex-military Fenians had their death sentences were commuted to lifelong penal servitude in the colony of Western Australia.

 

To Hell or Fremantle

 

And so, on the morning of October 12, 1867, the final group of 20 prisoners were manacled in irons, arm and leg, and were loaded on board the prison ship Hougoumont – the last convict ship ever sent to Australia. Setting sail from Portland Harbor, it carried some 320 criminal convicts and 63 Fenian political prisoners. After a gruelling journey of nearly 18,000 kilometres, they arrived in Fremantle on January 10, 1868.

 

There, they entered a prison system designed not merely to confine, but to erase them from history and the world. Fremantle Prison stood at the edge of what was then the most remote colony in the British Empire. Its security relied not only on walls and warders, but on geography itself. To the east lay vast stretches of unforgiving and uncharted scrub and desert. To the west was the Indian Ocean, shark-infested and seemingly endless. Escape was considered impossible. It was, in effect, a natural prison, “where nature was both the jail and the jailer.”

 

The Fenian prisoners were stripped of their identity and assigned instead a four-digit code numbers, and set to hard labour – building roads, clearing land, and constructing the infrastructure of the colony that confined them. At night, they were locked into cramped cells, their days governed by strict regulations and brutal discipline. Among them were the six men who would later become known as the Catalpa Six: James Wilson, Thomas Darragh, Martin Hogan, Michael Harrington, Thomas Hassett, and Robert Cranston. 

 

A Voice From The Tomb

 

The turning point came with the escape of John Boyle O’Reilly in 1869. Unlike the later rescue mission, O’Reilly’s flight was a solitary gamble. Taking advantage of a relatively relaxed work assignment, he fled into the bush – assisted by an Australian sympathiser – before rowing 40 miles out to sea to intercept an American whaling ship. When it failed to arrive, he spent two days without food or water, adrift in the ocean, before returning to shore and – through his contact – successfully securing passage on another American whaler.

 

While his jailers were suprised at his escape, they should not have been: O’Reilly had already been the only one of the Fenian prisoners to escape England’s Dartmoor prison (although he was recaptured two days later). Upon landing in Fremantle, he promised his comrades once again to be the first to escape from “the Establishment”. O’Reilly’s journey to the United States was long and perilous, but his survival transformed the situation. He soon became editor of The Boston Pilot newspaper and began campaigning and plotting for the rescue of the remaining prisoners, using himself as living proof that escape was possible. 

 

In Irish-American circles, the plight of the “military Fenians” quickly became a cause célèbre. Letters smuggled out from the prison began to circulate, none more powerful than one from James Wilson, addressed to John Devoy, now a New York Herald journalist and a leader of Clan na Gael in New York: “Dear friend, remember this is a voice from the tomb…” The phrase captured the imagination of the Irish diaspora in America. Devoy also took up their cause as a matter of honour: these were men he and others had recruited to the Irish Republican Brotherhood more than a decade earlier.

 

Planning the Impossible

 

Devoy set about masterminding a plan. Across the United States, the Irish diaspora raised funds and a whaling ship, the Catalpa, was purchased in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and refitted for a long voyage. The choice of vessel was deliberate: a whaler could travel vast distances without arousing suspicion, its commercial purpose providing cover for a covert mission. The captain chosen for the enterprise was George S. Anthony, a Protestant American with no direct connection to Ireland. His role would prove decisive.

 

Meanwhile, two veteran Fenian operative, John Breslin from Boston, and Thomas Desmond from San Francisco, travelled to Western Australia on board the small steamer Cyphranes in November using assumed identities – Breslin posing as an American millionaire, Desmond as a wheelwright. Breslin – masquerading as “James Collins” – ingratiated himself with colonial society, meeting with the Governor and even gaining a guided tour of Fremantle Prison. There, he confirmed what he already suspected: a jailbreak from within was impossible. The only chance lay in intercepting the prisoners outside the walls. To make matters worse, delays plagued the Catalpa’s voyage, and Breslin waited months in Fremantle, his funds dwindling and the risk of exposure growing.

 

Vital Local Support

 

The operation’s success also depended heavily on local support for the Irish cause in the colony itself. By the 1870s, many Fenian prisoners who had received early conditional release for good behaviour (so-called “tickets-of-leave”) were living and working within the colony. These men formed a local support network that proved essential to the rescue effort. Breslin made contact with a former inmate who had access to the jail to open lines of communication. Meanwhile, Desmond organised transport for the escape and recruited several local Irishmen to cut the telegraph wires to Perth on the designated day.

 

Even so, the operation was nearly derailed by paranoia and poor communication. Breslin found himself crossing paths with the same two men multiple times, and began to fear the British had uncovered the plan. Eventually the men made contact – they were actually Fenian agents sent from Ireland to arrange a prison break. At the same time, another local Fenian, John King, was himself organising a rescue plan. Breslin brought the others on board, consolidating their plans into his own.

 

Local knowledge was also integral to the timing of the escape. Easter Monday coincided with the annual Perth regatta, drawing officials and resources – not least horses that might be used in any pursuit – away from Fremantle. This apparently minor logistical detail gave the rescue plan an advantage that proved to be decisive.

 

From the Prison to the Sea

 

On Easter Monday, 17 April 1876, the plan was set in motion. The morning of the escape the six prisoners were working outside the prison walls, a privilege granted because of the colony’s isolation They slipped away in small groups, with Breslin and Desmond collecting them in horse-drawn carriages, and together they began a desperate 20-mile dash south towards Rockingham Beach. The ride was frantic. The horses, pushed to their limits, collapsed from exhaustion as they reached the coast. There, a whaleboat from the Catalpa awaited.

 

Their ordeal was far from over, however. The Catalpa lay miles offshore, beyond territorial waters. The fugitives and their rescuers rowed out into the open ocean. Behind them, British authorities soon commandeered the steamer Georgette in pursuit, and the race was on. As night fell, a storm struck, snapping the mast of the escapees’ overloaded small boat and forcing them to improvise. They hoisted a jury sail on an oar and rowed and bailed through the night on the rough seas, battling exhaustion, exposure, and fear.

 

Showdown on the High Seas

 

At dawn on April 18, they caught sight of the Catalpa, with the Georgette bearing down on it in international waters. The steamer had passed within perhaps half a mile of them overnight, but had disregarded the mastless boat as flotsam. As their boat neared the Catalpa, the ship moved towards it, arousing suspicions on board the Georgette, but Samuel Smith, the first mate, manoeuvred the ship so it lay between the whale boat and the steamer, allowing the fugitive group to board. Once on board, the escapees began to loudly mock their former jailers on board the Georgette, and the steamer, low on fuel, was then forced to return to shore. But then the wind dropped, and the Catalpa was becalmed – albeit in international waters.

 

At dawn the next day, the Georgette, this time fully loaded with police and with a small canon on board. A dramatic maritime confrontation ensued. The Georgette moved to intercept, firing a warning shot across the Catalpa’s bow. Just at this moment, a light breeze began to stir, filling the ship’s sails. As the Georgette pulled up alongside the Catalpa, British Army Colonel Harvest demanded the return of the escaped prisoners. Captain George S. Anthony refused, responding: “You’re mistaken. There are no prisoners aboard this ship. They’re all free men.”

 

The standoff continued as the Georgette attempted to force the Catalpa back into territorial waters, and the wind continued to rise. Concerned at the changing conditions, Harvest gave Anthony an ultimatum: ‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes in which to heave to, and I’ll blow your masts out unless you do so.” Hoisting the American flag, Captain Anthony then called the ultimate bluff. “This ship is sailing under the American flag, and she is on the high seas. If you fire on me, I warn you that you are firing on the American flag.” Fearful of provoking a diplomatic incident, the Georgette broke off pursuit, and the Catalpa pulled away in the wind. The six Fenians were free, and the Catalpa sailed on to the United States and into the history books.

 

Across the World to Freedom

 

When the Catalpa arrived in New York in August 1876, it was met with a “tumultuous” welcome. Thousands gathered to greet the rescued heroes, while journalists swarmed on board the ship. Yet freedom had come at a cost: none of the six would return to Ireland. Like many Fenians, they lived out their lives in exile, building new identities in American cities. Their stories became part of the broader narrative of Irish diaspora – one of displacement, resilience, and support for the Irish struggle from afar.

 

In Australia, too, the memory of the daring escape has endured. The site of their departure at Rockingham is today marked by the Catalpa Rescue Memorial, featuring bronze sculptures of wild geese taking flight – a symbol of Irish exile, recalling the generations of soldiers and rebels who left Ireland’s shores to fight abroad. A ballad – parodying the better known “Botany Bay” – of the events was soon composed, and – despite attempts to suppress it, was frequently heard in Perth and Frematle well inot the early 1900s. A version of the chorus was even published in the Bunbury Herald in March 1909:

 

“Come all you screws, warders and gaolers,
Remember Perth Regatta Day;
Take cars of the rest of your Fenians,
Or the Yankees will take them away."

 

A Global Propaganda Victory

 

The true significance of the Catalpa Rescue lay not only in its immediate success, but in its lasting impact. For the Fenian movement, it was a transformative political victory. At a time when the movement had suffered setbacks and divisions, the operation demonstrated a capacity to act, sustained by a powerful transatlantic network. It showed that Irish nationalism had evolved into a global movement, capable of challenging and embarrassing the British Empire on the world stage.

 

John Devoy and Clan na Gael emerged strengthened. The rescue validated their strategy of combining political agitation with dramatic action. It also energised Irish-American support, reinforcing the idea that the diaspora had a crucial role to play in the struggle for independence, and sustaining the momentum of militant nationalism in exile. The networks, funding channels, and organisational structures that enabled the rescue would later contribute to the revival of the Fenian Brotherhood and the planning of the 1916 Easter Rising.

 

John Devoy

One Easter Morn…

 

Indeed, there is a direct line – ideological, organisational, and financial – from this Fenian activism of the 1870s to the revolutionary generation of 1916, and beyond. Figures like Devoy remained central to that continuity, supporting and shaping the movement from abroad. Devoy himself dedicated more than sixty years to the struggle for Irish freedom, and was one of very few people to have played a role in the Fenian Rising of 1867, the Easter Rising of 1916, and the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21.

 

The symbolic resonance of Easter is striking. The Catalpa escape took place on Easter Monday in 1876. Exactly, forty years later, on Easter Monday 1916, the Easter Rising would begin in Dublin, drawing on not only the same traditions of sacrifice and defiance, but on the material and moral support of the Fenian movement in the United States.

Shameful Silence

 

Even so, for all its drama and significance, the Catalpa Rescue appears to occupy an uneasy place in official Irish memory. The National Museum of Ireland does not tell its story, and the American flag raised on the Catalpa – donated to the museum in 1972 by 1916 Rising veteran and vice-president of Sinn Féin, Joe Clarke – has been hidden away for years. Even now in 2026, the 150th anniversary of the escape, it has taken public pressure for the Museum to put the flag on display for a paltry two days in the Collins Barracks this weekend.

 

No other artefacts related to the Catalpa escape held by the museum are to be displayed, and no plans are being made to do so. These include original letters from the prisoners and items from the correspondence of John Devoy. Calls from Sinn Féin Seanadóir Conor Murphy for an Irish state commemoration of the event have also been ignored, despite multiple events being held in both Fremantle and Boston. The silence from official Ireland on commemorating such an important event is deafening.

 

On a Distant Shore

 

Nonetheless, the Catalpa Rescue also endures because it speaks to something fundamental in Irish history: the power of exile to shape the struggle at home. From the cells of Fremantle to the streets of New York, from the whaling ports of Massachusetts to the distant shores of Western Australia, it is a story that unfolded across the Irish world. It was made possible by networks of international solidarity that transcended geography, and by individuals who believed that distance did not diminish obligation to fight injustice.

 

When James Wilson wrote of his “voice from the tomb,” he could not have known that it would set in motion one of the most remarkable rescue operations in history, setting in motion events spanning oceans and resonating – down through the years – into the events of 1916 and all that has followed. At Rockingham today, the bronze wild geese face out to sea, frozen in the moment of departure. They recall not only the six men who escaped, but the countless others who left Ireland’s shores in search of freedom – or were forced from them – yet refused to abandon the cause.

 

In that moment, on a distant shore in 1876, a tide turned in the struggle for Ireland. The voice of Irish republicanism, buried alive by the British Empire in a living prison on a distant shore, called out. The Catalpa sailed across an ocean to answer that call, and when it returned, it carried the seeds of hope and freedom. One hundred and fifty years on, those seeds, sown by the young men of '65 and '67 – and '76 – continue to blossom and grow.

"For reasons of conscience": fighting conscription then, and again

On November 1, 2024, my father Anton Fertl passed away on his farm in Australia aged 74. Retired, living alone among the trees, plants (not least his beloved orchids), animals, and insects, few locals knew of his youthful adventures, traveling overland from Bavaria to Australia (and back again, and then to Australia again!). These tales take quite the telling, but are for another time. Yet another achievement that he proudly carried with him throughout his years was his refusal to allow himself to be conscripted into West Germany's Bundeswehr at age 19, and the battle he fought to win this small victory for peace and reason. This is a more urgent tale - not least because of the rapid and reckless militarisation taking hold of Europe once more - but also, because in sorting through his paperwork, I've come across the key documents again, and so it seems opportune. First, however, some quick background.

In the Shadow of the War 

The Second World War ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of the Nazi Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945. In November 1945, conscription in Germany was abolished, and the Wehrmacht itself was disbanded in August 1946. Influenced by the anti-war, anti-militarist sentiment that formally drove the development of the post-war German state, the 1949 Grundgesetz (constitution) of the new Federal Republic of Germany explicitly mentioned the possibility of Kriegsdienstverweigerung (conscientious objection), but made no such reference to Wehrpflicht (conscription).  

When the current German army - the Bundeswehr - was formed in 1955, it was promoted as a "parliamentary army" made up of "citizens in uniform", and with a revised definition of military obedience, all of which was meant to prevent future Nazi-style excesses. This new army was, however, tainted from the outset: in the late 1950s, the Bundeswehr hired 300 officers from the Waffen-SS to fill its ranks, and more than 12,000 Wehrmacht officers were soon serving in the Bundeswehr - including over 40 Nazi-era generals. 

Unfortunately, this was only one aspect of a widespread rehabilitation of Nazis in the new West Germany. At local, institutional, and civic levels, former members and collaborators were welcomed back into the fold. Military barracks were named after "good Nazis", even as the story of German collective responsibility for the Nazi horror was expounded, providing a smokescreen for the generals, the industrialists, the politicians, and others, all themselves guilty as sin of helping the fascists take - and keep - power. This has also allowed those most responsible to shift blame onto a collective "national failing", rather than face justice for their role in constructing and supporting a fascist dictatorship, of which the first victims were the West German left and the representatives of the working class. Meanwhile many elements of the antifascist and communist left were vilified, hounded, and even banned outright. 

My father's generation had few illusions in the greatness and goodness of their rulers and betters - they knew exactly who their parents, uncles, grandparents, and neighbours were - and inspired by social movements and student protests elsewhere they dreamed of a better, fairer society than the patronising, smug, suffocating capitalist one into which they had been born and raised, under the shadow of the Cold War and nuclear sabre-rattling. Simultaneously, the war in Vietnam provided a stark reminder that actual, blood-soaked, war hadn't ended with the fall of Hitler, and that imperialist violence and mass murder continued to reap a grim harvest among the world's population beyond the borders of Europe.

Cold War and Social Discontent

In the 1950s, the Cold War was in full swing, and as part of the associated military build-up across Europe, West Germany underwent a rapid Wiederbewaffnung (rearming). With the entry into force, in April 1957, of the Military Promotion Act, all West German men born after June 30, 1937, were once again subject to military service. A decade later, in 1968, this requirement was modified to allow for the option of substitute service due to "reasons of conscience", reflected in the following text enshrined in the West German Constitution:

Art. 12a [obligation of service]

(1) Men may be obliged to serve in the armed forces, the Federal Border Guard or a Civil Protection Association from the age of eighteen.

(2) Anyone who refuses military service with weapons for reasons of conscience may be obliged to provide a substitute service. The duration of the replacement service must not exceed the duration of military service.

1968 was also the peak of several years of protests and strikes across France and West Germany. In West Germany, these were led by a student movement deeply disillusioned with a political establishment heavily populated by former Nazis, worried that it was becoming increasingly authoritarian. In 1962, several journalists had been briefly arrested for "treason" for writing about the weakness of the Bundeswehr in the magazine Der Spiegel. In the fallout of the affair, the suddenly-unpopular ruling Christian Democratic Union was force to form a first "grand coalition" with the Social Democratic Party in 1966. However, the appointment of Kurt Georg Kiesinger - a former Nazi with close links to Joseph Goebbels - as Chancellor did nothing to quell fears of a quiet Nazi restoration.

In June 1967, first-time student protester Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the back of the head by a police officer at a protest in West Berlin against a visit by the Shah of Iran - a murder that further spurred the growth of the student movement and radicalised it. Then, on 11 April, 1968, German student leader Rudi Dutschke was also shot in Berlin in an attempted assassination attempt by a Josef Bachmann, a petty criminal with links to neo-Nazis, inspired by the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. only days earlier. The right-wing Springer Press was accused of complicity for its vilification of Dutschke and the student movement, and demonstrators tried to storm the Springer house in Berlin and set fire to Bild delivery vans. In Munich, a demonstrator and a policeman were killed when students ransacked the Bild editorial offices. Over a thousand people were arrested. 

Federal Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger claimed the protests had a "revolutionary character", and on May 30, 1968, the Notstandsgesetze (Emergency Acts) were passed (by a government controlling 95 percent of the Bundestag and led by an ex-Nazi). They inserted emergency clauses into the West German Constitution allowing the government to restrict civil rights (such as privacy and freedom of movement) during crises such as natural disasters, uprisings, or war. Critics drew parallels to the emergency decrees power of the Weimar Republic, which Adolf Hitler had used to establish a totalitarian dictatorship by "legal" means.

Indeed, by 1968, such was the scale of the protests, which had spread - especially in France - to the trade unions and other sectors of society - that there was discussion in both countries about deploying the army against protesters, and in West Germany there was also talk of using widespread preventive detention. In West Germany, ultimately only the police were deployed, but the fact that the police were - then, as now - deeply infiltrated by Nazis and the far-right only intensified the fear that right-wing authoritarianism was once again being imposed on West Germany's fragile democracy.

And so, in this broader context, on January 14, 1969, my 19 year old Bavarian father was called in for muster and a physical examination for conscription into the Bundeswehr, with a special Wehrpaß (military passport) quickly issued to him, dated March 14, 1969. Already on February 28, however, he had indicated his intention to register as a conscientious objector - taking advantage of the renewed recognition of that right - and he was given until April 21 to submit his justifications and grounds for refusing to serve. Submit them he did indeed, as we shall see. 

No to War and all its Trappings

Perhaps ten years ago, my father took me through his most prized papers and documents. These included various stamp-filled passports, photos from his journeys through Iran, India and South-East Asia, papers for the purchase of the farm in Australia, the charge sheet for an arrest in Munich 1970 for possessing hashish, and his official renunciation of the Catholic Church in 1973. (This letter only formalised a mundane reality that had already taken hold when he was 8, and had decided he would rather go fishing with his friends, or play table tennis in the priest's garage, while the rest of the village suffered through mass). But pride of place in these documents were his letter justifying his conscientious objection, and another (which we shall come to below) that accompanied it.

The full text of my father's letter is as follows:

Betrifft: Begründung meines Antrags

Sehr geehrte Herren!

Aus Gewissensgründen habe ich mich gegen den Dienst mit der Waffe entschieden. Krieg oder Kriegsdrohung oder schon allein die Existenz von riesigen Armeen als politisches Machtmittel erkenne ich nicht an. Denn der Krieg ist für mich das schrecklichste und folgenreichste Verbrechen, das es je unter den Menschen gab.

Krieg ist nicht nur sinnlos, sondern auch menschenunwürdig, grausam und verbrecherisch. Er ist die Summe alles Bösen schlecht-hin. Darüber erübrigt sich jegliche Diskussion.

So will ich nicht nur selbst passiv und zugleich aktiv meinen Beitrag zum Frieden leisten, indem ich mich dem Waffendienst verweigere, sondern ich versuche auch, andere von der Verabscheuungswürdigkeit des Krieges und seiner Vorbereitung in der Bundeswehr wie in allen Armeen zu überzeugen.

Die Summen, die die Kriegsmaschinerien in aller Welt jährlich verschlingen, müßten nach meiner Überzeugung besser und nutzbringender für Bildung und Entwicklungshilfe aufgewandt werden. Auf diese Weise wären sie ein Beitrag für dauerhaften Fortschritt und langfristige Entspannung zwischen der jetzigen Dritten Welt und den hochindustrialisierten Ländern.

Hauptgrund für die Verweigerung ist meine Überzeugung als katholischer Christ, daß es ein immer und überall geltendes Gesetz sein muß, fremdes Menschenleben zu achten. “Du sollst nicht töten!" gilt für mich ohne Ausnahme. (Extreme Fälle ziviler Notwehr sind Ausnahmen) Nächstenliebe und Gewaltlosigkeit sind aber nicht nur christliche, sondern auch ethische Prinzipien, die das friedliche Zusammenleben der Menschen besser garantieren als waffenstarrende und Jederzeit für das kollektive Morden einsatzbereite Armeen. Diese sind für die Zerstörung ausgebildet, nicht für den Frieden.

Es gilt also, die Armeen in Ost und West abzuschaffen. Jeder muß dazu seinen Beitrag leisten. Natürlich können das nur aufgeklärte, denkende Menschen, die frei sind von dem Wussch, ihr mögliches Groskapital mit dem Einsatz fremder Menschenleben zu verteidigen. Natürlich hat ein Staat das Recht, sich selbst zu verteidigen, aber die beste Verteidigung ist die Überlegenheit seiner Kultur, und im Notfall (an den ich nicht glaube) passiver widerstand gegen eventuelle Unterdrücker, jedenfalls kein Blutvergießen um irgendwelcher propagandistischer Fiktionen willen wie “freiheitliche Ordnung", “Vaterland", "Heimat" etc.. "Freiheitliche Ordnung" ist deshalb als Fiktion zu sehen, weil sie selbst bei uns recht relativ ist und im Begriff ist, die Ordnung zu werden, die die Freiheit der Herrschenden garantieren soll. Hierbei ist a die Jüngste Entwicklung zu denken, vor allem a die Verabschiedung der Notstandsgesetze und die Pläne für die faschistische Vorbeugehaft. "Freiheitliche Ordnung " in Opposition zu kommunistisch-diktatorischer Unfreiheit im Osten ist ebenfalls fragwürdig, denn diese Gegenüberstellung ist zweifelsohne einseitig und dient nur propagandistischer Hetze, nach der unsere Nachbarn im Osten böse und äußerst angriffslustig sind. Gegen sie gelte es aufzumarschieren. In der Tat ist die Kommunistenhetze schon traditionell und die Höhe, die sie im Dritten Reich erreichte, wurde in der Ära des Kalten Kriegs fast wieder erreicht.

Aus all diesen Gründen leite ich ab, daß das bei uns existierende Recht auf Kriegsdienstverweigerung nicht nur erhalten, sondern voll ausgenützt und sogar zur moralischen Pflicht erhoben wird. Brat wenn dies erreicht sein wird, wird es einen "ersten deutschen Friedenstaat” geben. Ulbrichts Staat ist aus diesem Grund nicht dieser erste deutsche Friedensstaat.

Der nach den Notstandsgesetzen mögliche Einsatz der Bundeswehr im Inneren gegen demonstrierende Arbeiter und Studenten stellt für mich einen weiteren Gewissensgrund dar, diesen “Dienst" zu verweigern. Wer kann es noch als Dienst am deutschen Volk ansehen, auf demonstrierende und unbewaffnete Menschen, noch dazu möglicherweise auf Bekannte und sogar Verwandte zu schießen.

Besänftigende Worte können diese reale Möglichkeit nicht aus der Welt schaffen.

Anton Fertl 

In English:

Subject: Reasons for my application 

Dear Sirs! 

For reasons of conscience, I have decided against serving with a weapon. I do not recognise war, the threat of war, or even the mere existence of huge armies as a political means of power. For me, war is the most terrible and consequential crime that has ever existed among humans.

War is not only senseless but also inhuman, cruel, and criminal. It is the sum of all evil, plain and simple. Any further discussion is unnecessary.

Thus, I want not only to make my own passive and active contribution to peace by refusing military service, but I also endeavor to convince others of the abhorrence of war and its preparation in the Bundeswehr, as in all armies. 

It is my conviction that the sums that war machines around the world devour annually should be better and more usefully spent on education and development aid. In this way, they would contribute to lasting progress and long-term détente between the current Third World and the highly industrialised countries. 

The main reason for this refusal is my conviction as a Catholic Christian that respecting the life of others must be a law that applies always and everywhere. "Thou shalt not kill!" applies for me without exception. (Extreme cases of civilian self-defense are exceptions.) Love for one's fellow man and nonviolence are not only Christian but also ethical principles that better guarantee the peaceful coexistence of people than armies armed to the teeth and ready to commit collective murder at any time. These are trained for destruction, not for peace. 

Therefore, the goal must be to abolish the armies in East and West. Everyone must contribute to this. Of course, this can only be done by enlightened, thinking people who are free from the desire to defend the potential for big business by sacrificing the lives of others. Of course, a state has the right to defend itself, but the best defense is the superiority of its culture, and in an emergency (which I don't believe we are in), passive resistance against potential oppressors, certainly not bloodshed for the sake of any propagandistic fictions like "Free [Democratic] Order," "Fatherland," "Homeland," etc.. "Free Order" should be viewed as a fiction because, even here, it is quite relative and is in the process of becoming an order that is meant to guarantee the freedom of those in power. Recent developments are important to consider here, especially the passage of emergency laws and the plans for fascistic preventive detention. "Free Order" in opposition to communist-dictatorial oppression in the East is also questionable, because this juxtaposition is undoubtedly one-sided and only serves propagandistic agitation, according to which our neighbors in the East are evil and extremely aggressive, and it is necessary to march against them. Indeed, anti-communist agitation has a long tradition, and the heights it reached during the Third Reich were almost matched again during the Cold War era. 

For all these reasons, I conclude that the right to conscientious objection that exists in our country must not only be preserved but fully used - and even elevated to a moral duty. Only when that has been achieved will there be a “first German peace state.” For this reason, Ulbricht’s state is [also] not this first German peace state. 

The possibility, under the emergency laws, of internal deployment of the Bundeswehr against demonstrating workers and students represents, for me, yet another reason of conscience to refuse this "service." Who can still consider it a service to the German people to shoot at demonstrating and unarmed people, and possibly even shooting at acquaintances and relatives?

Soothing words cannot erase this real possibility from the world.

Anton Fertl 

A father's support

Together with this letter was a shorter one written by his father in support of his case. My father and grandfather were never that close. My uncle - 8 years the senior - was their father's heir (even sharing his name), and he was similarly distant to my father, being almost of a different generation. My father, on the other hand, was his mother's son, and more a product of the post-war era. He was quickly caught up in dreams of social change, and bewitched by vistas of far-off lands - a very different worldview to his village-dwelling blacksmith father. So, to receive such a letter of support from his own father meant the world to mine, still bringing tears to his eyes fifty years later. 

Erklärung 

Ich bin politisch nicht besonders interessiert, aber soviel an elementarenn Überzeugungen besitz ich, daß ich mit der Kriegsdienstverweigerung meines Sohnes Anton vollkommen übereinstimme. Er und mein weiterer Sihn Hans haben mich von der menschlichen Notwendigkeit dieser Verweigerung überzeugt.

Ich selbst war nicht an der Front, habe aber genug Elend miterlebt, un alles war eine Folge des Krieges, den von den aufgehetzt durch die Propaganda, aber heute soll das meined Söhned ersparts bleiben und ich halte ihre eigene, verantwortliche Entscheidung für mutig und richtig. 

Auf einzelne Äußerungen kann ich mich natürlich nicht entsinnen, das wäre zuviel verlangt. Ich hoffe, daß die Gewissensentscheidung meaines Sohns anerkannt wird.

Johann Fertl 

Again, in English:

Declaration 

I'm not particularly interested in politics, but I possess enough fundamental convictions to completely agree with my son Anton's conscientious objection to military service. He and my other son, Hans, convinced me of the human necessity of this refusal. 

I was not at the front myself, but I witnessed enough misery, and it was all a consequence of the war, incited by propaganda. But today, my sons should be spared that, and I consider their own responsible decision to be courageous and right. 

Of course, I can't recall individual statements; that would be asking too much. I hope that my son's decision of conscience will be recognised. 

Johann Fertl 

My grandfather's disavowal of politics here is not quite as disingenuous as my father's invocation of Catholic values earlier, which some readers may have picked up on. The burden of the War fell heavily on Johann Fertl, who had lost his four year old daughter to Scarlet Fever because the Wehrmacht had taken all the medicines, and was later provided a very non-optional "job" (in fact a form of forced labour - Arbeitsdienst) working at a chemical weapons factory near the Austrian border. Nearby facilities included a satellite camp of Dachau Concentration Camp, which used slave labour, while more "free" Germans were also forced to work in the factories as well (under strict supervision and controls). Already a political outsider in the village for his relatively progressive politics, my grandfather's subsequent PTSD and alcoholism after the War served to further drive him, a somewhat broken man, away from politics.

Even so, he recognised the importance of making himself heard here - and not only for my father's benefit. The possibility of a civil alternative to military service, justified by "reasons of conscience", had only been introduced the year before, and my father claimed that he was one of the first (perhaps even the first) in Bavaria to avail of this avenue to avoid military service. When I asked him what he would have done had such an option not existed, he said "Go to prison, perhaps. Or leave Germany - but where would I have gone?".

So convinced was my father of the moral imperative to oppose war and militarism, he managed to convince two of his friends to make similar arguments and to refuse to serve, and claimed to have influenced his elder brother - who had already carried out his own military service, and had continued in a non-commissioned role - to abruptly end his own association with the military (indeed, my grandfather's letter makes references to both his sons in this regard). 

War drums beat once more

This, one of my proudest memories of my father, is now a core motivating issue for me too, nearly 60 years later. As I write, the German government has breached its own austerity-mad, quasi-religious spending cap to enable enormous expenditure on weapons (ensuring megaprofits for the arms companies), remilitarising in a way not seen since the Third Reich. The German government is also threatening to reintroduce conscription if enough people "fail" to volunteer for the new, expanded army reserve. 

At the same time, Germany is defending - and has helped arm - an Israeli government hell-bent of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Germany's own dark history has now been twisted so far by those in power that - for "reasons of state" - the population is expected to support war crimes and genocide without question, while those who call for the defence of international law, and decry the deliberate murder of tens of thousands of children, are demonised as "anti-semitic" (ironically, disgustingly even, this includes Jews in Germany and elsewhere critical of the slaughter). Recent polls show that ordinary Germans overwhemingly oppose Israel's war crimes, but the media and political elites allow no such opinion to enjoy oxygen.

The European Union, too, is beating the drums of war loudly, with its ReArmEurope agenda - ostensibly driven by the need to defend the bloc from Russia since its ongoing aggression escalated into a full-blown invasion of Ukraine, but in reality part of a larger agenda, including a resurgent European imperialism, and expansionist NATO politics. Whether Russia, under Putin's fascistic leadership, poses a threat to Europe, or not, is entirely irrelevant to this militarisation of Europe - there have long been reckless warmongers on all sides. Indeed, the European Commission's Vice President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, seems hell-bent on picking a fight with Russia anyway, calling for it to be broken up into smaller states.

The other side of my family has roots in Ireland, which - due to its centuries-long experience of colonial violence by Britain - has been militarily neutral for years (at least in the part not still occupied by Britain). But, here too, the media, government, and establishment are busily undermining the country's "triple lock", to enable the country to join in the military projects underway across the continent and further afield. The European Union - supposedly formed as a "peace project" for Europe, is rapidly being converted into a "war project", with military spending joining austerity in the hearts of Brussels' policy-makers. Even Denmark's traditionally "frugal" (that is, pro-austerity) government has recently distanced itself from its penny-pinching outlook in order to facilitate expanded military spending across Europe.

This last example is perhaps the most relevant today, for I - too - am a father, with a young daughter growing up with dreams and hopes in the relative safety of Denmark. I say "relative" with some bitterness: as of July 1 2025, Denmark's (admittedly limited) military conscription has been lengthened to 11 months and extended to include women - ostensibly in the name of "equality". While military experts, and even the Danish military union, opposed the move (many arguing against conscription entirely, for being expensive, ineffective, and damaging to education, careers, and even to democracy itself), the political class - including even the country's main radical left party - all supported the change. The dark reality, of course, has less to do with defence, and more to do with preparing the population for the idea of a coming war (when conscription would likely be extended much further, creating a generation of cannon fodder).

If Denmark's conscription law remains as it is now, and my daughter remains in Denmark, when she reaches 18 she will be entered into a lottery to serve in a military force that has joined in brutal illegal invasions and occupations, such as Afghanistan. Words cannot express my rage. Fortunately, the right to conscientious objection also exists in Denmark too - for now - and my father's words ring in my head: "the right to conscientious objection that exists in our country must not only be preserved but fully used - and even elevated to a moral duty". 

As the far-right rises in many countries once again, and the sabres rattle louder than ever, resisting normalisation of war, stopping the far-right, and putting an end to militarism and war entirely - redirecting the countless billions spent on bombs to be spent on books, beds, and a better future for all the world - must be a paramount struggle, alongside the fight to rescue a liveable climate on this small planet of ours. For my father, and my daughter, I can demand nothing less. 

“Death or Liberty” – Australia’s Battle of Vinegar Hill at 220

220 years ago, on March 5, 1804, several hundred armed rebels – mostly escaped Irish political prisoners, veterans of Vinegar Hill and the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 – clashed with British armed forces near Castle Hill in western Sydney. They lost, but while their rebellion was short-lived, it was far from the impromptu uprising many suggest. Rather, it was just the latest, and largest, manifestation of an ongoing Irish republican struggle in the fledgling colony.

In terms of scale, the ‘battle’ of Castle Hill was truthfully little more than a skirmish in the bush in western Sydney. Only a handful of rebels were killed, the rest fled, and their leaders were easily captured by crown forces under a false flag of truce. The rebel forces were poorly organised and divided, while – due to betrayal – hundreds more who would otherwise have joined them did not. Even so, the rebellion shook the colony to its core – a reaction that can only be understood in the context of the years immediately preceding it, both in Sydney, and in Ireland.

A vulnerable penal colony

By 1800, Sydney Town was a young settlement of barely 12 years, with only 2500 European inhabitants – 43 percent of them convicts. Further inland, Toongabbie and Parramatta had a combined population of under 1500, and perhaps another 1100 – mostly free settlers – could be found in the Hawkesbury. The colony was dotted with several small garrisons, but the military presence was confined largely to Sydney Town.

The economic viability of the settlement was also still uncertain, particularly after huge floods in 1799. This instability was to continue for several years, with ships sent to seek emergency food supplies from India as late as 1813. While hindsight can give rise to a misleading sense of inevitability, this vulnerability would have been palpable at the time, not least to hundreds of Irish political prisoners – convinced republicans and veterans of a large-scale armed rebellion against the British only months before.

The first ships carrying around 400 of these Irish political prisoners arrived at the start of 1800, sent as exiles-without-trial to the New South Wales colony in the aftermath of the failed United Irishmen rebellion of 1798. While some were senior members of the United Irishmen, arrested before the rebellion had begun, others had seen action in Waterford, Wexford, the Midlands, and the north. It would soon become apparent that the long journey to Australia had failed to break their spirits.

Sedition and conspiracy

As early as February 1800, records tell of a seditious meeting among the Irish being broken up in Sydney, while another plot was reported in May. In September, another conspiracy among the Irish prisoners was uncovered, with plans to take the Sydney barracks and overthrow the Governor, and for the rebels to then live on the settlers’ farms until they heard back from a message they would send to France. More disturbances were reported in October, with suspected ringleaders shipped off to Norfolk Island to defuse their plotting – unsuccessfully. In December, a rebellion on Norfolk Island was apparently averted only by the pre-emptive execution of two of its leaders.

Such accounts make the colony seem a hotbed of rebel activity, but it is difficult to know how much was true, and how much was British paranoia. One witness testified to the notorious “Flogging Reverend”, Samuel Marsden, in 1800 that she became convinced the Irish were planning “something that was improper” after seeing them “talking very earnestly in Irish”. A sectarian bigot, Marsden was already predisposed to distrust the Irish, describing them as "the most wild, ignorant and savage race that were ever favoured with the light of civilisation", while considering Irish convicts even worse, “depraved beyond all conception”.

Bigotry and sectarianism

Yet while the evidence of conspiracy and unrest may have been often flimsy, the British fear and distrust of the Irish was real enough, reflecting both ingrained ethnic prejudices and genuine political insecurities in aftermath of the events of 1798. Governor John Hunter – replaced by Governor Philip Gidley King in late 1800 – repeatedly complained to London that the Irish prisoners were “turbulent” and “diabolical” and called for the number of Irish transportees to be drastically reduced in the interest of colonial security.

Another consequence of the 1800 Irish scare was the establishment, on September 7, of an official civilian paramilitary movement: the Loyal Associations of Sydney and Parramatta, each with a captain, three sergeants, two drummers and three corporals, 36 privates in the Sydney group, and 29 in Parramatta. These loyalist paramilitaries were suspended by Governor King in August 1801, but recalled on December 9, 1803, when news arrived that France and England were at war. They marked the beginning of a conservative, protestant, “law and order” tradition that was to continue well into the twentieth century, built on profound distrust of, and discrimination against, the Irish Catholic community in Australia.

Echoes of Emmet’s rebellion

Further ships soon arrived from Ireland – the Anne, which reached Sydney in 1801 after surviving a mutiny by the prisoners onboard, and the Atlas I, Atlas II, and Hercules in 1802. Each carried more veterans of 1798, along with the latest updates of the state of unrest in the Irish countryside. Perhaps in response to news that the rebellion had finally been defeated, reported Irish agitation in the colony lessened, so much so that the British allowed the colony’s first Catholic priest to (briefly) perform his ministry. As late as March 1, 1804, Governor King wrote to London that the Irish in Sydney were now behaving themselves.

The spark for a new rebellion was already being kindled, however, after the whaling ship the Ferret arrived in Sydney in January 1804, bringing newspapers dating from August 1803. These bore tidings of Robert Emmet’s new United Irish rising near Dublin – but not of its demise, which followed closely in the weeks that followed. Not to be dampened by news of later events, word of Emmet’s uprising spread through the colony like wildfire, and six weeks later – whether by coincidence or not, on Emmet’s birthday – that spark became a flame.

“Liberty or Death…”

Literally, as it turns out. Instructions spread on March 4 that the rebellion would begin at nightfall, and the official signal was when one of the leaders, John Cavenah, set fire to his hut at Castle Hill Government Farm at 8 o’clock. That night, some 200-300, mostly Irish, prisoners escaped from the prison farm, led by Philip Cunningham – a key architect of the rebellion. A Kerry-man, Cunningham was a veteran of the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion and of its aftermath, where he had been captured and tried in Clonmel while rebuilding the United Irishmen in Tipperary. He had also been involved in the mutiny on board the Anne during its journey to Australia.

The signal fire was not seen by his comrades at Green Hills (today's Windsor) on the Hawkesbury River, but Cunningham proceeded with his plan regardless, taking weapons, ammunition, and food from the Castle Hill Government Farm, and recruiting local supporters. The rebels - their numbers soon swelling to over 685 - adopted the slogan “Death or Liberty” as their rallying call, planning to join hundreds more from the Hawkesbury area, to rally at Constitution Hill, and to march on Parramatta and then Sydney’s Port Jackson itself. There they would establish Irish rule and send those who wished it back to Ireland to reignite the 1803 rebellion.

Damned Betrayal

After looting the government farm, the rebel group divided into smaller parties, going from farm to farm on their way towards Constitution Hill, collecting further supplies and recruits. Their actions were informed by intelligence gathered the previous year, when 12 escaped prisoners sought out friends and sympathisers in the surrounding districts. Even so, many lost their way during the night and failed to reach the rendezvous point – including a group of 70 under the command of Samuel Humes. These losses were worsened when plans to join with hundreds of prisoners in the Hawkesbury region went awry after John Griffen, the courier taking their mobilisation orders, betrayed the uprising and surrendered to authorities that night.

Another small group of rebels attempted to enter Parramatta to set a building alight as a signal for local rebels and those in Sydney to join the rebellion, but two defectors again ruined the plan. Captain Edward Abbott commenced defensive measures in Parramatta and sent a message to Governor King in Sydney. King, alerted to the rebellion late during the evening of March 4, declared martial law, although when news of the uprising reached the small colony, a great panic set in, with some officials – including Samuel Marsden – fleeing the area by boat. Major George Johnston of the New South Wales Corps (himself later to play a key role in the Rum Rebellion coup d’état of 1808) quickly gathered a force of British troops and a large civilian militia – including the Sydney Loyal Association – to pursue the rebels.

New Ireland

With the element of surprise lost and plans to mobilise rebels in the Hawkesbury, Parramatta and Sydney having failed, the uprising was confined to the area west of Parramatta. Cunningham, lacking any sign that Parramatta had been taken, and without the expected reinforcements, was forced to withdraw the rebel group to Toongabbie to re-assess strategy, gather new forces, and perhaps find his lost comrades. In the process, he also collected a significant number of arms, by this point possessing of perhaps a third of the colony’s entire armaments, but the rebel forces continued to dwindle in number. Those that remained are reported to have proclaimed the area around Constitution Hill "New Ireland”.

Meanwhile, Major Johnston’s much smaller crown forces endured a forced march through the night, coming to within only a few kilometres of the remaining rebels, now reduced to approximately 233, on the morning of March 5. Outnumbered and tired, Johnston decided to employ delaying tactics, riding on ahead of his men along with a trooper, Thomas Anlezark, and the colony’s sole Catholic priest, Father Dixon – himself an Irishman exiled to Australia following 1798 – to demand the rebels surrender, and to otherwise parley with them while his troops advanced to a more favourable position.

“… and a ship to take us home!”

Sending first the trooper Anlezark, and then Father Dixon, to demand (unsuccessfully) that the rebels down arms and accept an amnesty, Major Johnston himself finally rode up to meet them. Cunningham’s response, however, remained emphatic: “Death or liberty”. It is sometimes claimed that he also said, “and a ship to take us home”, although that addition is first recorded some while later. During this exchange, the government troops and the loyalist militia finally appeared, lining up behind Major Johnston. Seizing his opportunity, Johnston – still under a flag of truce – took Cunningham and another rebel leader captive at gunpoint.

Quickly retreating with the captured Cunningham, Johnston ordered crown forces to fire on the rebels. After fifteen minutes of gunfire, followed by a charge, between 15 and 20 rebels were killed, the others scattering into the bush in disarray. An unknown number – certainly more than a dozen – were killed in the pursuits that followed into the night and the following days. Governor King then announced leniency for those who surrendered before March 10, leading many of those who got lost on the night of March 4 to give themselves up, while the large group commanded by Samuel Humes was captured by the Parramatta Loyal Association militia at Castle Hill.

Aftermath

The extent of British alarm over the Castle Hill rebellion can be measured by the scale of repression that followed. While some have estimated that 39 rebels died in, or as a result of, the Castle Hill uprising, the precise numbers will never be known. Around 230 people were arrested in the days following the rebellion, of whom nine were executed. Eight of these received a court-martial, while a wounded Cunningham was hanged without trial on the steps of the Government Store at Windsor, which he had claimed he would burn down. Interestingly, of those executed, four were Protestant, and two were English.

Two prisoners – including Humes – were hung from the gibbet, while two others, Bryan McCormack and John Burke, were reprieved and detained. Seven were whipped with between 200 or 500 lashes and sent to the Coal River chain gang at Newcastle, and a further 23 others were sent to the Newcastle coal mines. Another 34 prisoners were placed in irons until they could be "disposed of”, but their fate remains unclear. Of the approximately 150 rebels that remained, many were sent to Norfolk Island on good behaviour bonds, but the majority were pardoned and allowed to return to their previous lives, it being adjudged that they had been coerced into rebellion.

The International Society of United Irishmen?

Martial law ended on 10 March 1804, but the Irish insurgency in Sydney – both real and imagined – continued. Two Frenchmen who had come to the colony to cultivate vines were expelled on suspicion. More realistic plots continued to develop, with authorities on the constant alert over the following three years. For his part, Governor King was convinced that the true leaders of the 1804 rebellion had remained out of sight, and were continuing to plot the colony’s demise. As a result, he sent numerous suspects to Norfolk Island as a preventative measure.

Whether King was correct will likely never be known – the identity of the rebellion's co-conspirators in Parramatta, Sydney and the Hawkesbury are lost to history. It is true, however, that the rising was neither as spontaneous nor isolated as most Australian historiography would have us believe. Indeed, there are unverified claims that at least two Irish prisoners who arrived in February 1800 on board the Friendship were corresponding with the United Irish leadership around Emmet to establish a secret branch of an “International Society of United Irishmen” in Sydney to act there under direction from Ireland.

Loyalist paranoia about Irish republicanism was further fed by the arrival in February 1806 of another group of Irish political rebels on board the Tellicherry. They included the last hard core of United Irishmen, and were led by none other than Michael Dwyer, the “Wicklow Chief”, who had only surrendered in December 1803 on condition of voluntary exile to the United States of America. Perfidious Albion, of course, had other ideas, sending Dwyer, Hugh Byrne, Martin Burke, Arthur Devlin, John Mernagh, and a dozen of their comrades to Botany Bay. Perhaps regrettably, the loyalist fears of renewed rebellion were misplaced.

Australia's Vinegar Hills

Known as Australia’s “Battle of Vinegar Hill” due to its links with the Irish events of 1798, and that famous battle in particular, the 1804 Castle Hill rebellion is now commemorated at the Vinegar Hill Memorial, Castlebrook Memorial Gardens, in Rouse Hill. A monument was unveiled by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1988, carrying the names of several contemporary politicians and councillors, but with none of the rebels. This rather blinkered oversight was remedied on the bicentenary of the rebellion in 2004 with a new plaque.

The Castle Hill rebellion was also the opening sally in a longer struggle for democracy in Australia in which Irish republicans have played a key part. The anti-authoritarian streak, and the lived experience of many Irish in Australia, found its expression in the widespread popular support for the Kelly Gang in northeast Victoria, in the better expressions of Australia's trade union movement, in the struggle against conscription during World War One, and in the fight for Aboriginal rights. In 1920, 100,000 people marched in Melbourne's annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade to demonstrate their support for Irish independence.

Perhaps the most iconic such expression, however, took place fifty years after Castle Hill at the Eureka Stockade rebellion on the Ballarat goldfields in Victoria. It, too, was defeated in blood, but the popular support it enjoyed saw one of its key demands realised: a Legislative Assembly in the Victorian colony. The Eureka rebels – migrants from every corner of the earth – were inspired by the same ideals of liberty, justice, and freedom as the heroes of '98 and '04. Led by Peter Lawlor, the brother of Young Irelander James Fintan Lawlor, they raised a standard of liberty while using the password "Vinegar Hill".

Brexit-aren ondoren: Irlanda, Eskozia eta EB

Britainia Handiak 2020ko urtarrilaren 31n Europako Batasuna formalki utzi zuenean, bere aldekoek ospatu zuten “subiranotasun britainiarra” berrezarri zela, baina Brexitak bultzada berri bat eman dio estatu britainiarraren desintegrazioari, Eskoziaren independentziari eta Irlandaren batasunari emandako babesa handituz. EBk, oro har, begiko ditu asmo horiek, baina neurri handi batean pasiboa izan da, haustura politikoarekiko duen higuina dela eta. Baliteke jarrera hori aldatu behar izatea.

Irlandako mugak zailtasun larriak eragin ditu Brexit-aren negoziazioetan eta ordutik hona. EBren muga porotsu berri batek, gatazka osteko eremu batean, merkatu bakarra eta EBko aduana-batasuna mehatxatzen zituen, eta irudimenezko konponbideak eskatzen zituen. Azken erantzunak, Brexita Erretiratzeko Akordioaren “Irlanda/Ipar Irlandari buruzko Protokoloak”, eszenatoki bat negoziatu zuen “bi munduetako onena” jasoz: merkatu bakarra, eskualde-ekonomia, jurisdikzio britainiarra eta 1998ko Ostiral Santuko Akordioan ezarritako eskubideak babestea.

Hala ere, Britainia Handiak mugari eta Irlandako iparraldeari emandako tratu arduragabeak bultzada berri bat eman dio Irlandako batasunari buruzko eztabaidari. 

Irakurri artikulu osoa Gure Esku - Periskopioan.