In Nov 1852 and July 1853, 80 young women left from Mountbellew Workhouse to Australia (30) & Canada (50)
In May 2020 WA Irish Famine Committee asked Mountbellew Heritage to help bring their girls home with a Memorial - follow the page for updates https://www.gofundme.com/f/mountbellew-orphan-girls-039bringing-them-home039
There are some things that need to be done
Bringing our 'Orphan Girls' h
ome will not just create a new link to Western Australia by uniquely twinning the Memorials but will also be a way to bridge the gap of 170 years and 17,000 km between the girls' families in Australia and distant cousins here in the Mountbellew Poor Law Union area as well as throughout the world
It will be a poignant reminder of what we lost and the suffering endured
Young girls, many still in their teens, facing an incredible 5 month voyage in rough seas and stormy weather and then arriving in a settlement 20 years old which was still trying to find its purpose
In spite of all this many thrived and some became very successful. For others sadly it was tougher, dying within a few years, or simply vanishing
All stories to be told and remembered however brief
And so this year when we faced tempests and troubles of our own it is time to bring those stories and the spirit of the girls back home
time to carve out a special place for them to be recalled and their names honoured
And in doing so we create a space to remember all we have lost and all whose sorrow is still in the throes of keening
The Orphan Girls Park once completed will, like the girls themselves, have a life of its own - it will be an educational hub, a place of pilgrimage, a tranquil moment of refection, a vibrant burst of smell and sight which will give people a chance to rest, to ponder, to be still and to encounter
It needs to be done
And you can help it to be done
please donate to help bring the girls home
https://www.gofundme.com/f/mountbellew-orphan-girls-039bringing-them-home039
