A monument to the Great Irish Famine
is located at the Hyde Park Barracks, on Macquarie Street in Sydney. The monument was inspired by the arrival of over 4,000 orphaned young (and single) women, who arrived under an emigration scheme devised to resettle destitute girls from Ireland during the Great Famine.
Many Australian's have Irish ancestry, particularly thanks to large numbers of single women who emigrated here in the mid-19th Century. This monument has been a catalyst to an excellent collection of information about the orphan girls, the ships they came on, and their lives after arrival in Australia.
Check out the website here, where you can read more about the monument, search the databases, and follow links to other resources. And if you are in Sydney, go for a walk one day and spend a quiet moment reflecting at the monument - it is nice and close to both St James and Martin Place Stations.
This
is a post for the April A-Z Challenge. This Challenge will cover each
letter of the alphabet, one per day (except Sundays) for the month of
April. I didn't register my blog with the organisers, but I'm going to
follow along anyway. You can too! See www.a-zchallenge.com for more information.
