More about The Ships

The Migration Experience

Clara (Ireland) to Plymouth (England)

One of the unanswered questions of my research. I don't know how the Malones and Shanleys travelled from their homelands to Plymouth where they boarded the Cairngorm bound for Australia.

I gather that many migrants used the Irish canals and waterways to get to ports for departing Ireland. One could go from Tullamore to Dublin on a barge along the Grand Canal which had been constructed by then. Alternatively travellers could travel west along the Grand Canal to the Shannon River and Limerick by boat.

Rail was another option. In the 1860s many from Co. Offaly travelled by rail to Cobh and departed from the port there.

Plymouth to Portland, Australia

Many ships of migrants travelled from Great Britain to Australia in the mid 1800s. Some ships travelled directly to Western Victoria (Portland or Port Fairy). Assisted immigration from the United Kingdom to Portland (Western Victoria) began in 1851 and reached its peak in 1854 when eleven ships landed 3254 new settlers at the port. It continued until 1857:

"by which time thirty-eight vessels had brought 11,395 assisted immigrants. During 1856 and 1857 four ships also took 1,153 immigrants to Port Fairy" (Newton, 1995).

(These four ships were the Euphrates, the Chance, the Balnaguith, and the William.)

Thomas Shanley & Ellen Malone were both on the Cairngorm. Among the other passengers were the married couple John & Christina Malone and their daughter Mary Malone (aged 1 year). John was Ellen's brother and Christina was a Shanley (Thomas' sister). Michael Shanley who was aboard The Chance was Thomas' younger brother.

For a description of the conditions that Thomas and Ellen & company were likely to have been subjected, one could do little better than Don Charlwood's book, The Long Farewell, (Burgewood Books, 1981, ISBN 1 876425 00 8). With the help of pictures and diary entries Charlwood describes the cramped and unhygienic conditions, the slow passage of time (journeys took several months), the extremes of weather (hot and becalmed in the tropics versus cold, wet and battered in storms), the isolation from the rest of the world, the unique social circumstances and relationships on board, the fear of shipwreck and the uncertainty of the future.

Portland to "Lookout Hill"

On reaching Portland many passengers from the Cairngorm went shortly to Port Fairy on board a steamer, the Champion. The Shanleys and Malones were committed to a J Molan (or Moylan) at Lookout Hill. This was the site of an early farm between current-day Illowa and Dennington (1). Travel from Port Fairy (a distance of about 15km) may have been by horse and cart or perhaps by foot.

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References

1. Personal correspondence Jenny Fawcett