Across Ireland, the Great Famine turned an already harsh existence into a bitter struggle to survive. Diseases like dysentery, typhus, cholera and scurvy swept through the overcrowded workhouses. Inmates who survived worked for their keep breaking rocks, building roads and carrying out other heavy, often pointless, physical tasks.
Adolescent girls selected for colonial emigration had to be single, obedient, healthy and free of smallpox. Without supportive networks or family, the girls remained vulnerable and powerless to control their fate. Mostly uneducated, unworldly and unused to domestic service, the orphans relied on protective officials to negotiate their place in the labour market. The orphan girls cost less than more experienced servants and were generally hired quickly. Despite low wages, some sent savings home and funded family reunions.
Apprenticeships to middle-class families often meant years of hard, low-paid work as maids, kitchen hands and mothers helpers. Their tendency to have large families of their own seldom made life easier. As gold and outlying land releases pushed European farmers further into the interior, the orphan girls were well represented in harsh and isolated Pioneering settlements.