Céad míle fáilte
‘A HUNDRED THOUSAND WELCOMES’
‘A HUNDRED THOUSAND WELCOMES’
Our AGM will be held on November 18th 2019. All Welcome.
See here for details and pre-registration. All attendees must be registered to gain entry.
20 th ANNUAL GREAT IRISH FAMINE COMMEMORATION
was held on Sunday 25 August 2019.
Photos from the event are in the latest Newsletter.
Videos from the event can be viewed from our Events page
The monument was inspired by the arrival in Australia of over 4,000 single young women, most of whom were teenagers. They arrived under a special emigration scheme designed to resettle destitute girls from the workhouses of Ireland during the Great Famine. The Great Irish Famine Commemoration Committee (GIFCC) have broadened their activities to commemorate all who left their homes seeking a new life in the colonies and States of Australia but these workhouse orphan girls, and the historical links back to Ireland, remain the focus of this project and only young women from the workhouses under Earl Grey’s Orphans scheme appear in the database. The three images above the website link were supplied to Trevor McClaughlin in the 1990s and are Mary Ann Ryan per Elgin to Adelaide )left) and one of her children (right) with Ann Brady per Tippoo Saib in the centre.
This website introduces you to the monument itself, to this particular emigration scheme which operated between 1848 & 1850, to the women themselves and the ships on which they travelled. It is designed to be an motivating and rewarding experience for anyone interested in Irish history and genealogy or the broader issues related to famine, displacement and immigration no matter where in the Irish ‘diaspora’ you may reside. The website was initially set up by Dr Trevor McClaughlin and we are grateful for him allowing us to use the information contained in his two volumes of Barefoot & Pregnant? Irish Famine orphans in Australia, Genealogical Society of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991 and 2001 and for the work he and Jennifer Bainbridge did on the first version of this website.
We acknowlege funding assistance from the Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Programme in 2011, 2013 and 2017
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