FSN - Freo Life

Passionate Politics: A History of the Greens in WA by Shaun Salmon has just been launched by UWA Publishing. As the publisher’s blurb promises, the book takes you behind the scenes through seventy interviews with key founders and members of the Greens in WA and explains how a merger of four progressive groups campaigning against nuclear energy, for the environment, for the south west forests and o...

Welcome back to our regular politics podcast, View From The Round House With Martin Drum on Fremantle Shipping News and Freo Life. Today, our Editor, Michael Barker asks the Prof to give us an Aussie wrap on the US Midterm elections following the Blue Wave, and to begin to wonder at what the future may hold, not only for US politics and the Trump Administration but more generally for the world at...

Reviews for Bailey Street are pouring in and they are deservedly positive, like this one from Holly Cardamone, award winning author – ‘What an adventure! From the wilds of Southwest WA in the 1800s, to Fremantle in 2018, this is a fabulous genre blend of historical fiction, romance and a splash of mystery as a story buried by history is unravelled. Two timelines, two love stories that had me misty...

Greg Taylor has a PhD in Ecology from Monash University, an MSc in Conservation Biology, and a BSc in Biology. He is the author of multiple academic publications on bird ecology, including on the breeding behaviour of shorebirds. And he also writes short stories. And on Friday night, he was announced as the winner of the prestigious City of Fremantle 35th Hungerford Award for his unpublished manus...

Many Freo folk know Debra Rule because of her involvement in the establishment and continued operation of the Fremantle Community Bank. But Debra’s involvement with Freo goes way back before the Fremantle Community Bank. Bendigo Bank was established. It started when she arrived in Freo from Tasmania as a 5 year old. Debra attended primary school and high school in the Freo area and, years later, r...

Howard McKenzie Murray is an author and playwright based in Fremantle. His debut novel, This is Where We Say Goodbye was published in May 2026, by Fremantle Press, the manuscript having earlier been shortlisted for the 2024 Hungerford Award. The novel follows 21-year-old Maud Tarkington the day she must attend her favourite brother’s funeral. Set in Fremantle over the course of one day, this situa...

In the last couple decades of the 19th century, the 1880s and 1890s, as Western Australia earned Responsible Government, the Gold Rush became a thing, and Australian Federation approached, a 19 year old Francis Jerome Ernest Hart arrived in the Swan River Colony from London to take up a teaching position.  Before long he had assumed the career of a journalist, first on the Fremantle Herald and lat...

Ian de Souza , now in his 87th year, is a much loved Fremantle artist, but he wasn’t always a visual artist. After puzzling his way through a few years of Minor Seminary in New South Wales as a 16 year old in the mid 1950s, straight from a Catholic high school in Malaya, as it was then, Ian, then Mervyn, decided he needed to explore his artistic talents; and he did so first in Perth. Before he kne...

Regular listeners of Episodes 1-10 will know that the escape moment has nearly arrived. In this episode, Episode 11 , we arrive at the pointy end of the great escape story. In Episode 10 we heard that the alarm seemed to have been raised on the escape. The mounted soldiers were on the beach at Rockingham shadowing the escaping whaleboat fully laden with a boatload of 16 men, including the 6 escapi...

Welcome back to our politics podcast, View From The Round House With Martin Drum . Today, our Editor, Michael Barker asks the Prof about one thing and one thing only, well, three things one supposes: IRAN, IRAN, IRAN. Martin Drum is the Executive Dean for the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, Law and Business and Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Notre Dame Australia,...

Lara Bianca Pilcher is an international performing artist, author, speaker, and ICF PCC-certified creativity coach with over 25 years of experience across musical theatre, choreography, education, and leadership. She has worked internationally in Australia, London, and the United States, and holds a Master’s in Musical Theatre Creative Practice (ArtsEd London), a Bachelor in Creative Arts (Dance),...

Welcome to our regular politics podcast, View From The Round House With Martin Drum . This episode is titled LEY LOSES, TAYLOR TRIUMPHS, ALL EYES TURN TO FARRER! In this episode, our Editor, Michael Barker , asks the Prof about only one thing, the battle for the Australian Liberals leadership and how and why former Opposition Leader Sussan Ley lost and new Opposition Leader Angus Taylor triumphed,...

In this Episde, Episode 10 , at long last we begin to get to the business end of the rescue and escape. Captain Anthony in Bunbury and Breslin/Mr Collins in Fremantle are in regular touch by telegram over the Easter weekend. The 6 Fenians are on alert in The Establishment preparing themselves for the word to abscond. Breslin and Desmond/Johnson are arranging horses and traps to convey two escape p...

The Head On Photo Festival began in Sydney in 2004, and, for the first time, in 2026, it’s on show, in Perth Western Australia, right now! You don’t need to be a declared lover of photography to attend the Festival, but if you are, you will love it. And if you aren’t, you soon will be! The Festival is Australia’s premier photography event, showcasing the work of international and local photographe...

Here’s Episode 9 of this very popular podcast celebrating to escape of political Fenians from Colonial Western Australia on 17 April 1876 - coming up 150 years.  In this episode, the Catalpa arrives in Bunbury. It’s 27 March 1876. Breslin/Collins and Captain Anthony meet there. So much pretence. And lo and behold, Brennan, whom captain Anthony had refused to take on board in New Bedford, suddenly...

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series. In Episode 1 , our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, sets the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gael – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape...

Patriotic Millionaires is a group of wealthy Americans advocating for higher taxes on the rich, stronger democracy, and fairer economic systems. Its mantra is TAX THE RICH, PAY THE PEOPLE, SPREAD THE POWER. And Scott Ellis is one of the Patriotic Millionaires. Scott is the founder and CEO of MasteryTrack, and a former McKinsey consultant and Hewlett-Packard executive who has turned to philanthropy...

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series. In Episode 1 , our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, sets the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gael – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape...

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series. In Episode 1 , our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, sets the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gael – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape...

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series. In Episode 1 , our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, sets the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gael – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape...

The 6th WFDYS Children Camp — organised by the World Federation of the Deaf Youth Section – is set to take place in Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada from August 23 to 29, 2025. And 10 year old, White Gum Valley girl and Fremantle Primary School student Isla Scarvaci is about to fly there, accompanied by her mother, Josie Hodgetts , to take part – as just one of four children selected Australia-wide. I...

Well known media guy, and now a newly minted Freo author, Geoff Hutchison has just seen his first book, How Not To Become A Grumpy Old Bugger published by Affirm Press, a Simon & Schuster company. As the publisher says of the focus of Geoff’s book – They are the unhappy husbands, the disengaged grandfathers and the angry ‘letters to the editor’ writers. They sneer at generational change, know...

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series. In Episode 1 , our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, sets the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gael – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape...

In Episode 1 of the Catalpa Escape Podcast Series, our narrator, Margo O’Byrne, set the scene for the famous 1876 Catalpa Escape of the ‘Military’ Fenians from just south of Fremantle, Western Australia. Episode 2 deals with the raising the money through the auspices of Clan na Gale – the Irish Association in America – and how John Devoy became the key plotter of the escape. In this, Episode 3, we...

The Catalpa Escape was the escape, on 17 April 1876, of six Irish ‘military’ Fenians from the ‘Convict Establishment’, now Fremantle Prison, in the then British colony of Western Australia.  A number of Fenians were initially transported on the convict ship Hougoumont to Fremantle, arriving on 9 January 1868. In 1869 and 1871, pardons had been issued to many of the imprisoned Fenians. But not to t...