Joe Byrne was born in 1856 in Woolshed, on the Reedy Creek flat 10km NW of Beechworth, Victoria. His father Patrick Byrne came from Carlow, Ireland (1831 Carlow Ireland- Nov 1870 Beechworth). He is buried at Benalla, Victoria. Joe's mother Margaret (née White) was born at Scariff, County Clare, Ireland. She was one of the "Irish Famine Girls" who immigrated to Sydney, Port Phillip and Adelaide from workhouses in every county of Ireland. These girls were given free passages to Australia due to poverty, death of their parents, or widowed parent unable to care for them during the Great Irish Famine. All, including Margaret, ended up in workhouses from where they were chosen to come to Australia via the Irish Famine Scheme between 1848 and 1850. Australia welcomed over 4,000 Irish 'orphan' girls during this period. Aged between 14 and 18, they were given the opportunity to make a new life in Australia. The Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, operated as a depot where the girls were first accommodated, is home to the Irish Famine Memorial. Margaret White was the daughter of Denis White and Margaret Ryan who were both from Scariff, County Clare (only Margaret's father was listed as living in Scariff at the time of Margaret's departure to Australia). She came with many other young women on the ship 'Thomas Arbuthnot'. The ship's surgeon, Charles Strutt was a kind and compassionate man and accompanied over 100 of these young women on a journey south to Yass and Gundagai where they found work in suitable families. Margaret was indentured a servant girl most of these girls were for an Irishman, Nathaniel Stephen Powell, who was a grazier and the local magistrate for at Bungendore NSW, near modern-day Canberra.