150 years family reunion of the McQueeney descendants.

    As a result of the potato famine, a shipload of Irish girls arrived in Sydney, Australia aboard the "Lady Peel" on the 3rd July 1849.

    Within 6 months, two of the girls, the McQueeney sisters Bridget (19) and Mary (17) were married and living in Moreton Bay.  They were founders of great and numerous pioneering families of Queensland.

    Mary married James Cash on 27^th October 1849 in Brisbane, and they were the first white settlers in the South Pine Valley.  After James Cash died in 1889, Mary married Edward Cain.  

  Bridget married William Bowden in Brisbane on 26^th December 1849.  They lived at first near Roma, then at Colinton Station, before settling at Laidley.  Some of the family, including Bridget herself, moved to Roma, Queensland after William's death.

    To honour the 150th anniversary of the Bridget and Mary McQueeney’s arrival in Australia, a family reunion was held at Yungaba Migrant Centre in Brisbane, Australia on Sunday 11th July 1999. More than 700 family members attended the function.

    In addition to the Bowden, Cash and Cain families, the daughters of William and Bridget Bowden had descendants with the surname Goggin, Wilson, McKee, Andrews and others.  The daughters of James and Mary Cash had descendants with the surname Hughes, Walker and others.  A daughter of Edward and Mary Cain had descendants with the surname Greensill.  Most of these families were represented at the reunion.

    A Bowden reunion was held in Roma, Queensland during Easter 2000.  

   Seven years after the sisters arrived, their widowed mother, Mary McQueeney, and four of her children arrived in Sydney on the ship “Robert Small” 23^rd May 1856 and settled in the colony.  The children were Catherine, Alice, Elizabeth and John.

On Sunday 11^th June 2006 a reunion was held to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the arrival of the remaining McQueeney family from Ireland. Around 400 family members attended the function.

The three sisters (Catherine, Alice and Elizabeth) had descendants with the surnames Searle, Laffin, Hanlon and others. John McQueeney did not marry.

    For more names of the known descendants, check the descendant list by clicking here.

    For more information, click here to send an email.