Bronze sculpture unveiled for Leitrim workhouse girls shipped to Australia

They were only children really — some as young as 14, most no older than 19 — when they were torn from Leitrim’s workhouses during the famine and shipped to the other side of the world.

Between 1849 and 1851, under the notorious Earl Grey Scheme, more than 4,100 Irish girls from all 32 counties were sent to Australia to work as servants and, ultimately, to help populate a male-dominated colony where the ratio stood at eight men for every woman. From Leitrim alone, 60 girls left Carrick-on-Shannon and 45 from Mohill. Many never saw Ireland again.

On August 16th, their story was brought vividly back to life when a powerful bronze sculpture by Carrick artist Donnacha Treacy was unveiled at St Patrick’s Community Hospital — once the Carrick workhouse itself. The monument was commissioned by the Carrick-on-Shannon Heritage Group, based at St George’s Heritage & Visitor Centre, and funded under the 2025 LEADER Programme. A plaque was also added at the Famine Memorial Garden to honour those who perished in An Gorta Mór.

The girls chosen for emigration were poor, orphaned or abandoned — and deemed healthy enough to survive the journey. They were inspected on arrival in Sydney, housed in immigration depots like Hyde Park Barracks, and quickly sent out as domestic servants, farm hands, or, in time, wives. Some made stable lives and families. Others endured hardship, prejudice, and loneliness in a land they never asked to call home.

The scheme was the brainchild of Henry George Grey, the 3rd Earl Grey — a name still familiar today because of the bergamot-infused black tea that bears it. As Britain’s colonial secretary, Grey pushed through the emigration plan to ease Ireland’s overcrowded workhouses while solving Australia’s “woman shortage.” It was, as contemporary officials saw it, a neat solution: destitute Irish girls would become Australia’s future mothers, at no cost to the British taxpayer.

John Bredin, chair of the Carrick-on-Shannon Heritage Group, said the new monument is about restoring dignity to those girls:

“Sixty girls from Carrick workhouse and forty-five from Mohill were taken from here to Australia. They were some of the most vulnerable in society, yet they carried incredible courage. This sculpture gives them faces again, reminding us that they are not forgotten.”

For sculptor Donnacha Treacy, whose work has been shown at the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Dublin Society, the challenge was to capture both sorrow and resilience:

“These girls were leaving everything behind. I wanted their faces to show both fear and strength — the weight of loss, but also the spark of survival.”

The monument now stands not only as a reminder of Ireland’s darkest years, but as a tribute to the lost daughters of Leitrim — sent away as famine orphans, remembered now in bronze.

Joseph Gilhooly, CEO of Leitrim County Council CEO at the unveiling photo taken by Keith Nolan.

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