Clifden Poor Law Union archive collection, Descriptive List, GPL3.pdf

Clifden Poor Law Union
CLIFDEN POOR LAW UNION – BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Much of the detail that follows is extracted from the minutes of the Guardians‟ meetings. The
detail is not intended to be a full history of the Union, rather it is a simple and very condensed
account of it during the period 1849 – 1921, the period for which Board of Guardian minutes
survive.
Where possible, so as to ease family research, any inmate‟s name found in the minutes has
been included in the descriptive list.
Clifden Poor Law Union was established in August 1840 and covered an area of 296 square
miles. Its workhouse was located on a four-acre site at the south side of the Galway Road.
The land for the workhouse was acquired by the Poor Law Commissioners (PLC) under a
500 year lease dated 23 rd January 1842 from H D'Arcy. It cost £3,600 to build and £900 for
fittings. Its original capacity was for 300 inmates 6 . Although the workhouse was ready for
admission in 1845 it did not receive its first inmates until March 1847.
The surviving minutes, which commence in 1849, show that the highest number of inmates in
the workhouse was during the period January to March 1850 when there were just less than
2,000 in the house. By 1858 the number had dropped to around 100, and generally
fluctuated, depending on periods of distress, between 80 and 150 from then on. The official
capacity of the workhouse in 1897 was 822, though at that time there were only about 130
inmates in the workhouse.
Image of the Clifden Workhouse which appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1850
6
J. O‟Connor, The Workhouses of Ireland: The Fate of Ireland’s Poor, (Dublin 1995) Anvil Books
Cartlann Chomhairle Contae na Gaillimhe „…cuimhne dhoiciméadach Chontae na Gaillimhe a shealbhú, a chaomhnú agus a dhéanamh inrochtana’
Galway County Council - Archives „…to acquire, preserve and make accessible the documentary memory of county Galway’
viii.