As famine raged across 1840s Ireland, the western county of Galway was one of the worst affected. Yet for those who had the means, there was escape to be had: an icy night passage across the Irish Sea, and a couple of fourth class train journeys brought famine exiles to the coalfields and burgeoning industrial districts of the East Midlands.

By 1861, nearly half of all Irish born residents in the Chesterfield-Clay Cross area were migrants from Galway. In December’s talk, Robyn Collins and Natalie Jane Prior explore the story of the famine refugees who flooded into the courts and row houses of Clay Cross and Chesterfield—and how the arrival of thousands of traumatised people from one of hardest hit areas in Connaught created new communities and changed and influenced the growth of others.

About the researchers ./ presenters: 

Robyn Collins has been State Librarian of Tasmania and South Australia, and has worked as a small press publisher and in major aviation projects for the Australian Defence Department. Natalie Jane Prior has been a full time writer for thirty years, and is the best-selling author of more than fifty children’s books