New memorial to orphan girls sent from Cork to Australia during the Famine

Irish Examiner

25-05-2025

A memorial has been unveiled in West Cork to remember a poignant forgotten chapter of the Irish Famine story — 14 orphan girls shipped from famine-ravaged Ireland to Australia under a resettlement scheme almost two centuries ago.
The monument was unveiled in Dunmanway thanks to the generosity of Heather Northwood, a great-great-granddaughter of Ellen Desmond, one of the 14 orphan girls relocated from the town's workhouse in 1849 to start a new life in Australia under the British government's Earl Grey scheme.
They were among an estimated 4,000 young Irish girls, mostly orphans, resettled between 1848 to 1850.
Ms Northwood, who has spent several years researching her Irish ancestry with the assistance of historian Michelle O'Mahony, travelled from Australia to attend ceremonies in Dunmanway over the weekend honouring the girls.
She is active in the Earl Grey Famine Orphan Group in Melbourne, which commemorates the Irish girls who landed in Australia annually. She heaped praise on Ms O'Mahony and the Dunmanway Historical Association for their help tracing her Irish roots, and for working to ensure the story of the orphan girls is remembered here.
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Moira Deasy, Australia's ambassador designate Chantelle Taylor, and historian Michelle O'Mahony at the unveiling at Dunmanway Community Hospital, Co Cork, of the memorial to the 14 orphan girls sent to Australia as part of the Earl Grey Scheme during the Famine. Picture: David Creedon
Remembering the girls in Ireland is pivotal to their history and to our wider famine history and diaspora, she said.
'Our family knew we had Irish heritage but I remember my mother telling me a few years ago when she was 98, that she didn't really know the detail, so I set out to find that part of the puzzle,' she said.
'I've come over here three times in the last three years researching my Irish ancestry and planning this and from the moment I arrived, I felt I belonged, it felt like home.
"Michelle and the people in the historical association showed me where Ellen Desmond walked as a little girl, where she most likely went to church.
'And I'm delighted to say I was able to tell my mum about Ellen, about her great grandmother, before she passed away in 2024 at the age of 105. She died knowing that piece of the puzzle.
Australian chargé d'affaires James Hazell, memorial designers, Justin Walter and Kristie Davison, and Heather Northwood at the unveiling of the memorial at Dunmanway Community Hospital, Co Cork. Heather is a great, great grandaughter of Ellen Desmond who was one of the 14 orphan girls sent to Australia as part of the Earl Grey scheme during the Famine. Picture: David Creedon
'We commemorate the orphan girls in Australia and now the girls are remembered here. There is a shared story now between the place from where the left, and where they arrived.
It has been such a wonderful journey for me. Dunmanway has embraced me and said 'this is your town now'.
'It really has been life-changing. I've found my identity.'
In 1849, Ireland was only just beginning to emerge from the horrors of the Famine, which claimed the lives of millions and forced millions more to emigrate to the US and Britain. Thousands were living in workhouses, and thousands of children orphaned.
The Earl Grey scheme offered assisted passage to orphaned girls aged 14 to 18 to Australia, which had for decades been a penal colony consisting mostly of men.
While it offered the girls a better life on the other side of the world, Ms O'Mahony believes it was really designed to address the growth of the population of the colony and address the issue of the gender imbalance in Australia.
There were about 800 people living in Dunmanway workhouse in 1849 when the authorities there took up the Earl Grey scheme offer.
Ellen Desmond and 13 other young girls, including her sister, left the workhouse just before Christmas 1849 and travelled by horse and cart to Cork city, from where they took a ferry from Penrose Quay to Plymouth in England.
From there, they set sail on New Year's Eve with about 300 other young girls on board the Eliza Caroline on a three-month voyage to Melbourne , arriving on March 31, 1850.
Then president Mary McAleese laying a wreath in March 2003 at a memorial wall in Sydney, Australia, inscribed with the names of the girls sent from Ireland during the Famine under the Earl Grey scheme. File picture: Maxwell's
They disembarked with just a trunk containing a few outfits and were largely left to fend for themselves in harrowing circumstances, with many entering domestic service while others were sent to work as cooks or cleaners in gold mining areas.
Ellen Desmond later married miner, Henry Ghee, a free settler from Kildare, and they moved from goldfield to goldfield. They had six daughters, the eldest of whom was 21, when Ellen died of TB in 1879, within a month of her husband's death. Their daughters survived. Ms Northwood said:
I am so proud of them all. They were Australian pioneers.
She pledged financial support for the memorial monument which was unveiled in the garden of Dunmanway community hospital during a ceremony of remembrance on Saturday — the hospital campus includes the ruins and grounds of the famine workhouse.
An interpretative lectern-style sign, funded by Cork County Council's Commemorations Office and Heritage Department, and which tells the famine orphan story, was also unveiled.
Australian Ambassador designate to Ireland, Chantelle Taylor, and other diplomats attended.
Mass was also celebrated on Sunday in Dunmanway's St Patrick's Church to remember the famine orphan girls, and the wider community's famine victims, and it was followed by a short ecumenical ceremony at the famine pits at Fanlobbus Graveyard on the Dunmanway to Bandon road, which was connected by a gravel path to the rear of the workhouse.
Ms O'Mahony said the departure of the orphans from Dunmanway was a watershed moment for the town.
'It was the commencement proper of the town's diaspora to Australia and wider Australasia,' she said.
'It embodied a pivotal change during the Irish famine.
'It offered the prospect of a better life to famine orphan girls and for the guardians of the workhouse who accepted the scheme it was financially incentivising to free up the workhouses.
'These institutions were largely full — in the latter years of the famine with orphans whose families were decimated from starvation and disease.
'Not only did the Earl Grey scheme become part of the narrative of Irish famine history, but it also pointed to a new element of the gender history of the Irish famine and wider diaspora studies.'