Welcome to Bridget Donovan’s Journey

Through a strange twist of fate otherwise known as a Google search, I recently found out that my Great Great Great Grandmother, Bridget Donovan, was one of the Irish Orphan Girls who emigrated out to Australia as part of the Earl Grey Scheme 1848-1850.

This discovery has launched a personal quest to find the scattered pieces of Bridget’s life and glue them back together again. Not only to get to know her better but also to pass her legacy onto our children. I want them to grow up knowing that even when we are seemingly weak, feeling battered and beaten that we can often find a way to conquer our personal mountain and that we can actually overcome a great deal of our personal difficulties. We should never give up. When we set out on a journey, we don’t know what is possible and we might just reach the stars… in effect soaring so far beyond our wildest dreams. This is a road I have traveled myself through a severe, long-term chronic illness and I personally know what it is to be a survivor and experience such miracles.

Here I am following in Bridget’s footsteps at the Hyde Park Barracks, formerly the Immigration Depot.

Unfortunately, like so many little people throughout history, Bridget has become invisible, silent and I am struggling to even find her footsteps let alone squeeze my feet in her shoes.

However, I have been able to put some details together.

Bridget Donovan was born in Midleton, Cork, Ireland in about 1835 and her parents were Dennis and Mary Donovan. Dennis died during the Irish Famine but Mary was living in Cloyne at the time Bridget emigrated. After losing her father, Bridget ended up in Midleton Workhouse where she was chosen to board the John Knox bound for a new life in Sydney, New South Wales.  As Anais Nin wrote: “…the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”. The John Knox sailed from Plymouth on the 10^th December 1849 and arrived in Sydney 4.5 months later on the 29^th April, 1850. Along with the other girls on the ship, Bridget would have been escorted up Macquarie Street to what is now the Hyde Park Barracks, which acted as a recruitment agency of sorts. It appears that Bridget went into service and I am chasing up details there. On 5^th August, 1853, Bridget married George Merritt, a 33 year old Englishman from Overton, Hampshire. They had 5 children including my Great Great Grandmother, Charlotte Merritt, who was born in Morpeth. The family moved around country New South Wales from Mudgee, to Morpeth, Tamworth and South to Wagga Wagga. That is where the trail ends and as yet I have been unable to find Bridget’s death but it is only early days.

So who was Bridget Donovan who later went on to become Bridget Merritt?

Did Bridget look something like this in older age? Photographed this image at the Hyde Park Barracks on Sunday.

Obviously, I have no idea. I didn’t know Bridget personally. I didn’t grow up being bounced up and down on her knee or falling asleep in her lap as she sang me lullabies in her Irish brogue or perhaps read me a story. Well, she couldn’t have read me a story as Bridget could neither read nor write but as I grew up, I could have read her the newspaper instead. No doubt, she would have loved to hear me play my violin which she knew as a fiddle, even if screeched like a scalded cat. Or perhaps she would have taught me how to play the very same way I have been teaching my own daughter the violin more off than on. The one thing I do know about almost all grandmothers is that they love you to bits and you can do no wrong. Indeed, I’m sure Bridget would even have loved my son’s many, many knock-knock jokes.

A copy of Bridget’s daughter’s birth certificate.  The original had been completed by the midwife. Bridget was illiterate.

Despite growing up in a close knit family of Irish-Catholic descent who has always been interested in our family history and stories, Bridget was a stranger to me. She was simply a name on her daughter’s birth certificate which had been printed off for some reason in 1900 and kept in the safe at the family business. I was unraveling her daughter Charlotte’s life when a chance Google search showed that a Bridget Donovan who matched mine, was listed as an Irish Orphan Girl on the Irish Famine Memorial website. Last Sunday, I attended the annual commemoration of the Irish Famine Monument at Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks and I now feel compelled to tell Bridget’s story.

We do not have a photo of Bridget. This is a photo of her daughter, Charlotte Merritt. Did she look like her mother?

The trouble is that I need to find Bridget first and that’s proving so much harder than I thought. As much as I want to have a cup of tea and chat with Bridget, she remains obstinately silent. Talk about a one-sided conversation. Birth records, death records, these are still elusive let alone finding out anything personal. Her lips are sealed.

Yet, just because I am struggling to reassemble the puzzle pieces, doesn’t mean that Bridget’s story shouldn’t be told. It just means I have to work harder, smarter and reach out for some help…especially trying to pick up the Irish threads. Even if I could afford unlimited travel to Ireland, I am still an Australian with Australian eyes and an Australian heart (even though a good portion of it does have Irish roots). However, I would really love build a connection with Ireland to recreate Bridget’s story in a truly authentic way. By joining hands we can hopefully reconstruct Bridget’s journey as an Irish-Australian story.

So what’s the plan?

I am going to start posting the information I already have about Bridget’s journey onto this blog and I will keep adding to each post as further information comes to hand. You can add your information to the blog under the comments section and then I can look at it and then work it into the main text with acknowledgement.

Like most journey’s, I don’t know where this road is taking me but I am looking forward to whatever lies ahead.

xx Rowena