Galway Girl - Ellen Kelly
Around 1830 a baby girl was born in Tuam, Galway. Her name was Ellen Phillips and one day she would marry James Kelly and set off to a new life away to Australia and away from the turmoil of the Great Potato Famine. Her parents were Michael and Mary Phillips (nee Connolly) and she grew up with at least two other siblings. Stephen who was a railway labourer was the one to sponsor James and their newborn son John on their journey to Australia. The other was her elder sister Catherine who accompanied Ellen and James aboard the immigrant ship Bengal in 1854. Times were tough in Ireland in the late 1840s. More than a million people died in Ireland and around another million emigrated to other lands. The English were building their underground railway and took advantage of the plight of many desperate Irishmen employing them as cheap, almost slave labour. Stephen found employment as a railway labourer in London and as with many desperate people needing to live close to their place of...