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Volume containing pre-printed questionnaire for manual answers to be entered at each inspection of the Visiting Committee to the Birr workhouse. The questionnaire comprises 16 questions on the condition of both the workhouse premises and the residents of the institution. The Visiting Committee answers either Yes or No to each question and there is space for observations, comments and sign-off by the clerk of the union and the chairperson of the board of guardians. Inspections begin as monthly occurrences in 1896 but are sporadic in frequency by 1920. Following the closure of the Birr workhouse in August 1921, during the 'Amalgamation' of the workhouses in the county, the newly constituted Board of Health opened the County Home in Tullamore workhouse. In 1938, a new visiting committee was formed and Mary K. Dunne, a member of the Visiting Committee in the 1920s, and her colleague, A. F. E. McMichael, seem to have repurposed this volume to record the inspection visits to the county home (in Tullamore). Rather than answer the pre-printed questionnaire template, written reports have been attached to the page, or the observations space is used to write a report, and it is stamped and signed by the Board of Health. The use of this re-purposed volume by the Board of Health lasted until December 1939.

Includes some loose correspondence from the Local Government Board (1905; 1911)

4 Minute Books -
PTC40/1/1: July 1865 - June 1875 (note: includes Burial Board affairs).
PTC40/1/2: October 1883 - February 1890
PTC40/1/3: March 1890 - February 1897
PTC40/1/4: April 1897 - August 1899 and August 1899 - June 1903 (note: abstract only. Manuscript volume in private hands and loaned for abstracting purposes in 1989).

Parsonstown Burial Board
1 Minute Book -
PTC40/2: 7 June 1869 - 6 March 1871 and 7 April 1873 - 4 October 1897 (1 volume, including abstract).

1 Drawing -
PTC40/3: 11 June 1855, drawing designs for lowering Oxmantown Bridge, drawn by John Hill, Tullamore.

1 Accounts Book -
PTC40/4: 1879 - 1925

1 Pamphlet
PTC40/5: Bye Laws of the Town of Parsonstown made under the Public Health (Ireland) Act (1884)

Minutes recording proceedings of meetings of the Hospital and Homes Committee containing various reports such as Superintendent's Report from the County Home; Superintendent's Report from County Hospital; and Sub-committee reports from Birr Rural District, Edenderry Rural District, Tullamore Rural District, and Roscrea No 2 Rural District on matters relating to dispensaries and hospitals in their respective areas. Also contains lists of 'Letters and Sanctions' from the Ministry of Local Government.

Issues covered by the various reports are concerned with the appointment and salaries of employees; the arrest and detention of members of the committee during the Civil War (see p5, 10 April 1923); building works at dispensaries and hospitals; compensation and pension claims arising from the winding-up of the poor law unions; matters arising with the TB hospital in Birr; commandeering of Dr Woods house at Kinnitty Dispensary by the military (p 43, 8 May 1923); tenders for the supply of provisions to the county home; details of patients at the hospital; proposal from Ministry of Local Government relating to the abolition of Hospital and Homes Committee and Substitution of the County Board of Health therefor under the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923 (p59, 17 May 1923); remaining furniture from Birr Union being taken to Birr Castle on its requisition by Free State Army (pp62-63, 17 May 1923); the condition of Birr workhouse following evacuation by Free State Army (p 64, 2 June 1923); financial issues arising from failure to return 'inmates' in county homes to their counties of origin on amalgamation in 1921; and a proposal by the Ministry of Local Government relating to the appointments of Home Assistance Officers.

Includes report by the Visiting Committee (James O'Connor, J. Scally and Teresa Wyer) on condition of county home (p71, 10 July 1923) and remarks on unfulfilled recommendations from the previous year's report. Also includes extracts from the report of Dr Florence Dillon, medical inspector with the Department of Local Government on the condition of the hospitals at Tullamore, Birr and Edenderry, recommending the closure of the latter (p76, 22 June 1923) .

Contains lists of boarded out children, their foster parents and details of their accommodation, general health and condition in a report of the inspector of boarded out children. (p.87, 10 July 1923)

Bound volume containing book stamp of the Grand Jury Secretary's Office, Parsonstown (Birr), containing an abstract of presentments granted and queries respited and discharged at the Summer Assizes, 1893. Thomas Mitchell of Birr is listed as the grand jury's secretary.

Research on the Townpark House, Brendan Street - Market Square, Co. Offaly (Parish of Birr, Barony of Ballybritt). County Inventory Registration: 941.
Contains field sheet and 10 photographs.

Book of transference certificates from the Presbyterian Church, Birr, with 33 receipt stubs listing members of the Birr congregation that have transferred to other congregations in Dublin, Belfast, and other areas. The certificates record the following information: 'The Presbyterian Church in Ireland Transference Certificate. It is hereby certified that X who leaves the congregation of X at this date is a member in the full communion of the church.' Receipt stubs record the destination congregation of transferring member.

Collection of photographs relating to Birr Barracks and the Leinster Regiment, many of which are reproductions of original photographs by William Lawrence and others. Contains an original group portrait King's County Rifles, Birr (1872), and several images of the Barrack Square. Also contains the only known image of the interior of the barracks, 'The Coffee Bar, Leinster Depot.'