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The Earl Grey Scheme and the Emigration of Girls from the Workhouses of Laois
The Earl Grey Scheme and the Emigration of Girls from the Workhouses of Laois During the Great Famine, dozens of teenage girls left the workhouses of Laois bound for Australia. Their emigration was part of a British government scheme to provide the British colony with wives and domestic servants, and to rid the workhouses of ‘dead weight’. Their story is part of our local history, the story of ordinary Laois girls – neighbors, family and friends of our own ancestors five generations ago. Two years ago, 3rd year students at Portlaoise College discovered the names of 14 girl emigrants on the Laois Genealogy website. The students’ discovered that these names…
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Queen’s County 1919 – 1923: Attacks on Big Houses and Protestant Landowners
Queen’s County 1919 – 1923: Attacks on Big Houses and Protestant Landowners Terence Dooley, in his book ‘The Decline of the Big House in Ireland’, wrote that between 1919 and 1923 ‘landlords, largely because of their socio-political, economic and religious backgrounds, were to suffer outrage and intimidation on a scale the like of which their class had not experienced in living memory.’ What of other Irish Protestants in the rural community? Did they suffer such attacks? Why did attacks on Protestants occur? House burnings, harassment, assault, threatening letters, the carrying off of livestock and other property, boycotts, land grabbing, and murder, why were Protestants sometimes subjected to this kind…
