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

Clifden Poor Law Union
to sanction the appointment, based possibly on his young age (see for instance GPL3/36,
p128). However, by 2 nd December 1874 a new master, Coney, was appointed.
Later again, throughout 1895 and 1896, much of the Board‟s attention was taken up with the
election of a new Master for the workhouse, following the death of Patrick Higgins. The
Board appointed Mr P. Cloonan, but his election was disputed, and was further complicated
when a query regarding his age arose. The age requirement was that candidates be
between 30 and 50 years of age. Cloonan was apparently 50, yet after several elections he
was accepted as Master, but only remained in the position a short time, as he resigned in
April 1897.
In 1903 the Board abolished the position of School Mistress, arranging instead for any
children remaining in the Workhouse to be boarded out or transferred to other institutions,
such as Letterfrack Industrial School (GPL3/89, p143 & p317).
In 1904 an outbreak of typhus resulted in the death of Dr Coney, MO for the Roundstone
district (3 Feb 1904, GPL3/89).
Religion
In the 1850s and 1860s there were sporadic references to the religion of the inmates and in
some instances complaints from the Catholic or Protestant Chaplains regarding the religious
denomination under which some inmates might have been registered. In September 1865
there was discussion about the registered religion of one boy, Pat Conneely, aged 8, the
‘…illegitimate child of Kate Davin’ who was born in the workhouse and baptized a Roman
Catholic and so ‘…he continued to be registered from time to time until the death of his
mother. His religious denomination was changed by the Master owing to his being brought to
the workhouse by one of the agents of the Irish Church Missions 12 , whose school he had
been attending for some weeks’ (GPL3/33, f145).
In April 1867 the Protestant Chaplin, Charles Campbell, prompted by an instance of
„....tampering with Protestants committed to your Guardianship’, issued a long letter of
12 The Society for the Irish Church Missions (ICM) (1849-69) was founded in March 1849, largely through the work of an English
clergyman, the Reverend Alexander Dallas, (1791-1869) Vicar of the parish of Wonston, Hampshire. The particular focus of his
concern was the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, as he became increasingly convinced of the need to bring the Gospel to Irish
Roman Catholics. With the support of an evangelical landlord and member of the Board of Guardians, Hyacinth D‟Arcy of Clifden,
Co. Galway, missionary schools began to spread in the west of Ireland. One controversial aspect of ICM‟s Gospel activity was its
timing: ICM‟s earliest missionary work coincided with the Great Famine . The charge of „souperism‟ – offering soup to starving
peasants in exchange for conversion – was strenuously refuted by ICM.
In Connemara, there were forty-six centres of activity by 1860 and mission stations were strategically placed throughout the
Galway area. Much of the success of the work was due to the tireless work of Hyacinth D‟Arcy and the support of the Bishop of
Tuam. However, the large numbers of initial converts began to slow down by the time of the census of 1861. The explanation of
ICM to their critics was that this was due to the large scale emigration that affected the west of Ireland, the young people who left
for employment in England and in the British armed forces, and the increasing bitter and violent opposition that many converts
faced from their families, which often forced them to leave their own communities. Even so, in one area of Connemara, where in
1834 the registered number of Protestants didn‟t even reach 100, the census of 1861 showed that about 2,000 people voluntarily
registered themselves as Protestants.
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’
xxi.