Is Anyone able to tell me why my G-GM would have left at age 15 in 1866?

[Renatha]

Hello - I've just watched a repeat of WDYTYA (Aust) with Ray Martin's story which takes him back to Ireland for one ancestor in Tipperary to find out why he was transported for life. It turns out he was one of the Whiteboys and there was, as is typical, much contextual information provided about the times in late 1820's Tipperary.

I know I could google it, or go to the library and try to find a book about it, but it would make it much more real to get some idea of what was happening in Co. Tyrone (particularly Dungannon and/or Omagh areas) politically and religiously in the mid-1800's when my G-GM (aged 15 & Catholic) and her sister (aged 22) travelled by ship to Australia via America, from someone who knows the local history in a broad sense. Hope I'm not asking too much, or it's a bit insensitive. I haven't been able to find any more on that branch and it's quite frustrating being the other side of the world. 

[Ruskie]

Maybe this for starters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

I don't know if I am correct in thinking it would not have been the norm for Irish immigrants to go to America and then travel to Australia. It would usually have been one or the other. It would be interesting to speculate on what led the girls to leave America and head to Australia.  (Employment is the obvious possibility).

[Renatha]

Thanks Ruskie, of course 30 years ago when I found out about my Irish G-GM I thought the famine was the reason, but coming so young and some years after the worst of the famine confused me. In the link to Wiki the part below seems relevant, though my G-GM was not even born until 1851. I guess the effects would have lasted for many years after.

Families did not migrate en masse, but younger members of families did, so much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigration throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrant started a new life in a new land, sent remittances "[reaching] £1,404,000 by 1851"[109] back to his/her family in Ireland which, in turn, allowed another member of the family to emigrate.

I was confused about my aunt's story that 3 sisters set out for America from Ireland, and her GM (my G-GM) didn't want to get off there and came on to Australia. From the shipping records, it was clear that 2 sisters did arrive in Melbourne in 1866, but I thought I read something recently - possibly on RootsChat - that coming via America was quite usual. It must be the early onset dementia  So scrap that bit of info. 

[Ruskie]

I am not sure of my facts or any time lines - my comments were just musings really. 

I suppose there were many reasons and many different methods for these girls to travel so far from home. It could be that their families had died, so they decided to start new lives. There may have been employment opportunities for specific skills, sometimes advertised in newspapers with fares paid in return for work .... there are many possibilities 

Frustrating though it is, sadly you are not likely to ever find out the full story. I think many of us have similar stories which we would love to know the details of.

If you have the girls marriage and death certificates, are there any clues with the parents? Occupations perhaps? Or were they deceased by this time? Have you checked to see if other family members arrived in America or Australia before or after the girls? 

Many of my lot arrived separately which I believe was common (none via America though). In fact I have an Irish ggggrandmother who travelled with her sister. She married not long after arriving to a boy from the same area. I suspect the families knew each other back in Ireland. Mine also arrived post famine and their fathers were farmers, so I'm not sure how they fared during those years. I would love to know. 

[barryd]

Not really relevant to the subject but in my research some years ago I found an English Businessman going from England to Australia the quickest and probably the most expensive way. For him it was the forerunner to the Concorde. He caught a ship from England to New York. New York to the California coast by train and then by another ship to Australia. The era was +- 1905. That is probably how immigrants eventually get to Australia from the US. Arrive on the East Coast and eventually leave from the West. The train bridging the gap.

[Renatha]

Thanks Barry - I'm sure I don't know where I got that idea of having seen something confirming that people could come to Aus via America but thanks for your imaginative options. I've searched the internet and the clipper routes from Liverpool to Melbourne turned R. at Africa and kept going straight across to Melbourne.

Ruskie I do have the names of Margaret & Mary's parents, Patrick was a plasterer on Margaret's marriage cert. The parents remained in Ireland and I'm sure you're right - the girls came for the work, both named as Dom. Serv. on the passenger list. Actually a similar thing happened to the older sister Mary as with your Irish ancestor, she got married in Australia to someone also born in Co. Tyrone and had 3 children living near Sunbury. They returned to Ireland in 1876.

It is ironic how much access to information we have nowadays, but in certain quarters such a lack in the recent past, such as with our Irish ancestors. 

[groom]

Not sure if it is relevant in this case, but I've read several novels where adverts were put in papers in the UK and Ireland by people in Australia advertising for servants,, or in some cases for wives. I suppose if you came from an area where work was hard to find, the idea of travelling to a new country with good opportunities was exciting.

[Sinann]

I don't think people outside Ireland realise just how normal emigration is in Ireland. Today it's often short term, obviously in the past it tended to be more permanent. It's not so much why did they leave but how did so many manage to stay. After the Great Famine how land was divided up changed, no longer could the farm be divided up between all the sons, it had to be passed on whole, so only one child was sure of a job (as long as the family didn't get evicted) the rest had to find a job, marry into a farm or leave.
As recently as the 1980s a Goverment Minister said words to the effect of, we can't make cuts to education because when they leave we want them to have a piece of paper to in their hand.

[sharonkai]

Following is from the "Sydney Living Museums" website (http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/stories/irish-orphan-girls-hyde-park-barracks) - although it was several years before your ancestor arrived, it shows what the conditions in Ireland were like.
I'm currently researching an ancestor who arrived, and was employed at the Hyde Park Barracks, in 1862.
If you know anything of the workhouses mentioned in the article below, they were absolutely terrible and shameful places to be, especiallybor young orphan girls.

Irish orphan girls at Hyde Park Barracks
This is a story of over 4000 Irish orphans driven from their homeland by the Great Famine.
In the years 1848 to 1850, a total of 4114 orphan girls, some no more than 14 years old, were shipped on government funded immigrant vessels from Ireland to Sydney, Port Phillip, Moreton Bay and Adelaide. Many, though not all, spoke English although few were trained in domestic service, the work in which most would find employment. Known as the ‘Irish orphans’, they had been handpicked by government officials and removed from county workhouses grown horribly overcrowded as, year after year, the Irish countryside sank deeper into poverty, misery and disease.
To manage the orphan arrivals in Sydney, an immigrant depot was set up at Hyde Park Barracks. In its newly plastered and painted rooms were added rows of heavy iron beds, replacing the old convict hammock frames and tattered hammocks. In some areas, ceiling boards were fitted, eliminating drafts and creating comfortable sleeping wards. Downstairs offices were remodelled and furnished for immigration business. While the orphan scheme itself was short-lived - swept aside by popular protest - other programs of sponsored emigration, along with the discovery of gold, continued to lure hopeful travellers, reunite families and boost the colonial workforce for decades to come.

This fleeting chapter in Australia’s immigration history looms larger than most. It weaves together Ireland’s harrowing years of famine, its spirited culture and countryside in turmoil, its families torn apart, an endless diaspora of desperate people with hopes of a brighter future beyond the seas.