Artists Concept

The Wild Goose Bronze Plaques.

The Wild Goose bronze plaques represent the hand-written literary weekly journal which was produced on board the Hougoumont transport ship, by John Boyle O’Reilly and the Fenian prisoners, during the 14,000 mile long voyage to Fremantle.

The title was based on the historical nomenclature that has become synonymous for the exiled Irish, from the Flight of the Earls after the 1690 Rebellion, when twenty thousand Irish soldiers followed their leader Patrick Sarsfield to France, to fight with distinction and to become known as “The Wild Geese”.

Ultimately it became the ubiquitous name for the exiled Irish of the Diaspora.
The bronze plaques and pillars were designed and produced by Smith Sculptors. The Wild Goose journals were researched and sourced from the Mitchell Library in New South Wales by Ormonde Waters, who edited and produced the excerpts taken from the front pages of each of the seven editions.