I visited Kerry recently , a stunningly beautiful part of the world. One set of my maternal great great grandparents, Patrick Connor and Mary White were from Killarney. They arrived in South Australia in October 1840 on board the Mary Dugdale, as part of of an immigration scheme which selected sober and hardworking labourers for free passage. The scheme was not only a way of providing labour for the larger South Australian landholders but was also seen by some Irish landlords as a way of ridding themselves of ’excess’ tenants. It was believed that eventually these immigrants would have the opportunity of owning land themselves. This was pretty much the pattern that Patrick and Mary followed.

When we left Killarney, looking at the green hills and the roadside fuschia and montbretia, I wondered how Patrick and Mary felt as they left for South Australia. The beauty of the countryside explains the longing in so many Irish immigrant songs. No doubt they hoped for a better future for themselves and their children, better than they would have in Ireland. Settler life was not easy and, as well as the struggle to make their way in raw developing society, they must have found the hot dry climate a challenge.

Patrick and Mary had married at St Mary’s, Killarney¹, on 23 April 1834 and their three Irish born children were baptised there – Margaret in 1835, Mary in 1837 and Johannah in 1839. Only Margaret and Johannah came with their parents, so presumably Mary had died before June 1840 when they set sail. Patrick and Mary received free passage to South Australia but they had to pay for the passage of Margaret and Johannah. Within a month of arrival, both Patrick and his daughter Margaret were ill and in receipt of public support – unfortunately the records tell us no more. The South Australian census  taken in January 1841 show Patrick and his family living at Thebarton. Patrick may have been leasing some land at Thebarton as well as working as a labourer. He is listed in the South Australian Land Returns for 1843 as having four ’cattle’. While the Connors were living at Thebarton, four more children were born: Catherine (1844), William (1847), Elizabeth (1849) and Selina (1853). I have been able to find very little about their time in Thebarton, or afterwards, except for Mary taking a very nasty fall.

In July 1858 Patrick bought 70 acres of Crown Land (section 250) ‘east of Pine Creek, between Saddleworth and the Pine Creek, north of and adjoining the road from Saddleworth to Auburn’. The land cost him £85. No doubt, during the years spent in Thebarton, Patrick was saving towards this day.² Patrick was listed in the Adelaide Almanac and Directory for South Australia from 1864 to 1868 as a farmer at Pine Creek; however, Patrick had died in 1865 aged 52. His death certificate gives no cause of death. Patrick and Mary’s only son William (my great grandfather) took over the farm following Patrick’s death. He is listed in the Adelaide Almanac until 1882. William sold the farm some time prior to 1882 and Mary went to live with one of her by now married daughters.

In 1880 William married Sarah Ann Watson at Millicent, where he appears to have been living, and they moved to Sale in Victoria that same year. In 1882 he bought and leased land t Valencia Creek in Gippsland. That farm remained in the family until 1975. How many sons of agricultural labourers in Ireland at that time ended up with land of their own that they could pass on to their children?

Patrick O’Connor’s³ story is by no means unique for Irish immigrants to Australia.

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©Catherine Anne MerrickSave

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1. This was not the current St Mary’s Cathedral which was built in the 1840s and 1850s but an older chapel, possibly in New Lane. ↩︎
2. Thomas McGrath from Upperchurch Tipperary, another great great grandfather, followed exactly the same path. ↩︎
3. Sometime soon after arrival in Australia, the Connors found themselves in possession of an O. ↩︎