Grangegorman – The Convict Transportation Story, 1840-1852

In this talk, Joan Kavanagh (Wicklow County Council’s Heritage Forum, the Glendalough Heritage Forum and the Glens of Lead) tells the story of an ongoing project creating a database of over 3,800 women held in Grangegorman, from across the country, from 1840 to 1852 with some of the findings. The site of TU Dublin University, Grangegorman campus has a many layered histories. The period from 1836 saw Grangegorman established as the city gaol for women offenders and a depot for holding female convicts awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania.

Joan Kavanagh completed her PhD in 2024 on Irish convicts sentenced to transportation between 1840 and 1852 in a three county study of convicts from Armagh, Kilkenny and Wicklow. Joan is a former teacher, who joined Wicklow County Council in 1987 to set up the Wicklow Family History Project and carried out research for the restoration project of Wicklow Gaol as a visitor interpretative centre. She took early retirement in 2013. She has
written and edited several local Wicklow histories. Together with Dr Dianne Snowden, Joan has published a book Van Diemen’s Women: A History of Transportation to Tasmania, published in 2015. They are currently working on a project creating a database of over 3,800 female convicts who were held in the Female Convict Depot at Grangegorman as part of the Grangegorman Histories Project.