"An Irish Famine Orphan in Australia" - Jane Feeney, "My woman of importance"

Today I again "virtually" joined other members of the Society of Australian Genealogists.  With Mothers' Day on Sunday, the topic was "Women of Importance".  You might the interested in reading about Jane Feeney, our many times great-grandmother and great aunt.

Jane Feeney came to Sydney in 1849 on board The Digby.  She was part of Earl Grey’s Famine Orphan Scheme.  So many of us are descendants of these young women that I consider they are truely women of importance.

We owe a lot to Trevor McClaughlan and Perry McIntyre for the work they’ve done to bring the stories of these young women to us.  Over 4000 “famine orphans” came to the Australian colonies during 1848, 49 and 50.  Most were teenagers.  They were from workhouses in all 32 counties throughout Ireland. All were destitute and many had lost their parents and families. Others were simply unable to support themselves within the family.

In a male-dominated society, these young women altered the demographics of Australia in a very significant way with 11 shiploads arriving. After volunteering for emigration, they were carefully inspected by the Poor Law Guardians in Ireland, and their literacy, health and previous employment record were examined before embarkation.

They were provided with a wooden box containing “provisions” for their new lives.

However, the scheme only lasted for three years as Anglo-centric colonial newspapers of the times condemned the girls for their supposedly inferior demographics – Catholic, illiterate, Irish and female.

During those 3 years, 2220 of the young Irish women came to Sydney and the others arrived in Port Phillip and Adelaide.  Those who came to Sydney were housed in the Hyde Park Barracks from where they were hired out.

My great great grandmother, Jane Feeney, was one of these young women.  In 1848, aged 15, she’d entered the South Dublin Workhouse twice.  In November 1848, she left the workhouse and travelled to Plymouth where she boarded The Digby with 233 other “orphan girls” bound for her new life in Australia.  

But it wasn’t until a DNA breakthrough just over 2 years ago that we found coming to Australia also meant she was being reunited with her mother and four siblings!

Jane’s mother and two sisters had arrived in Sydney in 1841.  Her two brothers had arrived two years later.  Jane was 8 when she was separated from her mother.  It seems likely that her father had died before 1841.  

When Jane arrived at Hyde Park Barracks, her family were living less then a kilometre away in Kent Street.  But Jane was “in the system” and this saw her moved to Port Macquarie. It appears that she was “apprenticed” to William and Elizabeth Killion as a children’s maid.  William was a storekeeper  at what’s now the Port Macquarie Museum and the family lived in the residence upstairs.    

This September 1849 entry records that Jane and 6 other girls from The Digby and two from The Earl Grey were indentured to employers in Port Macquarie. 

It’s unlikely that Jane ever saw her family again.  Her mother and sisters died in the early 1850s.  We do know, however, that she maintained communication with her brothers.

Known or possible photos of Jane and her children

So Jane settled in Port Macquarie and later Kempsey.  She married three times and had 10 children - 8 survived to adulthood.  Here’s a photo simply titled “Moran Woman” from the Kempsey Museum.  After a lot of research,  we’re fairly certain it’s Jane. 

Two years after arriving in Port Macquarie and aged 19. Jane married John Killion an Irish “ticket of leave man”, 25 years her senior.  They had 5 children prior to his death in 1864.  The children were aged between 11 and 2 when John died.  Unsurprisingly for the times, Jane married seven months later.  Thomas Seward was an English “ticket of leave” man who was 19 years older than Jane.  They had five children but the two youngest, twins, died as infants.  In the late 1870s, Jane and her eight children moved to Kempsey.  It seems that Thomas stayed in Port Macquarie.  In the early 1880s, he served time in Darlinghurst Goal and died before 1885.  In 1887, Jane married for the third time.  Charles Moran was an Irishman 10 years her senior who’d been in the British Navy.  Jane died in 1907, aged 75 and was survived by Charles and 35 descendants.  This now numbers many hundreds of descendants.

In 1859, John purchased 53 acres of land on the North Shore Port Macquarie.  The land was on the banks of the Hastings River and virgin bush which it has now largely returned too as you can see in this picture.  Imagine a young Irish woman going there with her three young children with mosquitoes and sandflies!  By 1869, the family had left the farm and were living back in Port Macquarie but less than 10 years later, Jane left for Kemspey without Thomas but with her 8 children!  

Jane died in 1907 an independent woman well remembered by her 35 descendants.  She left an estate consisting of a home owned in her own name and other assets valued at about 190 pounds.  While she was still married to her third husband, the estate was left to her children. 

We’re sure that the network between the girls remained through their lives.  I’ll touch on Jane’s connection with four other “orphan girls”.

Margaret McCabe and Rosanna had arrived on the Digby with Jane.  The connection between Jane and Margaret was found when we made our DNA breakthrough as Margaret married Jane’s older brother Edward in 1853 in Sydney.   Rosanna on the other hand had travelled to Port Macquarie with Jane.  In 1850 she married John Lawrence.  She was living in Kempsey when Jane moved there.  Thirty six years after their arrival in Sydney, Jane sold the farm in Port Macquarie to Rosanna’s son in law.  

So to the connections between Jane and other “Irish orphans”.  Catherine Beirne was 18 when she arrived in 1849 on the Lady Peel.  She married William Johnson, a German.  They had 10 children and settled in the Grafton area.  

Margaret Devlin was 16 when she arrived in 1848 with her sister, Sarah, on the Earl Grey.  She married Jospeh Kerrison.  He was an English ticket of leave man 24 years older than Margaret.  They had 8 children and settled in the Kempsey area.  

Here we have more treasured photos of Jane’s oldest son Jack with his daughter, Mary Killion, and his niece and nephew by marriage, Annie Kerrison and Willie Ryan.  

Here we have the connection back to the “Irish orphans” that keeps coming up the more I research.   Jack Killion married Catherine’s daughter Ellen.  One of Catherine’s other daughters, Eliza, married Margaret’s son Joseph.  When Elisa died, her sister, Ellen and husband, Jack Killion, raised her children. 

You can read about the DNA research that allowed us to reconnect “our Jane” with her birth family in an article published in Descent in 2018.  Tintean is an online magazine about Irish Australians that’s publishing stories on the “Irish famine orphans”.  

Wishing all mothers a happy day on Sunday in "iso"!

(With information drawn from Irish Famine Memorial Sydney and The Dictionary of Sydney.)