The Sirens

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism.

At the time of Mary’s story, the English had been attempting to control Ireland for over 600 years. The first English-led invasions began in the 12th century under the Ango-Norman government and continued under the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. English lords were given ownership of plantations of confiscated land, and landlords worked to discourage Irish language, culture, and the practice of Catholicism. Strict laws suppressed Irish manufacturing and commerce, keeping the majority of the population at or below subsistence level.

Following the examples of the French and American revolutions in the later 18th century, a group of Irishmen rebelled against English rule in 1798 in hopes of establishing an Irish Republic. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by English forces, and many of the rebels were sent to the penal colonies in Australia.

Throughout the 18th century, the British government, facing an overflow in its prisons, had transported convicts to its colonies in America. This solution ended with the American Revolution, and Britain turned to eastern Australia, which had been mapped by Captain Cook and claimed as a British possession in 1770. The first ships, carrying nearly 800 convicts, arrived in Botany Bay in January of 1788 and made land in the territory they called New South Wales, establishing the town of Sydney.