We explore the origins and development of the Clonakilty workhouse and especially its designated cemetery (An Páircín a’ Chongair), the latter continuing in use up to the 1980s.
The burial of those who died in Ireland’s workhouses was the responsibility of the Poor Law Unions and this was undertaken at their expense. Separated in life from their families and communities, the workhouse inmates were also separate in death. Oftentimes they were buried anonymously in designated workhouse cemeteries, albeit in consecrated ground, forever to be isolated from “decent” society.
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“An Páiricín”
The cemetery for Clonakilty Poor Law Union is located in the townland of Gallanes, about 400m northeast of the workhouse. Today the cemetery is hidden from view behind the Shannon Vale Foods plant, with access via a laneway off the N71.
From early on in its history, the cemetery was known as the “Paupers’ Graveyard”. But it was also known more affectionately by locals as “An Páircín a’ Chóngair” (meaning the little field of the shortcut) and shortened in more recent times simply to the “Páiricín” (little field).
The origins of Clonakilty’s workhouse
The Irish Poor Relief Act came into effect in 1838 and consequently, Ireland was divided into 130 Poor Law Unions. A workhouse was built in each union. During this period, the term “pauper” was applied to a recipient of Poor Law relief, while they were often known as “inmates” when resident in a workhouse. The day-to-day management of each union and workhouse was the responsibility of a board of guardians, which included ex officio magistrates and other members elected by ratepayers. The boards were answerable to the government-appointed Poor Law Commissioners in Dublin.
Initially, 11 Poor Law Unions were established in Co. Cork: Bandon, Bantry, Cork city, Dunmanway, Fermoy, Kanturk, Kinsale, Macroom, Mallow, Midleton and Skibbereen. By 1847 their workhouses were bursting at the seams. In January of that year, Bandon workhouse, designed for 900 inmates, housed 1,205, with 187 in hospital, 50 of whom had fever. The numbers were to soar further, with the weekly average number of workhouse inmates nationwide in 1851 standing in excess of 217,000 – more than two and a half times the average weekly figure of 83,283 for 1847.
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Between 1848 and 1850, six new Poor Law Unions were established in Cork: Castletownbere, Clonakilty, Millstreet, Mitchelstown, Skull (now Schull) and Youghal. Parts of the earlier-established unions of Bandon, Skibbereen and Dunmanway were subsumed into the newly formed Clonakilty Poor Law Union.
It is not surprising that Clonakilty was chosen due to the extreme hardship experienced locally during this period. The total population of the region forming the Clonakilty Union in 1841 was 52,178 while a decade later, it had reduced to 31,417. This is a staggering drop of almost 40%, much larger than the average decrease in Co. Cork of 24%. By May 1852, Clonakilty town alone had 156 vacant houses, Courtmacsherry had 19, Timoleague had 14 and Rosscarbery had 8. The figures reveal a horrific tale of death and displacement in the Clonakilty area.
A new workhouse to accommodate 700 inmates was built on a 7-acre site in the townland of Scartagh at the eastern end of Clonakilty town. It opened in December 1851.
Life in Clonakilty workhouse
On entry to Clonakilty workhouse, the paupers were divided into groups based on gender and age. Adult males, adult females, girls and boys were all segregated, with the exception of infants under the age of two who stayed with their mothers.
Unfortunately, it appears that no register of inmates has survived for the workhouse. While statistics regarding the inmates abound in the minutes of the meetings of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians, few paupers are referred to by name and when they are it is often because of the board’s refusal to grant them entry to the workhouse or some other form of relief.
The economizing of the Clonakilty guardians was soon infamous, with “Clonakilty Guardians of the Poor” being declared as “the greatest misnomer ever uttered”. Many were very much focused on reducing the costs of running the workhouse, thereby keeping the rates paid by the ratepayers as low as possible. This had terrible repercussions for the inmates.
For example, a report by the master of the workhouse on 4 June 1852 states that “Mary Carthy, a Pauper, will be employed by Dr O’Shea of Clonakilty if allowed to take the Union Clothes” and “Fanny Cole another Pauper … has had a promise of having her expenses to America defrayed and requests to be allowed take the Union Clothes” but both requests were met with a stark refusal by the board.
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The miserly economizing of the Clonakilty board is also reflected in the inmates’ dietary regime. A very basic diet of two meals a day was given to adult inmates, with children under 15 getting a third meal of 4oz of bread for supper. For example, a dietary sheet (pictured below) dated 5 February 1852 shows able-bodied men receiving 8oz of porridge for breakfast and for dinner 14oz of bread, 2 pints of soup and 3oz of oatmeal. Reduced quantities were given to able-bodied women, the old, infirm and children aged over two years, while infants were given 1½ pints of milk and 8oz of bread daily.
Early in 1852, the breakfast porridge (“stirabout”) was made with equal quantities of oatmeal, rice and Indian meal. Soon oats were eliminated “in consequence of the high price of Oat Meal”, and the removal of rice followed this.
Elected Guardian John Callanan strongly criticized this decision. He wrote that the breakfast porridge consisting of only Indian meal was denounced “as a heartfelt grievance” by the inmates and declared that “those who have not been sickened in stomach have been made sick in heart and are sorely discontented at this recent treatment”. The previous diet was considered by them merely as satisfying “the cravings of hunger and what seemed an expedient to keep up the system in a torpid condition neither alive nor dead”.
Callanan added that the dinner of bread and “a porridge wash which is made savoury by a few calves heads when calves come in season”, while it might help the inmate “to swallow the brown cut must eventually disarrange and disorder their stomach”.
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As the Cork Examiner saw it: if only for “mere prudence”, if not for the “duties and impulses of humanity”, it would serve the guardians and ratepayers better to keep the inmates in a healthy condition, where they could eventually “merge in the industry of the country” rather than making them “a perpetual dead weight on the public”.
No able-bodied workhouse inmate was allowed to be idle. Men were assigned tasks such as stone-breaking and labouring work on the lands attached to the workhouse. They also worked on filling in the quarries nearby, thus facilitating a reduction of £10 on the amount owed to the building contractor who constructed the workhouse. Stone-breaking hammers, used by the inmates, can be viewed in the West Cork Regional Museum in Clonakilty.
>>> READ MORE: Deasy & Co: Clonakilty’s brewing history
Women undertook household duties, including laundry, mending clothes, childminding and attending to the sick, as well as outdoor manual labour. Children in the workhouse attended school. Boys were given training in agricultural pursuits and some crafts, such as shoemaking, while girls were trained in weaving, baking and laundry, as well as some agricultural training.
There was also a workhouse hospital. A report by Dr Sanders Ffolliott, the medical officer for the workhouse, on 23 January 1852 reads:
“Gentlemen – I beg leave to call your attention to the want of sufficient Hospital accommodation – in the first place there are no Fever Wards there being at present 7 fever cases in Hospital – There is no means of supplying Hot Water for Hospital use and a very inadequate supply of Cold Water – The Tea as at present made is unfit for the Patients it is made in an open Tub in the House and thus brought to the Hospital – A great number of the Boys are without the Union clothing still wearing their own filthy rags, without any covering for their feet which are swollen and ulcerated from cold.
The supply of milk is irregular and inadequate, the house Bread is not of a good quality – The soup for dinner is made without Vegetables of any kind.”
By April 1852, Dr Ffolliott was still dissatisfied with the conditions stating that there were 84 patients in the crowded infirmary, which could accommodate only 64. Eventually, extensions were built at both ends of the existing workhouse hospital to accommodate male and female fever patients suffering from infectious diseases. These were up and running by October 1853.
The number of inmates in Clonakilty workhouse declined steadily in the early years after its opening: from a maximum of 659 inmates in 1852 to about half that in 1855, with a maximum of 315. But the situation of the unfortunate inmates did not vastly improve.
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While Clonakilty workhouse offered food and shelter to the destitute poor, it was a dreaded institution with harsh prison-like rules and regulations. The Cork Examiner described the extreme economizing practised by the Clonakilty Board of Guardians as “cruel to the pauper, injurious to the ratepayer and destructive to the character of the guardians”. It’s no wonder then that “Clonakilty, God help us” became a commonly uttered phrase.
The origins of Clonakilty’s workhouse cemetery
In the early years of the workhouses, many of the institutions undertook burials within the boundary walls but in Clonakilty for over a year after the workhouse had opened, the deceased inmates were brought “to a very distant and overcrowded graveyard”. From the outset, however, the issue arose of the need to procure land for burial purposes near to the workhouse, which is undoubtedly an indication of the terrible conditions within the workhouse and almost certainly relates to the sheer number of inmates dying.
In the minutes of a meeting of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians on 16 January 1852 – just six weeks after the workhouse had opened – some of the guardians recommended that land be acquired for use as a burial ground, suggesting either the field to the southwest of the workhouse or “the Quarry and sloping field bounded by the Coach Road and Dr O Hea’s farm”. However, eventually, instead, part of a field in Gallanes townland was chosen: an acre in area and “well situated for access and yet not much in view of the Public”.
This field was occupied by Michael Driscoll and in the ownership of Richard A. Conner. Some of the guardians feared a difficulty with the title. They requested that the Poor Law Commissioners take the field under the summary powers of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act (1845) instead of by private agreement between Conner and the Board of Guardians.
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It is not known why the board was so worried that they would be faced with difficulty when purchasing the land. We know that Conner was twice unsuccessful in tendering for one of the relieving officer posts for Clonakilty Poor Law Union due to a vote undertaken by the Board of Guardians – losing firstly to Daniel Donovan and secondly to Timothy Heas. This could possibly be why the guardians foresaw a problem with buying the land from Conner.
Conner’s terms for the sale were for 20 years purchase at £1 an acre, which was deemed an overvalue by the board, but eventually, he accepted £20 in fee for the acre and the Poor Law Commissioners reluctantly set about purchasing the land under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, instructing their solicitors at the end of August 1852 to prepare the deeds of conveyance.
However, by early December, the board was getting impatient due to the continuing difficulty in bringing the deceased to the unnamed distant and overcrowded graveyard. They made a request to the Poor Law Commissioners “to hasten the completion of the purchase of the [new] cemetery”. The clerk of the union, John C. Spiller, reported that he had received possession of the land in late January 1853 and payment of £20 to Conner followed within a month.
The Board of Guardians agreed to pay half the cost of erecting a gate to the passage leading to the cemetery at the request of Michael Driscoll, who presumably still occupied adjoining lands. Although a fence was to be erected surrounding the whole site, only a small portion would be separately fenced in for use for burials.
The rest of the purchased land was probably used for farming purposes. In 1855 some of the guardians recommended that a cow be bought “for the purpose of instructing the girls [inmates] in milking and thus render them fit for farm servants” and it was considered that “the grass of the Cemetery together with the green crops raised on the Workhouse land will be more than adequate for her [the cow’s] maintenance”.
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Funerary and burial practices
There is no known surviving death or burial register for the individuals who died in Clonakilty workhouse, but the number of deaths was recorded every week. These statistics can be found in Cork City and County Archives.
From 1864 onwards, there was a legal requirement to register the death of every individual in Ireland, including every workhouse inmate, and the records of those who died in or after 1871 can be accessed online at www.irishgenealogy.ie. These records include the deceased’s name, marital status, occupation, age at death and details regarding their death. But of course, you need to know the inmate’s name to take full advantage when searching this resource. Clues about some deaths that occurred in the workhouse may also appear in contemporary newspapers, especially in the case of unusual deaths.
>>> READ MORE: Did your ancestor spend time in a workhouse?
Those who died in Ireland’s workhouses were denied the customs associated with Irish 19th-century funerals, in particular, the wake during which the life of the deceased was celebrated and the body was never left alone until burial. The corpses of some workhouse inmates ended up on the anatomists’ tables because, in 1832, the Anatomy Act provided that unclaimed corpses could be used for dissection by those working in the medical profession, while previously they were limited to the bodies of executed criminals.
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The cemetery in Clonakilty is a post-Famine burial site, with its first burials probably having taken place in 1853 when the purchase of the land in Gallanes was finalized. In this year, the records reveal that 53 people died in the workhouse, the number of deaths having decreased substantially from 1852 when 92 deaths occurred.
It can be assumed that the majority of those who died in 1853 were buried in the cemetery in Gallanes in unmarked graves isolated from their families and communities, along with countless others who died in the workhouse until its closure in 1924. It is also likely that more than one individual was interred in a single grave plot, with those sharing a plot probably having no familial ties with one another. In the early days, this cemetery probably lacked any feature that would have distinguished it from the surrounding countryside as a burial place.
>>> READ MORE: Tracing your roots online using old records of Irish gravestone memorials and “Mems Dead”
As well as workhouse inmates, Clonakilty Poor Law Union provided medical care to “paupers” outside the workhouse in dispensary houses in Clonakilty town and the villages of Timoleague and Rosscarbery. By the early 1850s, Clonakilty Fever Hospital (pictured below), which the Board of Works had built during the Famine, was no longer in use as a hospital. But in 1852, two rooms in the building were rented as a dispensary for the Clonakilty district and two years later the guardians purchased the building for £80 for use as a dispensary. Clonakilty Union, therefore, also became responsible for the burial of paupers who died outside the workhouse walls, including dispensary patients, specifically those who could not afford to pay for burial or who had no family locally to bury them.
No archaeological investigations have been undertaken in Clonakilty’s workhouse cemetery, but we can learn from studies conducted at similar sites in other parts of Ireland, though many of these were in use during the height of the Famine and so predate the site in Clonakilty by a few years.
Archaeologist Dr Linda Lynch noted that recent investigations have contradicted one of the most commonly told stories of the Famine workhouses: that of the coffin with the sliding bottom. It is widely believed that such coffins were used as the workhouses did not have the resources to cope with the sheer number of individuals dying.
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However, extensive evidence of coffins has been uncovered, including in mass graves, such as at the workhouse cemeteries in Tuam, Kilkenny and Borrisokane. These may have been very simple constructions, sometimes formed by undressed boards nailed together, as in the case of the Famine coffins in Cork city in 1847. In January of that year, 140 died in Skibbereen workhouse, but even then, coffins were probably provided, as revealed in a statement made by Timothy McCarthy Downing, a Poor Law guardian for Skibbereen Union, a local solicitor and later MP: “they came into the [work]house merely and solely for the purpose of getting a coffin”.
>>> READ MORE: Return of the workhouse cross to Clonakilty
There are few direct references to actual burials in Conakilty’s workhouse cemetery in the sources consulted; instead, references are primarily to requests for coffins. The 19th- and 20th-century records for Clonakilty Poor Law Union reveal that money was spent on coffins, shrouds and other burial expenses for both deceased workhouse inmates and paupers residing outside the workhouse. For example, at a meeting of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians in March 1884, it was noted that,
“With regard to the man, Sullivan, near Timoleague, who died of a bad fever, and for whom the relieving officer [of the Timoleague district of Clonakilty Poor Law Union] on this day week asked for an order for burial, he said when he went to the house that evening the funeral was leaving, and he was informed [that] the priest, Father Mulcahy, got two old women to put the corpse in the coffin. When outside the door it was then removed and buried by Mr Beamish’s men.”
In 1858 the union spent £3 10s 8d in a half-year period on burial expenses. By 1903 the half-year auditor’s report reveals that £3 17s 6d was spent on the burial of workhouse inmates and an additional £1 16s 8d on coffins for “Out-door Patients”, presumably those non-resident in the workhouse.
The latter years of the workhouse
In early December 1918, Clonakilty Board of Guardians met to consider a communication from the military authorities notifying them that between 80 and 90 soldiers (mainly from Yorkshire) would arrive in Clonakilty and take up residence in the men’s building in the workhouse. Yorkshireman Captain Shaw came before the board to present his case. This request was strongly protested, especially by the “Lady Chairman” Minnie McCarthy. The board eventually rejected the request by a vote of seven to five. But this vote did not deter the military, who forced entry and took control of part of the workhouse.
Tensions again escalated when the Essex Regiment took complete control of the workhouse in July 1920. The aged and infirm occupants of the workhouse hospital were forcibly removed. Following discussions among the guardians, they were transported by lorry to the industrial hall, where a makeshift infirmary was set up. Members of Cumann na mBan “did the necessary work in preparing supper for the poor men”.
At a meeting of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians, a resolution was passed condemning “the brutal and inhuman action” of the army “in evicting from their quarters in the hospital sixteen aged and infirm men whose beds and bedding they threw out in the yard”.
After the closure of Clonakilty workhouse
Clonakilty workhouse closed in 1924. In April of that year, under the Cork County Scheme, all poor law unions in the city and county were grouped into three districts: North Cork, South Cork and West Cork. A board of health or a board of public assistance administered each district.
The West Cork District comprised the areas included in the Poor Law Unions of Bantry, Castletown, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Skibbereen and Skull. The Clonakilty workhouse became the West Cork County Home and was established to care for the “aged and infirm persons, chronic invalids, idiots and epileptics” in the West Cork District. A cottage hospital was also established here “for the treatment of acute Medical, Surgical, and Maternity cases, and cases of infectious and contagious diseases”.
The county home at Clonakilty was described by the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor in the mid-1920s as “one of the most primitive institutions in the country. It is doubtful if it has been improved in any way since it was built”.
But by the late 1920s, a new hospital – Clonakilty District Hospital – was being erected on the grounds of the complex. By the late 1960s, the section of the complex designated as the county home had 233 beds, while the hospital had 44 beds. The entire grounds of the complex are now occupied by Clonakilty Community Hospital (previously called “Mount Carmel”).
After the closure of the workhouse in 1924, the cemetery at Gallanes continued to be used for some of those who died in Clonakilty’s county home, mother and baby home and, less frequently, patients of the district hospital. From the late 1930s onwards, the names of the deceased buried in the cemetery were listed in a leather-bound book. This burial register is now held in the chapel at Clonakilty Community Hospital. Approximately 150 burials are known to have taken place in the cemetery between the 1930s and 1985.
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Again many of the graves of the deceased went unmarked, but others were marked with a small, simple cross. Eight tightly packed rows of approximately 40 of these crosses were set up in the southwestern quadrant of the cemetery. No names were inscribed on the crosses, so, like the workhouse inmates buried in the cemetery before them, the more recently interred also became anonymous in death.
Two more of these crosses were set up on the southern boundary of the cemetery, segregated from the other graves. According to local tradition, these two crosses mark the graves of foreign sailors who drowned and their bodies washed ashore locally. This explanation makes sense when we consider their location on the boundary of a consecrated burial site, given that the religion of these “strangers” would have been unknown.
Remembering those buried in the Páiricín
At some point, possibly in the early to mid-20th century, a large crucifix was erected in the northern half of the cemetery. This was probably the first act to distinguish this site as special and would surely have encouraged some visitors.
By the early 2000s, the cemetery was very much overgrown. A fundraising and renovation effort inspired by Joe O’Sullivan (RIP) from St Fachtna’s Terrace, Skibbereen and led by parish curate Fr Gerard Galvin (RIP) resulted in €3,000 being raised. As a result of the fundraising effort, an entrance gate, a large stone cross and a number of plaques were erected, seating was provided, paths were created, and trees and shrubs were planted.
Anne, the mother of Joe O’Sullivan who inspired the fundraising campaign, died in the county home in Clonakilty in 1939. Joe remembered as a child attending his mother’s burial in this cemetery, with the coffin accompanied by several keening “shawlies” (other women resident in the home).
The cemetery’s small nameless crosses proved helpful in identifying those buried in the graves they mark. Carved on the east face of each cross is a unique series of Roman numerals which correspond to matching numbers listed in the burial register held at Clonakilty Community Hospital. Therefore, armed with this knowledge and with the help of the hospital staff, Joe located his mother’s final resting place, then marked by a small cross numbered XXIII. He erected a headstone in her memory in c.2004 when he was then aged in his 80s.
On 15 July 2008, an oak tree was ceremoniously planted on the site and a special Mass was offered to remember those buried in the cemetery, during which Fr Galvin stated: “This Mass gives recognition to the people who are buried here. Most are anonymous and forgotten, but they left their footprints in our community”.
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In more recent years, a plaque (or miniature headstone) has been erected in front of each cross. Each plaque carries the names of those interred in the grave it marks. This was achieved by matching the Roman numerals on the crosses with the names listed in the burial register. Just over 100 names are inscribed on the plaques. A quick survey reveals that typically each grave plot holds the remains of two or three seemingly unrelated people, with decades often elapsing between each burial in a single plot.
Perhaps the most startling revelation is the number of burials that took place here in the recent past: the 1970s and particularly the last burial in 1985. At least one infant is buried in this section. A couple of full-sized headstones are interspersed with the smaller plaques, including that of Anne O’Sullivan; these were commissioned privately by the families of the deceased.
Further north within the cemetery, three full-sized headstones were erected. Each lists 15 names of individuals laid to rest in the 1940s and ’50s. The precise location of their graves within the cemetery remains unknown.
Despite the anonymity suffered by those buried in this cemetery, their final resting place is a peaceful one that is now well maintained and visitors are more regular. An annual Rosary is said here in November for All Souls’ Day, which is attended by those from the local community and beyond.
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Notes: Much of this article comes from extracts from two papers on Clonakilty Poor Law Union and workhouse written by Marian O’Leary (Clonakilty Historical & Archaeological Journal) and have been reproduced here with kind permission from the author. The books of minutes of the meetings of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians, 75 in total, covering the years from 1850–1924, are housed in Cork City and County Archives and are an invaluable record of the running of the workhouse. Thanks also to Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin for sharing with us the recent history of the cemetery.
Sources:
Allen, V. 2014. ‘The Workhouse in Clonakilty and its Transition to Community Hospital’. Unpublished MA thesis, University College Cork.
Cork City and County Archives, Clonakilty Board of Guardians, CCCA/BG/65.
County Scheme Order, Cork No. 1, 1924.
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/eli/1924/sro/927/
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Donnelly, J.S. 1975. The Land and the People of Nineteenth-Century Cork. London and Boston.
Geber, J. 2012. ‘Burying the Famine dead: Kilkenny Union workhouse’. In J. Crowley, W.J. Smyth and M. Murphy (eds) Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–52. Cork, pp.341-48.
Gray, P. 2009. The Making of the Irish Poor Law, 1815-1843. Manchester and New York.
Irish Examiner, 27 Oct. 1858; 31 Mar. 1884; 11 Apr. 2005; 29 Jul. 2008.
Lynch, L.G. 2014. ‘An Assessment of Health in Post-medieval Ireland: ‘One vast Lazar house filled with famine, disease and death’’. Unpublished PhD thesis, University College Cork
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O’Connor, J. 1995. The Workhouses of Ireland: The fate of Ireland’s poor. Dublin.
O’Donovan, J. 2021. ‘Local government and revolution in Clonakilty, 1920’. Clonakilty Historical & Archaeological Journal 3.
O’Leary, M. 2017. ‘The origins of Clonakilty Poor Law Union and workhouse, 1850–52’. Clonakilty Historical & Archaeological Journal 2, pp.149-77.
O’Leary, M. 2021. ‘’Clonakilty God help us’: the early years of the workhouse, 1852–56’. Clonakilty Historical & Archaeological Journal 3, pp.281-323.
Southern Star, 25 Jul. 1903; 4 Nov. 1989; 26 Jul. 2008.
‘Survey of Hospital Archives in Ireland’. Wellcome Trust and National Archives
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2 Responses
Excellent article on Clonakikty workhouse, Poor Law Union , Board of Guardians and fever hospitals The disposessed and poor suffered greatly both physically and mentally.
This is just a wonderful source of priceless information. Thankyou to all involved