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The hardship experienced by Irish convict women and children transported to Tasmania in the early 1800s has been memorialised in new sculptures unveiled by the Irish President in Hobart.
The Footsteps Towards Freedom project was inspired by the experiences of convict women and children who made the journey to Van Diemen's Land and were imprisoned at Hobart's historic Cascades Female Factory site.
From 1803 to 1853, almost 13,000 convict women together with 2,000 children arrived.
Three women and two children have now been immortalised in bronze sculptures on Hobart's Macquarie Wharf — the arrival point for the convicts.
Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie modelled the figures on the living descendants of convict women and children.
He used photographs and 3-D scans to help craft the likeness of Tasmanian models in his purpose-built foundry in Dublin.
"It kind of seemed a bit wrong to sculpt just any old face onto these girls," he said.
He worked in isolation for weeks on end.
"It sounds sort of stupid but I talk to the sculptures, I live with them and I have this thing that I really believe that I know them as the process happens, so you get very emotional," he said.
"Nobody else has touched them, and today I've sort of got to cut the umbilical cord between me and them.
"They've never sort of been without me — they're my babies."
The four sculptures have now been installed on Hobart's historic Macquarie Wharf — the arrival point for many women and children who came to Van Diemen's Land.
Each tells a different story of the hardship of life for women and children in the penal colony.
The first is of a young woman accused of stealing cattle, the second of an Irish famine victim, the third a housemaid who fell pregnant and the fourth a young boy separated from his mother.
In his speech to a crowd of about 1,000 people, Irish President Michael Higgins said the women were to be admired.
"The crimes for which they were transported were often petty crimes, it would seem now — the theft of food or a few coins, a watch or shawl stolen to try to sustain a starving family — desperate acts of destitute individuals," he said.
Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner reflected on how the women disembarked on the very site where she was standing and walked up Macquarie Street to the Female Factory — their first footsteps towards freedom.
"While their lives were often wretched, they were also in many respects the founding mothers of today's Tasmania," she said.
Some of the descendants the sculptures were modelled on attended the unveiling.
One was 21-year-old, Indiarna Klye, who learnt a lot about her ancestor Eliza Tapner during the process.
"She came here for stealing heifers and cows but she actually didn't commit the crime — she was covering for somebody else, so that's how she ended up to come here," Ms Kyle said.
"Learning about my relatives and what they've done to get here, it's been great — I've learnt so much."
The $300,000 dollar Footsteps Towards Freedom project was funded by donations, raised over the past five years.
Topics: sculpture, visual-art, arts-and-entertainment, history, community-and-society, hobart-7000, tas