Assisted Emigrants: Irish Female Migration Projects and the British Empire

FAIN: FT-286068-22

Jill Colleen Bender
University of North Carolina, Greensboro (Greensboro, NC 27412-5068)

Research and writing leading to a book on Irish female migration to Canada, Australia, and South Africa in the nineteenth-century. 

Assisted Emigrants examines state efforts to remove women from Irish workhouses and relocate them to British colonies in Australia, Canada, and South Africa. At the height of Ireland’s Great Famine, colonial officials advocated for assisted migration projects as a remedy for both the island’s catastrophic situation and the labor shortage plaguing Britain’s other colonies; young women from Ireland’s workhouses accounted for the majority of these emigrants. At the local level, however, commissioners frequently struggled to implement the plans, as some women refused to participate and colonial officials deemed others unfit. By exploring state-assisted female migration within an imperial context, this project highlights both the construction of power relations crucial to imperial control and also the role of Irish women in Britain’s imperial project.