Workhouses

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Workhouses

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Workhouses

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Workhouses

16 Archival description results for Workhouses

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1872-1876.

  • IE OCL P131/2/2/1/2
  • File
  • 2 January 1872- December 1876
  • Part of Loughton Papers

Letters sent to and sent from Henry Trench, Cangort Park, Roscrea, Tipperary between 1872 and 1876. The letters within this file deal with personal, community and financial issues.

Examples of personal letters include a letter dated 14 August 1873 which arranges for turf to be sent to Loughton for turf Lord Bloomfield's visit; a letter dated 5 July 1873 from Mr. Taylor regarding Mrs. Francis Hastings Toone's will and a letter from John Harden dated 5 August 1873 in regards to staying at Cangort.

Community issues are also present throughout the letters within the file. Examples of such letters include a letter from J.W Waller, Belfield, Shinrone, King's County in which he writes about Shannon drainage; a letter from Mr Bard, Shinrone regarding admitting Mrs St Ledger to the poorhouse and a five copies of a letter from 1875 from Henry Trench, Cangort Park, Roscrea to W.R. Le Fanu, Commissioner of public work regarding the river Shannon and a memorandum from Henry Trench to W. Harden.

The file also deals with financial issues. Examples include a 1876 a letter from the Grattan monument committee stating that Henry did not pay his subscription and a letter dated 4 January 1876 from Theo Ryan, 7 Leeson Park, Dublin asking for rent

Application and Report Book (Outdoor Relief)

Application and report book for the relieving officer to enter applications for relief. This book records approximately 500 applications and contains details on the applicant's circumstances and subsequently the decision of the Board of Guardians to grant outdoor relief or to admit the applicant to the workhouse.

Also contains the first record of boarded-out children from Tullamore Union under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1862.

Notes on Parsonstown Union Workhouse 1842-1889

Notes copied by 'H.D.' on 14 December 1891 'from particulars made out from old Minute Books for Mr. John Wright for his Directory and history of King's County in November 1889". Lists holders of the following positions in the workhouse for the 50 years between the opening of the workhouse in 1842 and when the notes were compiled in 1889: chairmen; clerks of the union; masters of the workhouse; Protestant chaplains of the workhouse; Roman Catholic chaplains of the workhouse; the first inmate admitted; financial arrangements; furniture suppliers; meeting houses; and medical officers of the workhouse.

Parsonstown (Birr) Poor Law Union

Parsonstown Union Outgoing Letter-book

  • IE OH OHS71
  • Item
  • 1849-1853

Copies of outgoing letters from John V. Brown, clerk of Parsonstown Union to various recipients, particularly the Poor Law Commissioners, detailing reliefs and works. Also includes copy outgoing correspondence relating to assisted emigration schemes for inmates of the Parsonstown workhouse during the course of the Great Famine.

Parsonstown (Birr) Poor Law Union

Records of Edenderry Union

  • IE OCL BG85
  • Fonds
  • 1879 - 1919

Only 10 minute books survive as records of Edenderry Union covering the years 1879-1919, with many large gaps. There are no extant workhouse registers, registers of deaths, workhouse ledgers, outdoor relief registers, or registers of accounts.

A further known minute book from 1895, which was rescued from the workhouse following its demolition in 1976 and is now in private hands, has been transcribed by Dr Ciaran Reilly in an article ‘The minute book of Edenderry Poor Law Union, 1895’ in Offaly Heritage, Vol. 7 (Tullamore, 2013)

The minutes contain the proceedings of the meetings of the boards of guardians and contain reports from the clerk of the union, the master of the workhouse, the sanitary officers and others.

Edenderry Union

Records of Offaly Board of Health and Public Assistance

  • IE OCL OBHPA
  • Fonds
  • (1912-21); 1924-42; (1943-65)

This is a large set of records which broadly reflects the evolution of local authority health and welfare provision in Offaly. It contains minutes of committees established to oversee public health and public assistance, as well as administrative records detailing the admission and discharge of individuals into the County Home or the County Hospital. While the bulk of the records derived from the County Board of Health, there are a few outlying records from 1912-21 relating to transitional periods in the health service, or where registers were taken over from the preceding health system and incorporated into the new Board of Health. Likewise some county home and county hospital administrative records, particularly admission and discharge registers and financial ledgers which were kept by record-creators in an unbroken series, post-date the County Board of Health's executive function which ceased in 1942.

RECORDS RELATING TO MOTHER AND BABY HOMES AND BOARDED-OUT CHILDREN:
The main series of records which record unmarried mothers and/or decisions relating to the boarding-out of children are to be found in the Public Assistance Minute Books (Series 3) and the Admissions and Discharge registers for the County Home (Series 5).

While Offaly did not have a designated ‘Mother and Baby Home,’ the records show that unmarried mothers were regularly admitted to the County Home to give birth until the late 1940s, many staying for a significant period of time in the home with their children. In some instances, both mother and child were transferred from the home after the birth to other institutions such as Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, or Manor Home, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath.

From the late 1940s, it appears that unmarried mothers were either admitted directly to institutions in other counties (these records are held by other bodies) or transferred from the County Home to mother and baby homes outside Offaly before or after giving birth (these instances, which are infrequent from the late 1940s are recorded in the county home registers in this collection). Children entered in the registers of the county home are recorded as having been born there, or have been transferred into the county home from another institution before being 'placed' or 'boarded-out' in Offaly. It is possible to trace children by surname, noting the limitations of the records in terms of completeness and the date span.

In general terms and from an overview of the records, the incidence of names of unmarried mothers and their children decreases significantly over time. This is most likely due to unmarried mothers from Offaly entering institutions outside the county before the birth of their children. By the 1950s, there are only sporadic instances of births to unmarried mothers and of 'boarded-out' children recorded in the county home registers. This particular record series ends in 1957.

Offaly County Council

Records of Parsonstown Union

  • IE OCL BG164
  • Fonds
  • 1839 - 1931

97 Minute Books

55 Rough Minute Books

1 Repayment of Relief Book

1 Rent Book

1 Document relating to the King's County Directory

1 Lease

3 Workhouse Registers

2 Financial Minute Books

1 Dispensary District Ledger

Parsonstown (Birr) Poor Law Union

Records of Tullamore Union

  • IE OCL BG158
  • Fonds
  • 1839 - 1921

Minute books, accounts ledgers, reports, and ancillary material relating to the creation, administration, and eventual dissolution of Tullamore Union from its establishment in 1839 to the closure of Tullamore Workhouse in August 1921. The main set of records are the minute books of the boards of guardians, comprising 112 volumes from an original set of 128 volumes. Other material is financial in nature, such as the treasurer’s account books and rates returns. No workhouse admission and discharge registers survive, but an important volume entitled Application and Report Book from 1862/1863, provides details of the relief applications for approximately 500 applicants. Other workhouse material is in the form of provisions registers and daybooks, as well as an architectural drawing of alterations to the Infirmary at the workhouse. As the Board of Guardians also oversaw the dispensary districts in the union, there is a set of minute books relating to the five dispensary districts with accompanying district notices in poster form.

Tullamore Union

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