It’s no secret that Tom Keneally, one of Australia’s Living National Treasures, is proud of his Irish antecedents. In his books, he has often woven stories from the Emerald Isle, and he is a fierce proponent of a republic for Australia.
This latest novel, based on the life of one John Mitchel, an educated Protestant Irish rebel in the mid-1800s, bears a comprehensive dedication page to convicts, indigenous people of Tasmania, ‘blackbirded’ Melanesians, the forebears of African-Americans, and especially his own Irish ancestors.
This wordy dedication prepares the reader for one of Keneally’s classic novels, sweeping in its coverage of a man who cried out for justice in Ireland through newspaper articles, particularly during the Famine, and who was transported for a crime of treason felony. Eventually, Mitchel was brought to Van Diemen’s Land after a sojourn (in relative comfort) in Bermuda.
Keneally’s research, possibly aided by his imagination, paints a fascinating picture of Mitchel, afforded his own cabin, and mixing with ship’s officers. On reaching Van Diemen’s Land, he received a ticket-of-leave, and went to Bothwell, an historic town north-west of Hobart, where he farmed and was eventually joined by his family.
That is where the story becomes really interesting, as the family decided, with much derring-do, to escape to America, before boarding a ship across the Pacific, and then passage, mainly by mule across Nicaragua to another ship to take them to New York.
Mitchel was greeted by the Irish in New York and hailed as the President of the as-yet-unproclaimed Republic of Ireland.
This book ends with Mitchel and his family moving to Tennessee, with John writing and lecturing about the benefits of slavery in the years before the American Civil War. We can only hope Keneally has another book in the pipeline to tell us what John Mitchel did next.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
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