Tasmania’s Irish Convict History

BY BRIAN CORR

TASMANIA’S CONVICT HISTORY IS A STORY OF CRIME AND SURVIVAL IN ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES ON THIS PLANET.

More than 70,000 convicts were transported to the colony between 1788 and the end of transportation in 1868. Over 70% of Tasmania’s population is now estimated to be descended from convicts. Of the eleven UNESCO World Heritage-listed convict sites in Australia, five are in Tasmania. The Port Arthur Historic Site (an hour’s drive from Hobart) is Australia’s most famous penal settlement. On Maria Island (two hours drive up the coast from Hobart) the Darlington Probation Station buildings date back to the 1820’s in a spectacular natural environment. In the north of Tasmania, the Brickendon Convict Village and Woolmers Estate were built by convicts assigned to private landowners. Other convict highlights include Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour and the convict-built bridge in Richmond (where Thomas Francis O’Meagher, a Young Irelander and one of the leaders of the 1848 rebellion, spent some time before escaping to America.) In Hobart, the Cascades Female Factory (a prison) tells of the thousands of female convicts transported to Tasmania. Also, the New Town Orphan Asylum, a bleak overcrowded orphanage, designed by Irishman John Lee Archer, closed in 1879. Nearly 13,000 women, and 2,000 children, arrived in Hobart from Ireland between 1803 and 1853, torn from their families, after a bleak 25,000km journey, in the dark holds of ships, not knowing the future; hopeful for a new life. Some had small children. There was almost no hope of ever seeing their families again. So, when t-Uachtaráin, Michael D. Higgins, came to Hobart on the 14th October 2017, to unveil on the Hobart waterfront, life-size bronze sculptures of three women and one child - representing the stories of women and children convicts, who arrived in Hobart more than 150 years ago - we celebrated. Plans were quickly put in place for four more statues – two at the orphanage and two at the prison – to be created by the same artist, renowned Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie, who has companion works installed in Dublin and Toronto. The four new statues arrived in Hobart some months ago, but Covid restrictions made their unveiling difficult and Rowan Gillespie couldn’t travel. On the 16th February 2021, one of the female convict statues, her pregnancy well advanced, was unveiled at the Female Factory by the Governor of Tasmania, Professor the Honourable Kate Warner (photo above). John Kelly, well-known businessman in Hobart and one of the driving forces behind the statues project, read a message from the Irish Ambassador, Breandán Ó Caollaí, describing the statue as “iconic and evocative”. Dianne Snowden, secretary of ‘From the Shadows Inc.’ (www.fromtheshadows.org.au), read a message from Rowan Gillespie in which he said: “... imagine the plight of this woman, standing for the first time outside these bleak walls, carrying with her, all the way from Ireland, an unborn life and a heart full of shame, fear, and loneliness. Yet, I like to believe, she also carries love; love for that new life she is about to deliver into what must have seemed a cruel and loveless world.” The statue is located just across the road from the entrance to the Female Factory in South Hobart.