I’m longing for Kerry because I’m missing the 43rd Listowel Writers’ Week. What could be better than strolling the narrow streets of that lovely town along the Feale, hopping from one poetry reading to the next author’s talk, then gathering with friends at the Listowel Arms bar?

One of the events I’m missing is the launch of a book called “The Kerry Girls: Emigration and the Earl Grey Scheme” by Kay Maloney Caball. Fom a post on her My Kerry Ancestors blog:

“This is the true story of 117 Kerry girls sent out to Australia in 1849/1850 from Workhouses in Dingle (20), Kenmare (25), Killarney (35) and Listowel (37), under the auspices of the Earl Grey ‘Orphan’ scheme. The majority of these Kerry teenage girls were not in fact ‘Orphans’ as many had one parent alive. Their emigration has become known as the ‘Earl Grey scheme’ after its principal architect, Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord John Russell’s Whig government at the time of the Great Irish Famine.”

Here’s an interview with Kay posted in Irish Genealogy News. We wish her much success with the book.