Irish Settlers in South Australia is the story of two families: the O'Toole family from County Wicklow and the Hayes family from County Galway. The O'Tooles arrived in South Australia in 1840 and the Hayes family in 1849. In the first decades after their arrival they struggled as poor farmers on small 80-acre blocks of land in the districts north of Adelaide. When, in 1869, it became possible to buy land on credit, they joined the migration of settlers into the Mid North. From their origins as impoverished tenant farmers in Ireland, they became respectable landowners in South Australia.Using a diverse range of sources, the author documents her ancestors' hitherto untold story. The sheer sweep of their lives as they endured hardship and misfortune to create a better life for themselves and their descendants is a story worth telling. This book is more than a family history however, for the story of the Hayes and O'Toole families is part of the larger history of South Australia in the nineteenth century.