Read Online Kerry Girls by Kay Moloney Caball - Free Book Online
Authors: Kay Moloney Caball
Ads: Link
sons.
Notes
1 Minutes of Listowel Board of Guardians, 22 March 1851 – reproduced from John Pierse, Teampall Bán (Listowel 2013).
2 Killarney Board of Guardian Minutes, 10 June 1848 (Kerry Local History Section Tralee Library).
3 John Grenham, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors (Dublin 2012), p. 7.
4 The Killarney girls have not been included so far (January 2013).
5 http://www.scoilnet.ie/womeninhistory/content/unit3/
WomenInWorkhouses.html .
6 Joseph Robins, The Lost Children , p. 274.
7 Dympna McLoughlin, ‘The Impact of the Great Famine on subsistent Women’ in Atlas of the Great Irish Famine , p. 261.
8 Emigration Commissioners to Colonial Department, 17 February 1848 , First Annual Report 1848 , pp.151–152.
9 Australian Dictionary of Biography .
10 Reg. 2 No. 296, 2 March 1850.
11 Limerick Chronicle , 12 July 1837, p. 2.
12 https://sites.google.com/a/aotea.org/don-armitage/Home/great-barrier-island-history/captjeremiah-w-nagle-1802-1882/convicts-on-the-neptune-1837-8-commanded-by-nagle.
13 Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842–1954), Thursday 19 September 1850, p. 3.
14 Goodbody, Rob, Limerick Quakers & Famine Relief, Old Limerick Journal No. 25.
15 S.M. Ingram, Enterprising Migrants , An Irish Family in Australia, (Melbourne 1975), p. 148.
16 Trevor McClaughlin, Barefoot & Pregnant? , Vol. 2 (Melbourne), p. 123.
17 Ibid., p. 123.
18 Freemans Journal, Dublin, 16 July 1839, p. 4.
8
PAWNS IN AN IMPERIAL STRUGGLE?
W ERE T HESE I RISH orphan girls pawns in a political struggle between Imperial and Colonial interests? Or were they ‘useless trollops’ with low moral standards, as accused by the Australian newspapers of the day?
Queen Victoria’s Empire was at the height of its power. The colonies in Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Van Diemen’s Land were agitating for self-government which was granted by Earl Grey, in his capacity as Colonial Secretary, in 1852. Australia was a valuable resource of wheat, gold and wool to the British Empire. On the other hand their ‘Irish Colony’ was troublesome and financially draining. In the forty years that followed the union, successive British governments grappled with the problems of governing a country which had, as Benjamin Disraeli put it in 1844, ‘a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world’. 1 Cecil Woodham-Smith records that between 1801 and 1845, there had been 114 commissions and sixty-one special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland and that:
without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low. 2
We can understand how seeing a neat political fix to a situation appealed to Earl Grey and his civil servants in the Colonial Office. Supplying females who would initially fill some of the vacancies that the colonists were desperate for, leading on to marriage with the male surplus, and emptying the workhouses in Ireland of the same females who were costing the ratepayers vast and seemingly unending amounts of money, seemed a no-brainer.
There is no doubt that the girls ‘selected’ from the workhouses were not qualified or experienced in any way for going ‘into service’ either for the matrons of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide or their compatriots in the outback and the bush. The girls had come in the main from very disadvantaged backgrounds. They would have had absolutely no knowledge of housekeeping and only very little experience of farm work. At home or in the workhouse, they would not have grown crops, fed and cared for cows, sheep or pigs. Prior to their selection and departure, a year or two years living in the workhouse
Notes
1 Minutes of Listowel Board of Guardians, 22 March 1851 – reproduced from John Pierse, Teampall Bán (Listowel 2013).
2 Killarney Board of Guardian Minutes, 10 June 1848 (Kerry Local History Section Tralee Library).
3 John Grenham, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors (Dublin 2012), p. 7.
4 The Killarney girls have not been included so far (January 2013).
5 http://www.scoilnet.ie/womeninhistory/content/unit3/
WomenInWorkhouses.html .
6 Joseph Robins, The Lost Children , p. 274.
7 Dympna McLoughlin, ‘The Impact of the Great Famine on subsistent Women’ in Atlas of the Great Irish Famine , p. 261.
8 Emigration Commissioners to Colonial Department, 17 February 1848 , First Annual Report 1848 , pp.151–152.
9 Australian Dictionary of Biography .
10 Reg. 2 No. 296, 2 March 1850.
11 Limerick Chronicle , 12 July 1837, p. 2.
12 https://sites.google.com/a/aotea.org/don-armitage/Home/great-barrier-island-history/captjeremiah-w-nagle-1802-1882/convicts-on-the-neptune-1837-8-commanded-by-nagle.
13 Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842–1954), Thursday 19 September 1850, p. 3.
14 Goodbody, Rob, Limerick Quakers & Famine Relief, Old Limerick Journal No. 25.
15 S.M. Ingram, Enterprising Migrants , An Irish Family in Australia, (Melbourne 1975), p. 148.
16 Trevor McClaughlin, Barefoot & Pregnant? , Vol. 2 (Melbourne), p. 123.
17 Ibid., p. 123.
18 Freemans Journal, Dublin, 16 July 1839, p. 4.
8
PAWNS IN AN IMPERIAL STRUGGLE?
W ERE T HESE I RISH orphan girls pawns in a political struggle between Imperial and Colonial interests? Or were they ‘useless trollops’ with low moral standards, as accused by the Australian newspapers of the day?
Queen Victoria’s Empire was at the height of its power. The colonies in Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Van Diemen’s Land were agitating for self-government which was granted by Earl Grey, in his capacity as Colonial Secretary, in 1852. Australia was a valuable resource of wheat, gold and wool to the British Empire. On the other hand their ‘Irish Colony’ was troublesome and financially draining. In the forty years that followed the union, successive British governments grappled with the problems of governing a country which had, as Benjamin Disraeli put it in 1844, ‘a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world’. 1 Cecil Woodham-Smith records that between 1801 and 1845, there had been 114 commissions and sixty-one special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland and that:
without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low. 2
We can understand how seeing a neat political fix to a situation appealed to Earl Grey and his civil servants in the Colonial Office. Supplying females who would initially fill some of the vacancies that the colonists were desperate for, leading on to marriage with the male surplus, and emptying the workhouses in Ireland of the same females who were costing the ratepayers vast and seemingly unending amounts of money, seemed a no-brainer.
There is no doubt that the girls ‘selected’ from the workhouses were not qualified or experienced in any way for going ‘into service’ either for the matrons of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide or their compatriots in the outback and the bush. The girls had come in the main from very disadvantaged backgrounds. They would have had absolutely no knowledge of housekeeping and only very little experience of farm work. At home or in the workhouse, they would not have grown crops, fed and cared for cows, sheep or pigs. Prior to their selection and departure, a year or two years living in the workhouse
Similar Books
Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours
Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen, Franck Nouyrigat
