The seventh in 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 bleak workhouse in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, Ireland. … Continue reading
Filed under Orphan Girls. …
Searching for Bridget
An attempt to piece together the history of the elusive Famine Orphan, Bridget Gallagher of Donegal. Continue reading
Mary McConnell, a Belfast Girl
Mary Mc Connell entered the workhouse in Belfast in July 1847 as an orphan and a pauper. Continue reading
Book Review: Bathurst welcomes the Irish workhouse orphans
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
Jane and Bridget: Shipboard Friends who ran foul of the Law
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
From Armagh to Barrington: an Earl Grey orphan in Northern Tasmania.
Mary Ann McMaster came to Australia under the Earl Grey Scheme. Continue reading
The Famine Orphans, a Prelude to a Series of Profiles
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
Lessons to be Learned from our Irish Past
1852 brought forth a remarkably vindictive climax to Irish Orphan vilification Continue reading
From Galway Workhouse Girls to Australian Pioneers.
Mary and Catherine Cunningham, along with the other Workhouse girls from Mountbellew, did not deserve to be forgotten.
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Famine Memorial Hobart
To find a convict ancestor is no longer a matter of shame but can be cause for reflection and indeed celebration. Continue reading
Tinteán 