Their descendants include people as diverse as Steele Rudd of On Our Selection fame and NSW Treasurer Mike Baird.
And every year Sydney remembers them - the more than 4000 Irish orphan girls who made Australia their home after the Great Irish Famine of the mid-19th century.
And on Sunday Sydney will for the first time host the international commemoration of devastating famine that sent them to Australia.
The disaster, which claimed the lives of more than one million people in the 1840s, was sparked by a potato blight which impacted on the lives of the one-third of the population dependent on the starchy tuber for food.
It also forced more than another million people to emigrate to England, the US and Australia. Among those who came here were 4114 girls, orphaned in the famine, who had been subsisting in workhouses throughout Ireland.
The scheme to bring these desperate young women to Australia was devised by then British Home Secretary Earl Grey. As well as a lifeline to the girls, it also provided domestic labour - and the prospect of marriage to the young men of the colony
A memorial at Sydney Hyde Park Barracks (where the girls were housed on arrival to the colony) was opened by Governor-General Sir William Deane in August 1999, and every year since descendants have joined hundreds of others in remembering the famine and its victims, including the Irish Orphan Girls.
There have been four international commemorations of the Great Irish Famine to date. Previous overseas events have taken place in Canada (2009), New York (2010), Liverpool (2011) and Boston (2012).
The National Famine Commemoration Committee in Dublin, chaired by Arts and Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan selected Sydney as the venue for the 2013 celebration.
The chair of the Great Irish Famine Commemoration Committee in Sydney, Dr Perry McIntyre said the contribution these girls made to Australia is inestimable.
"These women are remembered as famine survivors and are the refugees of mid-nineteenth century Ireland," Dr McIntyre said.
"We remember them as well as those who did not survive. And as a way to keep the memory alive we also have three outreach programs to assist modern-day refugees to Australia."
As well as the commemoration ceremony on Sunday, a dinner at Parliament House on Friday and a seminar on the Saturday will mark the occasion.
