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

GPL3/ Clifden Poor Law Union
56. 6 September 1882 – 25 April 1883 (Pages 423-446 missing) Includes:
- „Pursuant to the Notice of Motion handed in by me I have to request the Clerk to lay before
this Board the Law relating to the qualification for Guardian, and to ask him if he is aware
on what grounds said qualification was raised from £10 to £30 and I beg to move that as
this is one of the poorest Unions in Ireland and that so few are qualified and willing to act in
the capacity of Guardian. We hereby respectfully request the LGB to reduce forever
hereafter the necessary qualification for that office in this Union to what it originally was
namely a valuation of £10‟ (p70, see also p109 & 112).
- „Whereas in this Union there are only 90 men qualified to act as Guardians and of this
number 6 are Protestant and 1 Catholic resident landlords and of the others 7 in Holy
Orders, 1 Resident Magistrate, 1 Dispensary M.D., and 1 Clerk of Union and the Board at
present constituted consists of 19 ex-officos of whom only 2 are Catholics and the
remainder consists of men elected but some of those elected Guardians never attend a
meeting of the Board but they are elected because there are not a sufficient number to be
found qualified and willing to act, and at this moment there is one Division unrepresented in
consequent of the Member elected he not being found to possess the £30 qualification
after being returned.
Be it resolved - that as there are not a sufficient number of men for rate payers to select
from that the LGB be and are hereby respectfully requested to reduce the qualification to
what it originally stood at namely £10‟ (pp169-170, see also p208).
- „Resolved: That the Board of Guardians of this Union decline to become contributor to the
National School Teachers Act‟ (p229).
- „Resolved: That the LGB be requested to ask Mr Tuke‟s 109 committee to add the following
Electoral Divisions of this Union for assisted emigration inasmuch as they are over
populated and a great number of the people are very poor etc:
Ballinakill, Bencor, Cleggan, Clifden, Cushkillen, Derrycuala, Derrylea, Doonloughan, Illion,
Moyrus and Roundstone‟ (p230).
- „Resolved: That the Clerk be requested to Summon a full meeting of the Board for this day
fortnight with a view of asking the LGB to use their influence with the Government to
commence at once either a Tramway or Railway between Galway and Clifden which would
give sufficient employment to all able-bodied people in three Unions and is sure to be
remunerative‟ (p231).
- „It having come to our knowledge the Relieving Officers of the Union are in the habit of
absenting themselves from their districts going in charge of emigrants to Galway which will
cause them at least to be three days absent in the week and this having occurred on
several occasions which must have caused the wants of the destitute poor to be greatly
neglected in their trying season and further as we were recently obliged to appoint a
temporary assistant Relieving Officer.
Resolved that we now direct that all the Relieving Officers in the Union discontinue from
this day forth leaving their districts without Board‟s permission‟ (p449).
109
Mr Tuke‟s fund was established in March 1882 to assist emigration from the Unions of Clifden, Oughterard and the Aran Islands
in Co. Galway, and Belmullet, Newport & Swinford in Co. Mayo to America. 9,482 people were assisted by this fund up to 1885. A
book Mr. Tuke‟s Fund for Assisted Emigration 1882-5 gives a full list of emigrants‟ names and the townlands they came from.
There is a vast amount of information including an analysis of what happened to their small-holdings in Ireland after they left and
letters home from the emigrants on arrival.
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’
27.