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

Clifden Poor Law Union
complaint asking „…if it is fair to the Protestant ratepayers who entrust you with the
Guardianship of their poorer co-religionist, that a little boy so firmly opposed to what they
believe to be the destroying errors of the Church of Rome in Ireland should have been
publicly received into that church while under your care.
He constantly complaining of ill treatment from the other boys and feared to keep the Bible
you provided for his use; to escape this I believe he has been induced to ask for the change
which I humbly submit you could not legally allow.
Much better would it be to protect the Protestant inmates from insult and from being
tampered with….’ (GPL3/35, ff225-226, see also ff236-236).
Water, Drainage and Sewers
From the mid 1870s the Board issued progressively more resolutions relating to the provision
of water, drainage and sewers. In particular the provision of a waterworks scheme for the
town of Clifden pre-occupied the Board for nearly twenty years, with delay after delay
encountered.
In 1876 for instance a Notice of Motion proposed „…that Mr Humpreys, County Surveyor, be
requested to make a survey with plan, specification and estimate for supplying the Town of
Clifden with pure water from a level sufficient to command with sufficient pressure the
highest portions of the Town and which survey, plan, specification and estimate shall include
suitable cast iron main supply pipe for the principle main streets and four [piece] fountains
for the poor residents and that Mr Humpreys to get a fee of ten guineas for same’ (GPL3/48,
ff236).
Due to a missing volume there is a gap in the minutes between January 1877 and May 1878.
However, the issue is again mentioned in the minutes in June 1878, with the Clerk advising
the Guardians that „…it appears that the Clifden people are not at present inclined to charge
themselves with this amount’ (GPL3/50, p28). However, by December 1879 there must have
been a change of mind as the Board received a memorial from the inhabitants of Clifden
„…relative to a supply of pure water for the Town’. The Board requested the LGB to approve
of the ‘…carrying out of the said works under the Sanitary Acts and enable the Board of
Guardians to avail themselves of the facilities now offered by the Board of Works for that
purpose (The area to be Clifden Electoral Division)‟ (GPL3/51, pp389-390). The Board
proposed to raise a loan of £1,000 for the provision of a water supply to Clifden town. By
April 1880 the works had not commenced, when the Guardians advised the LGB that the
‘...plans have been returned to the Engineer for revision and the Clerk has been instructed to
request he will return them as soon as possible so that advertisements may be made for
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’
xxii.