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James F. O'Connell, the Tattooed Irishman (1828-33)
One of the strangest Pohnpei stories, and certainly the
most famous, involved an obscure Irishman named James
O'Connell. O'Connell spent five years on the island
between about 1827 and 1833, his often exaggerated adventures
appearing in the book, A Residence of Eleven Years in
New Holland and the Caroline Islands, published in
1836. O'Connell's true origins are much debated, being that
there is no record of him in Dublin, Ireland, where he claims
to have been born. O'Connell was likely born between
1808 and 1813 and took ship at a young age as a cabinboy.
He spent the
early 1820s in Australia before ending up on the whaling ship
John Bull. There is some evidence that O'Connell
may have actually arrived on a convict ship, but concealed this fact in his
narrative. Sometime around 1826 the John
Bull was wrecked at sea, leading O'Connell and several companions
to abandon ship and begin a long ocean adventure that  would
bring them to Pohnpei.
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