Maria left Ireland aged fourteen. According to the Irish Famine Memorial’s orphan database, she left Portumna as a Roman Catholic orphan of James and Margaret Maher (both deceased), sailing on the Thomas Arbuthnot to Sydney in 1850. Continue reading
Filed under Australian-Irish history …
In the Footsteps of Mary: a traveller’s tale of ancestry
Mary and many of her fellow passengers – convicts – on board the Earl Grey, having left Dublin five months earlier in December 1849, and disembarking on a grey May day on the other side of the world in 1850.
What we are reading, attending at the moment
Melbourne Hosts successful two-day symposium on Irish Language. Next is a review of Australian novelist and diarist Helen Garner’s How to End a Story, much appreciated by those of us who are Garner fans. ‘Priests in the Family’ provides Enright’s intriguing family connection to James Joyce, followed by an ‘Introduction to Ulysses’ where she talks about her personal experience of starting to read that famous book at the age of fourteen, ‘mainlining language, getting high on words’ Continue reading
What’s on February/March and beyond
Irish in Australia: Irish-themed Movies, Tours, and Festivals Continue reading
Eureka Dinner 2025: Celebrating Democracy with Malcolm Turnbull
A powerful endorsement of Democracy in Australia by Malcolm Turnbull, and reflections of the failed Republic Referendum. Continue reading
Ireland’s Daughters: The Earl Grey Orphans Who Shaped Australia. How a Generation of Irish Girls Transformed Exile into Endurance and Survival into Legacy
Maria left Ireland aged fourteen. According to the Irish Famine Memorial’s orphan database, she left Portumna as a Roman Catholic orphan of James and Margaret Maher (both deceased), sailing on the Thomas Arbuthnot to Sydney in 1850. Continue reading
Part II of ‘Family’s Our Way of Life’, the final part of a series featuring Mary Walsh of Trentham.
Mary Walsh’s life in Australia as a wife, mother and nurse. Continue reading
A Family that Thrived
The story of an Earl Grey Scheme arrival, Margaret Walsh, and her brother, and subsequent generations in Purrumbete South. Continue reading
‘Family’s Our Way of Life’
At a young age, Mary Walsh evinced an interest in becoming a doctor or a nurse and she had several women role models. Continue reading
Anniversary of Catalpa Fenian Escape in WA
A commemoration of the bold rescue of Fenians from Fremantle on 17 April 1876. Continue reading