Great Migration: Irish immigration records and government schemes to NSW

Join us for a full-day seminar on Irish immigration records featuring talks by renowned expert historians and genealogists Dr Richard Reid, Dr Perry McIntyre and Dr Damian John Gleeson.

The talks will focus on different NSW immigration schemes and the large paper trail of official documents that they left behind. These records provide insights into both how the system worked and the experiences of those who passed through it.

In addition, original state archives will be on display. There will also be the opportunity for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Western Sydney Records Centre.

Program

9.30am for 10am start
Arrival

10am–11am
Talk: ‘Most came because their fare was paid for them…’
Speaker: Dr Richard Reid

11am–11.30am
Morning tea (catered)

11.30am–12.30pm
Talk: At no financial cost to themselves
Speaker: Dr Perry McIntyre

12.30pm–1.15pm
Lunch (BYO – not provided)

1.15pm–2.45pm
Talk: Colonial bigamy
Speaker: Dr Damian John Gleeson

2.45pm
Close

3pm – 4 pm
Optional tour of the NSW State Archives Collection

Talk: Most came because their fare was paid for them

Free assisted emigration from Great Britain and Ireland was the cornerstone of the rapid growth in NSW’s population in the 19th century. Seventy-seven per cent of all immigrant arrivals into Sydney between 1830 and 1890 were ‘assisted’, a mass movement financed overwhelmingly by funds raised in NSW. These immigrants would have been aware of Emigration Agents; the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in London; Surgeon-Superintendents, Matrons and Water Closet Constables on the voyage; the members of the NSW Immigration Board who interviewed them on arrival; and the efforts of the NSW Immigration Agent to ease their passage into the colony. By the standards of the time, it was a highly organised journey and, amazingly, it has left behind a large paper trail of official documents – not just the ships’ lists (the delight of family historians), but also the thousands of other pieces of paper that provide a picture of how the system was set up and experienced. This presentation can only give a glimpse of the treasures to be found in the NSW State Archives Collection that illuminate the assisted emigrant journey.

Dr Richard Reid | Speaker biography
Dr Richard Reid is an Irish ‘assisted immigrant’ of the early 1970s. Fittingly, his doctorate, from the Australian National University, focused on Irish assisted emigration to NSW between 1848 and 1870 – a period when some 44,000 men and women from every county in Ireland made the voyage across the oceans to a new life here. Research acquainted Dr Reid with the abundant world-class colonial material about assisted emigration from Great Britain and Ireland held in the NSW State Archives Collection. His thesis, ‘Aspects of Irish assisted emigration to NSW, 1848–1870’, was published as Farewell my children: Irish assisted emigration to Australia, 1848–1870. He has also published and presented widely on the themes of Australians at war, the Irish in Australia and local history.

Talk: At no financial cost to themselves

This talk will discuss two groups of 19th-century immigrants who paid nothing towards the cost of their passage to Australia. A government scheme operating between 1817 and 1852 provided free passage to Australia for a number of wives and families of previously transported convicts. In a separate scheme, girls and young women aged between 13 and 19 were selected from overcrowded workhouses throughout Ireland during the years of the Irish Famine and sent to Plymouth in England, from where they were given free passage to Sydney, Port Phillip and Adelaide. How were these people chosen and what was the process that enabled them to flee Ireland? The presentation will outline how each scheme worked and look at workhouse records held in Ireland (some of which are available online), while also opening some doors (or documents) for research here in the NSW State Archives Collection.

Dr Perry McIntyre | Speaker biography
Dr Perry McIntyre grew up in Sydney and lived in Brisbane and mining towns in Central Queensland before returning to Sydney in 1998. She became involved in 19th-century Irish immigration research when working as a professional genealogist in the 1990s and early 2000s. Meeting Richard Reid and helping him take tours to Ireland for the Society of Australian Genealogists moved that research interest into much broader historical inquiries. Her PhD thesis, which looked at the reunion of married convicts with their families in NSW, was initially published in Ireland in 2011 and republished in Australia in 2018 as Free passage: convict family reunion in Australia 1788–1852. Dr McIntyre has been involved with the Australian Memorial to the Great Irish Famine at the Hyde Park Barracks since 1995 and is now working on a book about the orphan girls and women selected from Irish workhouses as assisted immigrants in the famine years of 1848–50. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the State Library of NSW.

Talk: Colonial bigamy

This presentation examines some of the themes arising from Dr Gleeson’s new book, Irish bigamy: new insights into colonial New South Wales (Colonial Press, Goulburn, 2025). Drawing on 100 case studies, this is the first scholarly book to examine Irish bigamy with particular emphasis on its widespread practice among Irish convicts in penal NSW. Colonial bigamy was a complex matter with far-reaching implications for first families who lived in Ireland and England. At play were complicated forces involving the attitudes of Irish prisoners transported for bigamy, convicts entering into bigamous marriages in penal NSW, the inconsistent adoption of Catholic Church marriage policies in the colony, and the changing perspectives of English administrations to bigamy. Dr Gleeson’s talk will highlight the significance of several record series held in the NSW State Archives Collection, including estate records, applications to marry, and the colonial secretary’s correspondence.

Dr Damian John Gleeson | Speaker biography
Dr Damian John Gleeson is a genealogist and historian who has published widely in Australia and Ireland. He is the Australian representative of the historic O’Glassain erenaghs (hereditary stewards) of the Silvermines, County Tipperary.