MORE than 4000 Irish girls and women came to Australia from Irish workhouses during the potato famine in the mid-1800s.
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The ones who didn’t starve to death were forced off their land and into workhouses. The young women came on what was known as the ‘famine bride ships’ at a time when men outnumbered women in the outback by nine to one. Colo Shire Family History Group is holding a talk on Thursday, June 8 to look at how this huge infusion of Irish female blood affected the development of colonial Australia.
Neither ‘damned whores’ nor passive victims, these women and girls and the choices they made, shaped the world in which they lived and they have been called the founding mothers of modern Australia. Was your ancestor one of these girls?
Come and learn what happened to them after they landed in Australia, at 10.30am at Hawkesbury Museum, Baker Street, Windsor.
Cost is $7, non-members $5. Includes a delicious morning tea. RSVP to Carol Roberts 4577 6552 or Joy Shepherd 4588 5867.