May | 2014 | Poverty and Public Health in Belfast

This weekend was spent at a conference in the Irish Workhouse Centre which is located in the old Portumna workhouse in Co Galway. The voluntary committee who have restored and conserved many of the buildings in the complex held the first ‘Irish Workhouse Conference – Past and Present’ bringing together historians (such as Larry Geary, Gerard Moran, myself, and Sean Lucey), emigrants (Bill Marwick, whose ancestor departed from a Galway workhouse to Australia in the 19^th century) and an osteoarchaeologist – Dr Linda G. Lynch who has worked on the bones recovered in various workhouse burial grounds around the country, including Manorhamilton in Co Leitrim.

Drs Geary and Moran spoke about aspects of the workhouse that are sometimes underplayed in the popular perception of the institutions; Gerry Moran gave a fascinating account of ‘Riots and insubordination in the workhouses during the Great Famine’, and Larry Geary spoke about his work on the provision of health care under the Irish Poor Law.

Myself (Georgina Laragy) and Sean Lucey spoke about the research we have been involved in since 2007 at Oxford Brookes and here at Queen’s University, Belfast. I provided an overview of regional patterns of indoor and outdoor relief, using maps available here, and explored the regional distinctions that led to experiences of poverty in nineteenth century Ireland. Sean Lucey spoke about the reform of the poor law system under the Irish Free State after 1920, and the continuation of the system in the six counties of the newly-created Northern Ireland until after the Second World War.

Click on picture to the left for Georgina Laragy’s powerpoint

Peter Higginbotham, author of the fantastic resource on workhouses across the British Isles (www.workhouses.org) also provided information on the workhouses of Ireland and Scotland. He had visited Portumna more than a decade ago, taking the image below which showed how dilapidated and derelict the building, dating from the early 1850s, had become.

Most spectacular however, was the contribution by the voluntary committee of the Portumna workhouse to the conservation and preservation of the buildings themselves. This was outlined by Mairín Doddy (Conservation Office for Galway County Council) and Ursula Marmion (IRD manager and co-ordinator of the Irish Workhouse Centre) who guided the large audience through the wonderful work that has been completed over the past ten years to conserve the building using the highest international standards of conservation. This involved getting cattle out, removing ivy (which you can see in the photo above) and re-roofing to prevent water getting in and destroying what remained. Their presentations were supplemented by very informative tour guides who brought groups of us through the dormitories, laundry, reception area, yards etc., each at different stages of conservation.

In addition to the sterling work of the Irish Workhouse Centre we were treated to information about the state of a number of surviving workhouses from all around the island and the conservation work and community initiatives that are based around these once-dreaded buildings.

Some workhouses, such as Callan in Co. Kilkenny, Birr in Co Offaly and Kilmacthomas in Co Waterford are in private hands and their owners spoke about the work on-going to conserve and use these beautiful buildings as community resources. The workhouse in Limavady in Co Derry is a fully operational health and social services centre that caters for a population similar to those who would have been institutionalised there in the 19^th century, but under a new dispensation that provides dignity and a degree of independent living to those who live on the grounds. It also hosts offices, a museum and arts/cultural events. Carrickmacross and Bawnboy workhouses in the border counties of Monaghan and Cavan have also benefitted from community initiatives that have seen them restored to a very high standard with more work planned for the future. The Donaghmore workhouse, like the Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna, hosts a museum that details the history of the workhouse itself, the Great Famine and rural life in the area, including an exhibition of agricultural implements and tools.

All in all, the conference was a wonderful success on the part of Ursula Marmion and the committee down at Portumna. But it also allowed this time-traveller to walk around the buildings, see the wooden platforms where paupers slept, the ventilation holes to circulate air and keep them healthy, the cells for refractory inmates and the laundry room where their uniforms, ticking etc., were washed and dried. It provided a tangible element to the research that we are doing here at Queen’s, a ‘site of memory’ for travelling back in time as we imagine what life would have been like for those who worked and lived there.

(All images bar one by Peter Higginbotham were taken by © Georgina Laragy 2014)

In the workhouse yard