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Department of Lands and Survey in Melboume to purchase the land.^' Like many of
his compatriots, who had sought security in land ownership, he was attracted by the
cheaper land prices of the area. According to the Lands Department, however, his
new land was not of good quality, described, as 'poor soil, scmbby'.^* The Italian
speakers, with their alpine farming skiUs, were not deterred by the infertile soils and
settled the area m large numbers.
The next available documentation of Gaetano's life occurs with his marriage
certificate, dated 10 April 1866, and registered at St Peter's Catholic Church in
Daylesford. The bride Kate Clooney was Irish and, at 25 years of age, ten years
Graetano's junior. If Kate was typical of the Irish immigrants who had come to
Australia during the gold msh, she was sympathetic towards the Italian speakers, not
only because of the common religion but also having come from a similar situation of
poverty and hunger. During the 1840s, as is well known, Ireland had lost half its
potato crop due to disease. The starvation which followed wiped out enormous
numbers of its population and, among the survivors, were many emigrants who left
their homeland for AustraUa. Between 1841 and 1850 around 23,000 Irish were
shipped to the Australian colonies,^' many of whom were orphaned girls or single
women escaping overcrowded workhouses or the risk of turning to prostitution. On
arrival in AustraUa, they were housed in immigration depots and then sent to pre­
arranged jobs or out to seek work. Kate, the daughter of a Kilkenny carpenter,
appears to have arrived in Australia on 21 Febmary 1855 aboard the Marchioness of
Salisbury, which docked at Geelong.'^" Foreshadowing the closely-knit future lives of
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