Orphan Emigration Scheme (Part 2)

Last week I gave details of the 18 young girls who were sent out from Athy Workhouse towards the end of the Great Famine as part of an Orphan Emigration Scheme.  The Scheme intended to reduce the number of inmates in Irish workhouses was also designed to address the gender inequality in Australia.  Almost every workhouse in Ireland participated in the scheme and here in South Kildare a meeting was held in Narraghamore school on 26^th February 1849 to discuss the striking of a special rate on the Narraghmore electoral area to finance the sending of orphans from that area to Australia.  The meeting agreed to raise the necessary funds to pay for the passage to Plymouth and then onwards to Australia of several girls from the locality who had been in the Athy Workhouse for the previous two or three years.  One speaker at the meeting was moved to claim that unless the workhouse inmates were encouraged to emigrate they would remain a burden on the community for another 50 years.

At a subsequent meeting of Athy Board of Guardians chaired by Captain Lefroy a group of 20 females who had been selected from the workhouse children to emigrate to Australia were introduced to the Board.  A report of that meeting noted, ‘their appearance both as to good looks and comfortable clothing spoke well for the care they had received in the workhouse.’ Captain Lefroy addressed a few appropriate observations to them.  ‘They were going’ he said, ‘to a foreign country provided with every requisite for their comfort and a more favoured land than their own having been selected for them, they had the best chances of independence and happiness if they discharge their duties with honest, industry and zeal ..... they should feel grateful for the kindness they had received in the house and he trusted the accounts from Australia would be always in their favour.’  The report concluded with a description of the girls withdrawing from the meeting with ‘many respectful courtesies’. 

I have identified another 17 girls from Athy and district who arrived in Sydney on the ship ‘Maria’ on the 1^st of August 1850.  Their details are as follows:-

NAME	AGE	ADDRESS	PARENTS		RELIGION
Byrne, Julia	16	Athy	Thomas and Elizabeth	Both dead	R.C.
Byrne, Margaret	18	Athy	Michael and Margaret	Both dead	R.C.
Cullen, Judith	17	Timahoe	Richard and Mary	Both dead	R.C.
Curran, Catherine	16	Athy	Maurice and Betty	Both dead	R.C.
Dunne, Mary	15	Barrowhouse	Michael and Mary	Both dead	R.C.
Dunne, Ann	15	Bolton Hill	Patrick and Ellen	Father living at Bolton Hill	R.C.
Kehoe, Ann	15	Narraghmore	Martin and Bridget	Both dead	R.C.
Kenny, Mary	15	Stradbally	James and Ann	Mother living in Athy	R.C.
Kenny, Catherine	18	Stradbally	James and Ann	Mother living in Athy	R.C.
Lapsley, Mary	18	Timahoe	John and Bridget	Both dead	R.C.
Lowry, Catherine	18	Stradbally	William and Betty	Both dead	R.C.
Maher, Mary	16	Athy	Patrick and Mary	Mother living in Athy	R.C.
Moore, Mary	18	Athy	Patrick and Bridget	Mother living in Athy	R.C.
Murphy, Mary	18	Monasterevin	Joseph and Ann		R.C.
Rooney, Jane	16	Athy	Andrew and Jane	Both dead	R.C.
Terret, Ellen	15	Monasterevin	James and Ellen	Both dead	R.C.
O’Toole, Margaret	17	Athy	John and Mary	Both dead	R.C.

The number of young girls sent out from the Athy Workhouse to Australia between 1849 and 1850 totalled 35.  The numbers involved made little or no impact on the overall workhouse numbers in Athy Workhouse and children under 15 years of age were to constitute an overwhelming majority of the workhouse population until the introduction of the boarding out system for children in 1862. 

The Genealogical Society of Victoria published two volumes of material relating to the Irish Famine orphans in Australia.  ‘Barefoot and Pregnant’ gave all known details of the young adolescent Irish orphan girls sent to Australia at the time of the Great Famine.  Maligned on their arrival as ‘useless trollops’ and ‘barefooted little country beggars’, they faced difficult times as they sought to carve out a new life for themselves in Australia.