2. Emigrants from Ireland

Nine Irish families provided emigrants to Australia who form part of the Briggs and Cant ancestries.

These were the Dowd, Moore, Farrell, Ring, Byrne and Doyle families in Clem Briggs’, line and

the Lutton, McBride and Horan families in Gwen's (née Cant) line.

They hailed from different parts of Ireland, and arrived in Australia under varying circumstances:

• a convict (about 12% of convicts were Irish)

• a wife and children following their convict husband and father;

• two “Assisted passage” - Bounty Immigrant - families consisting of mother, father and children,

one family sailing from Liverpool - perhaps part of Liverpool’s rich Irish tradition;

• three single women, at least one of whom was part of an organised “bride trade”.

The men were agricultural labourers, the women domestic servants. They left Ireland in a 32 year

period between November 1821 and 1854.

Shipping records show that all but one had left before the years of the Great Famine (1845-1852),

and one after.

The first to leave Ireland, Laurence Moore, was a convict. He was dead by October 1836. The last

was Bridget Horan in 1854.

Briggs and Cant ancestors' arrival from Ireland

The Cobh - Cork Cove - in 1830s.

Isabella

1822 Laurence Moore, a convict, aged about 38. He departed on 4 Nov 1821 from Cork aboard the Isabella, and arrived in Sydney on 10 March 1822. Picture at right of the Isabella by James Wilson Carmichael, c 1820. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. 

1826 Mary Moore (nee Farrell), wife of Laurence, aged about 37. She departed on 14 Nov 1825 from Cork, aboard the Thames, and arrived in Sydney on 11 April 1826. Mary was accompanied by sons Daniel, aged about 13 and John aged about 12. 

1830 Michael Moore, another - older - son (aged about 20) of Laurence and Mary departed on 1 Jan 1830 from Cork on the Forth, and arrived on 26 April 1830.

1832 Maria Ring was a single woman aged about 24 who came on the bride ship Red Rover. She departed on 10 April 1832 from Cork on Red Rover and arrived in Sydney on 10 August 1832.

1840* the Byrne family departed from Liverpool on 16 July 1840 on board the Argyleshire, arriving on 12 November 1840. John was aged 36, his wife Sarah (nee Doyle) was 37. Also with them were their children Bridget aged 11, Catherine aged 7 and Thomas aged 4.

* The Byrne Family are a “best guess” based on shipping records and certificates. There is a small chance this could be subject to change.

Catherine Byrne, may have arrived between 1848 and 1855 according to shipping

records showing several Catherine Byrnes.

The evidence for Catherine arriving with her parents in 1840 is that a witness at Catherine’s wedding in 1855 at Penrith was a John Byrne, and he appeared to be literate - he signed his name.  According to the immigration record, the John Byrne who arrived with Catherine was able to read and write. We might speculate that he was Catherine’s father, and according to shipping records they therefore arrived together in 1840, along with other family members.

1841 Bridget Dowd, a single woman aged about 18, dep 28 May 1841 from Liverpool on the Forth,

arriving in Sydney on  29 Aug 1841.

1843 The Lutton family departed from Greenock on 10 Oct 1843 aboard the Herald. They arrived in Sydney 10 January 1844. Charles William and his wife Margaret (née McBride) were both 33 years old. With them were their children Sarah aged 3; Edward aged 2 and Mary Ann aged 8 months.

1854 Bridget Horan, a young single woman aged about 14, departed from Liverpool on 1 March 1854 aboard the Switzerland, arriving in Sydney on 21 June 1854.

Emigration to Australia - background

Bride Ships

More than 1000 young single women came to Sydney and Hobart in the 1830s, a handful from

foundling hospitals in Dublin and Cork but many from 'respectable' but often poor circumstances.

One such young woman was Maria Ring who arrived on the Red Rover. It sailed from Cork on 10 April 1832, arriving in Sydney on 10 August 1832. Maria married Michael Moore, son of the convict Laurence.

Several of the ships arriving from Ireland between1848 and 1850 carried young women from Irish workhouses, where they entered as a result of the famine and abject poverty. They were thrown into the arms of local parishes for poor relief support.

Politicians devised schemes to send able-bodied women to Australia to help alleviate the shortage

of women as wives and servants, and to get them off their hands.

Approximately 18,000-19,000 Irish migrants arrived under some form of government assistance to

Melbourne and Sydney between 1839 and 1842. Of these about half were female.

To read more about the bride ships, click here 

‘Orphan’ Ships

Earl Grey Female Orphan Depot, Hyde Park

The “Earl Grey Famine Orphan Scheme brought Irish women and girls to Sydney, Melbourne and

Adelaide between 1848 and 1850. They were inmates of the recently constructed workhouses,

many orphaned by the famine, although about a quarter of them had one parent still alive. Most

were between 14 and 20 years of age.

"The scheme ended in 1850 because funds had become harder to obtain and authorities were unhappy with the 'type' of women being sent out. While lack of skills and 'morality' was an issue, the major reason for the reduced demand for Irish women was religion." (Shelley Mitchell, Women's Museum of Ireland website.)

For more about the Earl Grey Orphan Scheme click here and here

Assisted Immigration Schemes / Bounty Immigrants

Beginning in 1828, the New South Wales Government organised a program to encourage people to migrate. “Assisted Immigrants” were immigrants whose passage was fully or partially paid for by the

Government as an incentive to settle in NSW.

Another program which ran from 1835 to 1841 was the bounty reward system. “Bounty immigrants”

were selected by colonists who then paid for their passage. When the immigrant arrived, a colonist

would employ the immigrant and the employer would be reimbursed by the government for all

or part of the cost of passage.

The first assisted migration schemes began in 1832 when eight single women and eight mechanics

and their families left England aboard the Mariane. Each single woman received £8 and each

mechanic was advanced £20 against his future wages. From 1832 to 1835 3,074 people received

assistance at a cost to the colony of £31,028/6s/9d. They were selected and ships chartered for them

by the Emigration Commissioners in the UK.

The Bounty Immigration Scheme which operated until 1841 was first suggested by Edward Gibbon Wakefield.  He suggested that:

• The system of free land grants should cease and colonial land should be sold.

• The revenue from these sales should be used to boost emigration from the U.K. and Ireland.

• Certain conditions should apply to the type of emigrant accepted.

This scheme was gradually adopted. The first set of Bounty Regulations was gazetted by Governor

Bourke in October 1835:

• The persons accepted should be mechanics tradesmen, or agricultural labourers.

• They should have references as to their character from responsible persons, such as the

local magistrate or clergyman.

• To prove their age they should have Certificates of Baptism.

Settlers in N.S.W. were allowed to recruit their own workers in the U.K. Most employed agents to

do so. The Government also had an Agent-General in London after 1837, and agents in other

embarkation ports.

Under the bounty scheme the settler who wanted workers paid the emigrants' passages. On

arrival these workers were examined by a Board appointed by the Governor and, if the Board were

satisfied, the settler would be issued with a certificate entitling him or her to claim the bounty money back from the government.

Complaints from the settlers before 1841 were uncommon. The bounty was refused on only about

1% of applications, mostly on grounds of age.

The bounty costs were:

• £30 for a man and wife under 30 years on embarkation;

• £15 for each single female aged 15 to 30, with the approval of the settler or the agent, and under the protection of a married couple or to stay with the family till otherwise provided for;

• £10 for each unmarried male aged 18 to 30. Equal number of males and females, mechanics or agricultural labourers were to be encouraged by the settlers;

• £5  for each child over 1year.

There were several faults in the Bounty Scheme:

• Settlers complained that not all migrants knew the trade they claimed;

• Not many settlers had the money to pay the agents in the UK to act for them and the system soon fell into the hands of the ship owners or of speculators;

• The ship owners sometimes changed the arrangements;

• Discipline aboard ship was often neglected;

• The agents In the UK created false impressions of life in NSW.

A very brief summary of Irish history 

(adapted from information sourced in main from Wikipedia)

It appears that the people of Ireland originated in the Basque country of northern Spain about 10,000 years ago. Christianity was introduced in the 5th century, when Irish recorded history began.

The Vikings and the Normans raided and settled in the period 800 to 1169. After the Norman invasions of 1169 and 1171, Ireland was under an alternating level of control from Norman lords and the King of England.

Previous to that, Ireland had seen intermittent warfare between provincial kingdoms over the position of High King. This situation was transformed by intervention in these conflicts by Norman

mercenaries and later the English crown.

After their successful conquest of England, the Normans turned their attention to Ireland, which was made a Lordship of the King of England and much of its land was seized byNorman barons. With time, Hiberno-Norman rule shrank to a territory known as the Pale.

16th and 17th centuries

The first full conquest of the island by England and its colonisation with Protestant settlers from Britain occurred from 1536 to 1691. This established two central themes in future Irish history – subordination of the country to London based governments and sectarian animosity between Catholics and Protestants.

This period also saw the transformation of Irish society from a locally driven, intertribal, clan-based

Gaelic structure to a centralised, monarchical, state-governed society, more like those found

elsewhere in Europe.

The period begins in 1536, when Henry VIII of England deposed the Fitzgerald dynasty as Lords Deputies of Ireland. The new Kingdom of Ireland was declared by Henry VIII in 1541. In 1691 the Irish Catholic Jacobites surrendered at Limerick, thus confirming British Protestant dominance in Ireland.

In much of Ireland, the Reformation failed, possibly due to the brutal methods used by the English

which engendered heightened resentment of English rule; determined proselytising by anti-

Reformation clergy, many of whom were trained in Catholic Europe, and the late arrival of the

printing press, which played a major role in spreading Protestantism elsewhere.

Protestant colonisation - “Plantations” and Penal Laws

From the mid-16th and into the early 17th century, crown governments carried out a policy of

colonisation known as Plantations. Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists to the

provinces of Munster, Ulster and the counties of Laois and Offaly. These colonists, who had a British and Protestant identity, would form the ruling class of future.

British administrations in Ireland

A series of penal laws discriminated against all Christian faiths other than the established

(Anglican) Church of Ireland. The principal victims of these laws were Roman Catholics and also,

from the late 17th century on, adherents of Presbyterianism. From 1607, Catholics were barred

 from public office and from serving in the army.

In 1615, the constituencies of the Irish Parliament were altered so that Protestants might form the majority of 108–102 in any given vote in the Irish House of Commons. The Catholic majority in the Irish House of Lords persisted until the Patriot Parliament of 1689, with the exception of the ten years 1650-1660, known as the Commonwealth period.

Dispossession of the land of the Catholic elite

The fifty years from 1641 to 1691 saw two catastrophic periods of civil war in Ireland 1641–53 and

1689–91. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and others left in permanent exile. The

wars, which pitted Irish Catholics against British forces and Protestant colonists, ended in the almost

complete dispossession of the Catholic landed elite.

Restoration of the monarchy in England

An uneasy peace returned with the Restoration of the monarchy in England and Charles II made

some efforts to conciliate Irish Catholics with compensation and land grants. However, tensions

continued, with Catholics disappointed that the land confiscations stood, and Protestants thought

that Charles had been too lenient on Catholics.

The ‘Glorious Revolution’ - 1688

Things worsened again for Catholics after James II was deposed in 1688 by the English parliament

(‘The Glorious Revolution’), and William of Orange was imported. James II had repealed much of

the anti-Catholic legislation, allowed Catholics into the Irish Parliament and the Army and

appointed a Catholic, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, as Lord Deputy of Ireland.

After more warring, the Protestants prevailed, and that victory is still celebrated by the Orange

Order.

The Protestant Ascendancy

This era this really set up and consolidated the conditions for the 18th and 19th centuries. Penal Laws (which had been allowed to lapse somewhat after the English Restoration) were reapplied

with great harshness after this war.

The Protestant elite wanted to ensure that the Irish Catholic landed classes would not be in a position to repeat their rebellions of the 17th century. Many new Penal Laws were introduced, which put restrictions on Catholics inheriting property.

As a result of these laws, Catholic landownership fell from around 14% in 1691 to around 5%

in the course of the next century.

The Eighteenth Century

The majority of the people were Catholic peasants; they were very poor and largely impotent

politically during the eighteenth century, as many of their leaders converted to Protestantism to

avoid severe economic and political penalties. Nevertheless, there was a growing Catholic cultural

awakening underway.

There were two Protestant groups. The Presbyterians in Ulster in the north lived in better economic conditions, but had virtually no political power.

Power was held by a small group of Anglo-Irish families.They owned most of the farmland, where the work was done by the Catholic peasants. Many of these land-owning families lived in England and were absentee landlords whose loyalty was to England.

Ireland was ruled from Britain, with the British Parliament able to make laws binding on Ireland.

Irish patriots  were strengthened by the American Revolution and demanded more self-rule.

The result was a series of new laws which made the Irish Parliament a powerful institution that was

independent of the British Parliament, although still under the supervision of the King and his Privy

Council.

These concessions intensified the demands of the Irish Patriots. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was instigated by those impatient with the slow pace of reform. The Rebellion was supported by the French. Britain suppressed the separatists, and legislated a complete union with Ireland in 1801,

including the abolition of the Irish Parliament.

The Penal Laws

The Great Parliament of Ireland 1790 by Henry Barraud and John Hayter (Campbell College, Belfast)

The Irish Parliament of this era was almost exclusively Protestant. Catholics had been barred from

holding office in the early 17th century, barred from sitting in Parliament by mid-century and finally

disenfranchised in 1727.

Catholic owned land could not be passed on intact to a single heir. This made many Catholic

landholdings unproductive and caused them to fall out of Catholic hands over several generations.

This period of defeat for Irish Catholics was referred to in Irish language poetry as the long briseadh – or "shipwreck".

Both Catholics and Presbyterians were also barred from certain professions (such as law, the

judiciary and the army). Catholics could not bear arms or exercise their religion publicly.

However, after the demise of the Jacobite cause in Scotland at Culloden in 1746, and the

Papacy’s recognition of the Hanoverian dynasty in 1766, the threat to the Protestant Ascendancy

eased and many Penal Laws were relaxed or lightly enforced. In addition, some Catholic gentry

families got around the Penal Laws by making nominal conversions to Protestantism or by getting

one family member to "convert" to hold land for the rest of his family, or to take a large mortgage

on it.

From 1766 Catholics favoured reform of the existing state in Ireland. Their politics were

represented by the “Catholic Committees” – a moderate organisation of Catholic gentry and Clergy

in each county which advocated repeal of the Penal Laws and emphasised their loyalty. Reforms

on land ownership then started in 1771 and 1778–79.

By the late 18th century, many of the Irish protestant elite had come to see Ireland as their native

country and were angered at the neglect from London. The Patriots agitated for a more favourable

trading relationship with England, in particular abolition of enforced tariffs on Irish goods in English

markets, but no tariffs on English goods coming to Ireland.

Irish parliamentarians campaigned for legislative independence for the Parliament of Ireland.

In 1782 free trade was granted between England and Ireland. It was partly responsible for an economic boom in Ireland in the 1780s.

Corn laws were introduced in 1784 to give a bounty on flour shipped to Dublin; this promoted the

spread of mills and tillage.

Further reforms for Catholics continued to 1793, when they could again vote, sit on grand juries

and buy freehold land. However they could neither enter parliament nor become senior state

officials.

Political movements in the late eighteenth century

Some in Ireland were attracted to the more militant example of the French Revolution of 1789. In

1791 a small group of Protestant radicals, in Belfast initially, formed the Society of United Irishmen 

to campaign for the end to religious discrimination and the widening of the right to vote. However,

the group soon radicalised its aims and sought to overthrow British rule and found a non-sectarian

republic.

The United Irishmen spread quickly throughout the country. Republicanism was particularly attractive to the Ulster Presbyterian community who were also discriminated against for their religion. Many Catholics, particularly the emergent Catholic middle class, were also attracted to the movement, and it claimed over 200,000 members by 1798.

The United Irishmen were banned after Revolutionary France in 1793 declared war on Britain and they developed from a political movement into a military organisation preparing for armed rebellion.

These measures did nothing to calm thesituation in Ireland and these reforms were bitterly opposed by the "ultra-loyalist" Protestant hardliners. Violence and disorder became widespread. Hardening loyalist attitudes led in 1795 to the foundation of the Orange Order, a hardline Protestant grouping.

The United Irishmen, now dedicated to armed revolution, forged links with the militant Catholic

peasant society, the Defenders, who had been raiding farmhouses since 1792. Wolfe Tone, the

United Irish leader, went to France to seek French military support. These efforts bore fruit when

the French launched an expeditionary force of 15,000 troops which arrived off Bantry Bay in

December 1796. They failed to land due to a combination of indecisiveness, poor seamanship, and

storms off the Bantry coast.

The government began a campaign of repression targeted against the United Irishmen, including

executions, routine use of torture, transportation to penal colonies and house burnings. As the

repression began to bite, the United Irishmen decided to go ahead with an insurrection without

French help. Their activity culminated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The central core of the plan,

around Dublin, failed, and then it spread elsewhere. The Rebellion lasted 3 months before it was

suppressed, having claimed about 30,000 lives.

Nineteenth Century

Largely in response to the Rebellion, Irish self-government was abolished altogether from 1 January

1801. The Irish Parliament, dominated by the Protestant landed class, was persuaded to vote for

its own abolition for fear of another rebellion and with the aid of bribery by Lord Cornwallis, the

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Catholic Bishops, who had condemned the rebellion, supported the

Union as a step on the road to further Catholic emancipation.

Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1922. The British

administration was known as “Dublin Castle” and remained largely dominated by the Anglo-Irish

establishment until its removal from Dublin in 1922.

Ireland faced considerable economic difficulties in the 19th century, including theGreat Famine of

the 1840s.

The Great Famine

Scene at the gate of a workhouse during the Great Famine (Irish Famine Society)

Ireland underwent major highs and lows economically during the 19th century; from economic

booms during the Napoleonic Wars and in the late 19th century, when it experienced a surge in

economic growth unmatched until the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom of the 1990s, to severe economic

downturns and a series of famines, the last threatening in 1879.

The worst of these was the Great Irish famine of 1845-1849, during which about one million people died and another million emigrated.

The economic problems of most Irish people were in part the result of the small size of their

landholdings and a large increase in the population in the years before the famine. Both the law and social tradition provided for subdivision of land, with all sons inheriting equal shares in a farm, meaning that farms became so small that only one crop, potatoes, could be grown in sufficient amounts to feed a family.

Many estates, from whom the small farmers rented, were poorly run by absentee landlords and in many cases heavily mortgaged.

Enclosures of land since the start of the 19th century had also exacerbated the problem, and the

extensive grazing of cattle had contributed to the decrease in size in the plots of land available to

tenants to raise crops.

When potato blight hit in 1845, much of the rural population was left without food. The Prime

Minister Lord John Russell adhered to a strict laissez-faire economic policy, which maintained that

further state intervention would have the whole country dependent on hand-outs, and that what

was needed was for economic viability to be encouraged.

Despite Ireland producing a net surplus of food, most of it was exported to England and elsewhere.

Public works schemes were set up but proved inadequate, and the situation became catastrophic when epidemics of typhoid, cholera and dysentry took hold.

The inadequacy of the British government’s initiatives led to a problem becoming a catastrophe.

Emigration was not uncommon in Ireland in the years preceding the Famine. Between 1815–1845,

Ireland had already established itself as the major supplier of overseas labour to Great Britain and

North America. However, emigration reached a peak during the famine, particularly in the years

1846–1855. The famine also saw increased emigration to Canada and assisted passages to

Australia.