Who Were The Orphan Girls Who Came To Australia?

An Australian History Mystery. The Great Famine (an Gorta Mór), or the Great Hunger, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island’s population to fall by between 20% and 25%. 2020 is the 175th anniversary of the Great Famine. In Australia, school students are asked to investigate how migration to the different colonies during the nineteenth century helped shape Australia. There were convicts and free migrants who came to Australia during that time. However there was also a special group of migrants that you will probably not have heard of – approximately 4 000 orphan girls who journeyed from Ireland to Australia between 1848-1850. Who were they? Why were they sent here? What happened to them? How have they contributed to Australian society? You will be able to solve this history mystery for yourselves as we inve