Pathfinder Obama sent in for final pre check

We have now implemented stage 2 of the pre plan for Ireland by sending in Barack Obama to Moneygall with instructions to re-establish his own family roots there. This follows our plan for Queen Elizabeth last week to offer some form of regret for English actions in Ireland over the centuries. It also follows Toulouse rugby club losing to Leinster in the Heineken Cup so that the Irish club could win the final over the English this last weekend. The Republic should be in good shape to welcome us by next Tuesday, European financial conditions and volcanoes aside.

And thus the stage is almost set for our tracking tour. The weather in Canberra has appropriately dampened down and it very much looks like tomorrows' penultimate training walk will be in the damp bringing more reality to potential Kerry conditions.

Queen Elizabeth clears way for our pending visit

From 2 June, Randall will be re-joining the Well-Aged Walking Group to spend 9 days walking the Ring of Kerry in County Ciarrai. Today Tuesday we have sent in the Queen and her Consort to check that preparations for the walking group have been made to Her satisfaction. The Well-Aged Walking Group is not likely to need the 10,000 security staff that have been deployed to Ireland for the English but then again we know what happened to Michael Collins many years ago and we do not want such scenes to be repeated.

We have been checking the weather daily now by having Killarney and Galway markers on our home desktops but they are yet to vary from Grey/light rain over the week or so we have been watching. Maybe the computer weather is different as the Queen looked okay weatherwise as she was inspecting the guard at Dublin Castle just a few minutes ago.

And finally at the other end of our planning spectrum, we have now booked our accommodation in Bedford UK where we hope to do a spot of boat people tracking in late July. Our Convict William was convicted there in 1827. Obtuse link but I could not help thinking that maybe Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be on a boat heading to Australia soon given his US troubles lately. Christmas Island or New Guinea might be a good place for Dominique to lie low for a while.

Boats 1 and 2- "Prince Regent" and "Roslin Castle"

When 19 years old William Kingsley left England in June 1827 as one of 180 unwanted people on the convict ship “Prince Regent”, he could not have envisaged the evolution of his “family” or perhaps even consider the idea of having one. The records for his temporary home, the prison hulk “Justitia”, indicate that William was of “bad character and disorderly”. England was rapidly heading into the industrial revolution and the military was downsizing after the Napoleonic wars so times were turbulent, especially for the working class. The English political class could not develop adequate policies to handle the overflowing prisons and so a “Pacific Solution” was decided upon.

William came from the Pirton area of Hertfordshire, England and was part of a large family struggling to earn a rural living. He was removed from his “detention centre” hulk and after 108 uneventful days at sea the “Prince Regent” arrived at the Sydney processing centre. After a short period at Hyde Park Barracks, William was despatched to the Goulburn area to serve his 14 year sentence. Out of sight and never to see England again.

The “Prince Regent I” left from Deal in Kent and whilst we will not go there during this trip in 2011, we plan to stay a few days in the area where William was raised, particularly Pirton, to check out how things have progressed since he left. The area is not far from London and our research says that it is now a commuter feeder area for London workers with any number of “created” decentralised towns around. The accommodation options for us are not all that great it seems; typical old fashioned English pubs with cheap 1960's accommodation, over-priced and underachieving hotels catering for English travelling salesmen and cheaper wedding parties or outdated hotels with lazy staff for travellers using Luton or Stansted airports. Maybe our William was lucky to be taken out when he was.

William's Australian soul-mate, Eliza Sandford, came from County Cavan or County Meath, Ireland. She was convicted for vagrancy in 1834. The 1815 overthrow of Napoleon removed any possibility of France supporting the Catholic Irish and so this underclass of Ireland, including Eliza Sandford, had a particularly tough time in those days.

After several years in Cork prison Eliza was one of 192 women convicts despatched to the Sydney processing centre on the “Roslin Castle”. She arrived in Sydney in February 1836 and put to work in the female factory at Parramatta. We know very little else about Eliza's Irish background but we hope to learn something about her and the conditions she endured when we visit County Cork in June.

Boats 3 and 4 "Boanerges" and "Joshua"

The Irish family connection deepens following further English oppression and the infamous Potato famine. Nancy (19) and Robert Cassidy (17) left Ireland for Sydney/Newcastle on the “Boanerges” in 1857 and then brothers John (16) (Randall's great grandfather) and Patrick (14) followed on the “Joshua” in 1858. Other members of the Cassidy family also left Ireland for Australia in this period of mass boat people movement.

The Cassidy native area in Ireland is County Fermanagh and the main town area was Enniskillen. We have found 49 Cassidy people who were in the area in the 1850s and potential family members so it should not be too hard to find which ones were our links! We will spend three days soaking up the scene in this area and we have opted to stay at Omagh to test our Orange root feelings.

Boat 5 "British Trident"

At last we may have a “regular” immigrant who has not jumped the so called “queue”. One great grandmother on Randall's father's side of the family, Mary Ann Green, came from Derbyshire, England at 10 years old with her parents and siblings. They left Liverpool in 1860, arriving in Sydney on 7 January 1861. They came as immigrants on the “British Trident”, a sailing ship which, according to Lloyd's register was “sheathed in felt and yellow metal, partly fastened with iron bolts. There was a crew of 50 and 437 immigrant passengers.

We have yet to find a picture of this particular “British Trident”. The one we have for you does not quite fit the description we have. We do not think it was a submarine “trident” either.

The real reasons for this family leaving Victorian England for the southern “El Dorado” are yet to be uncovered. We do not have the time to visit this part of England this time around and so we will pick up the story another time.

Boat 6 "Demosthenes"

By the early 1920's, England was reeling in the after effects of WWI and we were set for another wave of people seeking a better life elsewhere. Australia too was suffering from the yet to be cured lemming like phobia to send ill educated youth onto military slaughter engagements. Yvonne's father and grandparents had unsuccessfully left Scotland for England so they elected to join the queue to seek a new life down under. Maybe their brogue was difficult to understand as being English but they had the “right coloured” skin and were easily accepted as rural workers and then city industrial workers in a growing Australia.

Yvonne's father William sailed with his parents and two of his six siblings from London in 1925 on board the “Demosthenes” and they were landed in Melbourne. Their Scottish heritage is in the lowlands area near Glasgow but we are not tracking them down this visit as we have done that quite a few years ago when living in Europe. The “Demosthenes” was built in Belfast, Ireland by the (Titanic) White Star line so we will think about these ships when we visit Belfast in June

Boat 7 "SS Balranald"

Our other English boat people on Yvonne's side are the Tremletts. They became economic asylum seekers in 1922 when they boarded the “SS Balranald” in 1922. This ship was one of five purpose built P&O secondary one-class immigrant ships for service to Australia, offering services every two weeks and taking up to 500 people at a time. So, at one level, P&O could be said to be exploiting the “market” for boat people - with just a tad more “official” support and encouragement. Yvonne's mother left from London as a four year old with her parents for their new life down under. Nancy found her man in Melbourne and Yvonne is a result of that union. The Tremletts came from Devon, England but we do not have time to visit the area this time around. Once again we did visit this area on a previous trip whilst living in Europe.

Boat 8 "Rangatata

Our most recent boat person is Randall's mother Rita who took a window of opportunity in 1945 to catch a recently liberated Australian POW when he arrived in London at the end of WWII. By this stage boat people processes were a little more sophisticated than they were in convict days, although the Australian officials in England must have had their hands full in finding ships for the many other women who teamed up with Australian soldiers for an opportunity to escape war torn Europe. In any case Rita sailed away on her NZ shipping company ship “Rangatata” in 1945 and found her asylum down under. Rita came from London as did most of her family before her. Whilst we will not be returning to London on this trip, we will spend some time in Hertfordshire where she served with the Land Army during WWII. We might even catch up with Rita's niece who now lives in near Cambridge, not too far from Hertfordshire.