Young women who left the South East during the Irish Famine are to be commemorated as part of Heritage Week.
87 out of over 4,000 women who left Ireland were from one of the two Kilkenny workhouses- with 28 being from Callan and 59 from Kilkenny.
The Irish Famine took place in the 1840's and left around one million people dead and saw over two million emigrating from the country.
As part of the project, efforts are being made to reconnect with the Irish community in Australia.
During heritage week, an online presentation will be taking place from Sydney to hear the stories of the 'Orphan Girls'.
Centre Manager at MacDonagh Junction Shopping Centre is Marion Acreman. She says there will be information available on the background to what has come to be known as the Earl Grey scheme;
"We unveiled a memorial to the girls that we have here at the workhouse and that lists all of the girls that left Kilkenny, not just this workhouse, but also the others.
And from that strand of the project has come this lovely connection to descendants of some of the girls who are listed on the memorial.
And also the potential I suppose to reach out to more and more of the people in Australia
who feel Irish because they are descended from those Irish girls who had to leave at the time.
