THE EARL GREY SCHEME: Assisted Emigration To Australia from Carrick & Mohill Workhouses An Afternoon of Remembrance
Imagine being a 15 or 16 year old girl: an inmate of the workhouse, having survived Black ’47 but likely an orphan or (if they survived) being separated from your family which may or may not have gained admittance to a Leitrim workhouse.
You are fed meagre rations but enough to keep you alive, wear workhouse uniforms, suffer abuse for laziness or breaking prison-like rules, are exposed to death and disease, and perform daily drudge work. But you are lucky: you are not lying in a field or a ditch with twigs and grass for shelter; eating whatever you can find to keep alive; suffering from sickness, fever and likely death because you’ve been turned away from the overburdened, overcrowded, disease-ridden workhouse. Surviving yes, but there is little or no hope. And hope must keep you going. The Earl Grey Scheme (also known as the Famine Orphan Scheme) was a British government initiative devised by Henry George Grey, who was the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to assist the emigration of young, impoverished Irish girls from workhouses to Australia between 1848 and 1850.
The Scheme’s purpose was twofold: to relieve overcrowded Irish workhouses and to address the gender imbalance in the Australian colonies where men vastly outnumbered women. Chosen based on good character, health and basic literacy, and provided with a small box of suitable clothing, a pair of shoes, and basics such as soap, slightly over 4,100 Irish girls were given hope of a better life (primarily as domestic workers), and sent to Australia (a 4-month sea journey) before the scheme ended in 1850. Two Leitrim workhouses participated in sending young girls under the scheme: 60 from Carrick and 45 from Mohill. Luckily, the names and some family information of the these emigrants, has survived. To mark this extraordinary but little known or remembered emigration scheme, Carrick-on-Shannon Heritage Group has commissioned an ‘afternoon of remembrance’ to be held during The Leitrim Gathering weekend on Saturday, 24th May 2025 promptly at 2.30 pm. It is a free event.
Dr Gerard MacAtasney, the noted historian/author specialising in An Gorta Mór — The Great Hunger (1845-1850), with particular focus on its impact in County Leitrim, will give a talk on the Earl Grey Scheme In St George’s Heritage and Visitors Centre (Church Lane, Carrick, N41 KP 62).
Although Belfast-based, Gerard MacAtasney is intimately familiar with Leitrim, having spent much of his time as a youth and since with his Gowel relations. Among his books are Leitrim and the Great Hunger 1845-1850: A temporary inconvenience…?; The Dead Buried by the Dying: The Great Famine in Leitrim; The Other Famine: The 1822 Crisis in County Leitrim; and biographies of Seán MacDiarmada and Tom Clarke.
Following the talk in the Heritage Centre, light refreshments will be served and copies of Dr MacAtasney’s booklet Earl Grey Girls 1849 will be available.
Visitors are welcomed to make their way up to the Famine Workhouse Attic by following the footsteps of the Mother and Child inlayed in the footpath outside the gates of St George’s Heritage and Visitors Centre leading to the “The Workhouse”. A former sleeping quarters which has been sensitively restored by Carrick-on-Shannon Heritage Group, there visitors can view displays and exhibits, and to see a short film entitled “Alanna O’Kelly and the Great Hunger”, which tells a heartfelt story of the Famine through music and song.
A tour guide will be provided on the day to take visitors on this journey. The Workhouse Attic is located on the grounds of St Patrick’s Hospital on Summerhill, to the rear the hospital following the signposted path to the right of the hospital entrance; otherwise, there is limited free parking on the hospital grounds. Please note that the Workhouse Attic is reached via stairs and is not wheelchair accessible. Financial support for this event has been granted by The Leitrim Gathering 2025, Leitrim County Council, Leitrim Development Company, and Carrick-on-Shannon Heritage Group Ltd.
Further information is available from St. George’s Heritage & Visitor Centre at 071 962 1757.
Photo: One of the ships carrying some of the Earl Grey Girls on its journey to Australia 1848 to 1850