In April 1876 James Wilson and five others escaped from a prison in Western Australia and sailed to New York. Photograph: iStock
A year later, he deserted the army in advance of the expected uprising. When the British, well informed as usual, swooped to pre-empt the insurrection, “Wilson” and other military rebels qualified for harsh treatment. His sentence was death, commuted to transportation and penal servitude for life. So, through the Clann na Gael organisation of Irish republicans in the US, he raised thousands of dollars for a rescue attempt and entrusted another journalist, Boston-based John Boyle O’Reilly – who had been transported on the same ship as Wilson but later escaped – to buy a ship.
And so it came to pass that, on April 17th, 1876, Wilson and five others absconded from a labouring party, were picked up by Breslin’s horse traps, and raced 12 miles to the coast where a rowboat awaited. Despite his prison ordeal, McNally aka Wilson went on to live long enough as a free man then in 1920, still in New York, he met Éamon de Valera during his US tour to secure support for an Irish Republic.
Brooklyn-born but long resident in Ireland, MacGabhann has a personal link to the story. When the then 82-year-old Devoy, half blind and hard of hearing, needed a place to live in his final years, Clan na Gael arranged for him to be put up in the apartment of Frank’s grand-aunts Alice and Lily, originally from Castleblayney but then resident on West 107th Street, Manhattan.