Edenderry Union

Identity area

Type of entity

Corporate body

Authorized form of name

Edenderry Union

Parallel form(s) of name

Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

Other form(s) of name

Identifiers for corporate bodies

Description area

Dates of existence

1839 - 1925

History

Edenderry’s Poor Law Union was formed on the 7th of May in 1839. The Union was controlled by twenty-two elected Board of Guardians, as well as seven ex-officio Guardians, who all met weekly. It covered an area of 172,410 acres, representing electoral divisions from three different counties: from Offaly (King’s) – Ballaghassan, Ballyburly, Ballymacwilliam, Bracknagh, Clonbullogue, Clonmore, Clonsast, Croghan, Edenderry, Esker, Knockdrin and Monasteroris. From County Kildare – Ballynadrummy, Cadamstown, Carbury, Carrick, Cloncurry, Drehid, Dunfierth, Killinthomas, Kilpatrick, Kilrainy, Lullymore, Rathangan, Thomastown and Windmill Cross. From County Meath – Ardnamullen, Ballyboggan, Castlejordan, and the Hill of Down.

Edenderry workhouse, designed to accommodate 600 people, was completed in 1841 and took in its first residents in 1842. While the workhouse closed in 1921, the administrative structures of Edenderry Union were abolished in 1925, with the Board of Guardians powers being formally transferred to the county council’s Board of Health. The workhouse building itself had various uses in the following decades before being levelled in 1976 to make way for a home for the aged ‘Ofalia House’.

Places

Legal status

Functions, occupations and activities

Poor Law Unions were responsible for the provision and management of local workhouses, as well as duties relating to dispensaries, sewers, prevention of diseases, burial grounds, registration of births, marriages and deaths, and public health.

Mandates/sources of authority

Poor Relief (Ireland) Act, 1838

Internal structures/genealogy

General context

Relationships area

Related entity

Edenderry Poor Law Union Industrial and Agricultural Society

Identifier of related entity

Category of relationship

associative

Dates of relationship

Description of relationship

Access points area

Subject access points

Place access points

Occupations

Control area

Authority record identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

August 2019, Erin Sears

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Maintenance notes

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