Day 166 — Potato Orphans
Even though many young women survived the worst of the Great Irish Famine years (1845-1849), they were left orphaned or abandoned and forced to enter workhouses. The already struggling workhouses could not deal with the growing numbers seeking help and became increasingly overcrowded and under-resourced as the famine worsened.
In order to deal with overcrowding in workhouses, Secretary of State for the Colonies (and he of tea fame) Earl Grey began the Pauper Immigration Scheme between 1848 and 1850 to send female Irish teens to Australia.
Grey proposed that young, marriageable women could serve as wives in Australia (often to Irish convicts) and provide female labor in the male-dominant and (at the time) hugely underdeveloped country.
Up to 4,000 vulnerable and lonely Irish girls left for Australia to either work for as little as ÂŁ11 a year or to marry an Irish convict, who were also being sent downunder by the shipful. Aged between 14 and 45, the women were shipped out in batches of 200 to 300 at a time.
In 1998, on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of 191 girls on board the Lady Kennaway, a bluestone rock in Williamstown was dedicated to their memory, to serve as a stone both of mourning and of welcome.
The ceremony was opened by Victor Briggs of the Bunurong people, in an acknowledgement that Irish and Aboriginal people had a shared history of oppression, and in regret that Irish had also been party to the dispossession of indigenous Australians.
The plaque reads:
In memory of one million people who died in Ireland during the Great Hunger of 1845-52. In praise of tens of thousands of dispossessed Irish who sailed to Hobson`s Bay to build a new life. In sorrow for the dispossession of the Bunurong and Woiworung people but in a spirit of reconciliation. In solidarity with all those who suffer hunger today.
Around the main text are inscribed words from the poem “Na Prátaà Dubha” (The Black Potatoes) by Máire Nà Dhroma: Nà hé Dia a cheap riamh an obair seo, Daoine bochta chur le fuacht is fán.(“God didn’t make this work, Making poor people cold and wandering”)
Photo: A view of Melbourne across Hobsons Bay from the Famine Memorial, Burgoyne Reserve, Williamstown, Australia.
