The Wearing of the Green

After losing her family during the Irish Potato Famine, Biddy boards a ship filled with orphaned and homeless girls and travels to Melbourne courtesy of the British Government. There the girls will work for two years in exchange for their passage and, ultimately, find husbands in the colony.

During the journey, Biddy holds on to a different hope. Her one remaining relative, older brother Ewen, fled to Australia as the famine began. It’s been years since Biddy has seen him, and she just knows he’ll be waiting on the docks for her.

The morning after they disembark in Williamstown, the girls line up to be selected by prospective employers. Biddy hangs back, all the time keeping an eye out for Ewen. But when he doesn’t arrive, she is chosen by Mr Morrison, a gruff, unfriendly character with little to say.

Two days later they arrive at his property, and Biddy is dismayed to see Morrison’s home is the roughest of shacks, little more than a shanty with a dirt floor. Morrison’s wife is almost as unwelcoming as Morrison. The only light in Biddy’s somewhat miserable existence is the Morrisons’ little girl, Annie, who she quickly bonds with.

Exhausting week after exhausting week passes, until Mrs Morrison dies in childbirth—her baby with her. Biddy is all that Annie has left, given her father’s complete disinterest and quick-to-hit hands.

When Morrison brings home a new bride, it quickly becomes clear that she is not inclined to be kind to either Biddy or Annie. And when Annie falls ill and dies, Biddy knows she has to leave. With the help of Kanyul, an Indigenous girl who has befriended her, and Kanyul’s tribe who withstand Morrison’s threats and hide her, she escapes, eventually making her way to Melbourne where she goes straight to the address her brother last wrote from.

To her dismay, Ewen isn’t there. He left some time ago and no-one 
knows where he went. Despondent 
and out of options, she makes her way to the Immigration Depot.
 There she is reunited with Miss Carmichael—who oversaw the 
girls during their voyage to Australia—and some of the other girls from her ship. Miss Carmichael has already had a visit from Mr Morrison, demanding that
she return Biddy, which she has no intention of doing.

When the opportunity to keep house for a local newspaperman arises, Biddy takes it, on the condition that he will help look for her brother. She has no idea that he is much closer than she could imagine…

A wonderfully engaging story that explores some of the experiences and challenges that may have been faced by Irish girls who came to Australia via The Earl Grey Scheme, which brought 22 shiploads of teenage girls to our shores. Author notes in the back of the book provide historical context to this great read.

grief, loss, Irish Potato Famine, The Earl Grey Scheme, Australian history, Irish history, friendship, exploitation, prejudice, newspaper reporting, reconciliation, family, kindness, Indigenous, migration

1. Non-graphic description of the loss of Biddy’s family during the Irish Potato Famine. 2. Mildly graphic references to domestic violence, to the death of Mrs Morrison in childbirth, and to the death of her child, Alice. 3. Morrison asks Biddy how old she is, and, realising the thoughts that underlying his question, she ‘accidentally’ elbows him. Biddy can look after herself.