The seventh in Tinteán‘s Famine Orphan Girls Series by a descendant, Chrissy Fletcher. Elizabeth Sharkey is my grandmother’s grandmother, through an all-female line. I like to imagine this line as a fine gold thread coming from my heart and connecting me from mother to mother, spanning the oceans and the centuries back to a … Continue reading
Mary Mc Connell entered the workhouse in Belfast in July 1847 as an orphan and a pauper. Continue reading
Stories about women who made an indelible impression on their children are often preserved in family folklore handed down the generations, but memory of Margaret Cooke doesn’t appear to have survived in this way… Continue reading
Anyone who has dabbled in researching Famine Orphan girls will recognise the vast amount of work and skill involved in this collection of histories. Continue reading
Life was not easy for Jane and Bridget, two of at least fifty famine orphan girls who were gaoled in NSW from the 1850s to 1900. Continue reading
Famine Orphan Girls memorial at Williamstown – 21 years on. Continue reading
In the eyes of Imperial social engineers, the Famine orphans were young marriageable women who would bring a stabilizing influence to a rough masculine colonial society. Continue reading
There are two significant memorials erected in Sydney in response to major events in Irish history: the 1798 Memorial at Waverley Cemetery built at the time of the centenary of the ’98 uprising, and the Australia Memorial to the Great Irish Famine unveiled in 1999. Continue reading
By Frank O’Shea The word ‘amnesia’ was heard several times at the Famine round table in the Williamstown Town Hall on October 28. It was used to describe the way that Ireland seemed to have forgotten about the Great Famine of 1845-51 until it was brought to public discourse following the publication of Cecil Woodham-Smith’s … Continue reading
Remembering Famine Orphan Girls at Williamstown Continue reading
