Exploring family history can be a window into the past… an interesting way to learn about broader history. Lives long gone can give us an insight into where we are today and the struggles that shape the world and us.

My great-great grandmother, Celia Edwards, was a survivor of the Irish famine and was shipped to Australia in 1849, aged 16.

Such a lot to have been through in just 16 years. An orphan, she and some of her family (so far I have found evidence of a brother), were admitted to the Gorey Workhouse in County Wexford. She was trained to be a nursemaid, learned to read and write, and then was chosen to emigrate.

She was one of a ship load of Irish orphan girls transported to Melbourne, Victoria, on the New Liverpool.

How must she have felt? Pushed out to travel halfway around the world, alone; her life shaped and managed by forces outside of her control.

Exploring Celia’s life opens up endless paths: Irish history, its place in the world and impacts of the British empire’s expansion around the world and its political machinations; the wide-reaching impacts of religious tensions; the social vulnerabilities of a young woman at the mercy of a young colony… and more.

If you have any light to shed on this woman’s life, I would love to hear from you.

See a little of Celia’s life. Here is some information I compiled to share with my cousins. Without her, none of us would be here: Celia Edwards: Irish Famine Survivor