Sandrine Josso Photography

The Workhouses in Ireland were established following the English workhouses system.

Ireland was under the Act of Union (1800) and had lost political autonomy to Britain.

 

At the time, early nineteenth century, a large majority of Irish were living in extreme poverty, lacking employment which motivated them to migrate in England. The flow of Irish emigrants falling into poverty in England (very visible, it was considered as a threat to social order) warned the English authorities and an investigation was organised to evaluate the conditions of life of the Irish. From the report, it was decided that Ireland was indeed in need of a “Poor law system”* which will be introduced in 1838 modelling the English Poor law Act and financed by local property tax. It aims was to address the poverty in Ireland through maintenance order and control but also to harden the distinction between “the deserving and undeserving poor”: the poor were indeed seen as "deserving (sick) or undeserving" (lazy, ignorant, dirty...). Being poor was seen as a character flaw, it was their fault if they were poor, the exterior factors (for example, no job available) weren't taking into account.

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The first Workhouse In Ireland opened its doors in 1841.

Before the Great Famine (1845-50)*, relief (from poverty) was only available within the workhouse. Under the pressure of mass starvation and with many workhouses full to overflowing, the system was extended in 1847 to allow poor law boards to grant outdoor relief to the sick and disabled, and to widows with two or more legitimate children. Outdoor relief could only be granted to the able-bodied if the workhouse was full, or a site of infection which was very common.

 

“Anyone occupying more than one quarter of an acre of land, however, was excluded from receiving relief. The effect of this provision, when combined with falling rent rolls, and the liability of landlords to pay the poor rates on holdings worth less than £4 per annum, was to encourage landlords to evict their smallest tenants. Workhouse occupancy rose from around 417,000 in 1847, to around 932,000 by the end of 1849”

M. Daly the famine in Ireland, 1986

 

The Irish Workhouses were made as unpleasant as possible and aversion for the workhouses were very strong. It is often associated with the Great Famine because when the potato crops failed, Irish people had no choice but to enter the workhouses if they wanted to survive.

The life, highly regulated, was meant to be much tougher inside the workhouse than outside, and the buildings themselves were deliberately grim and intimidating, they were designed to look like prisons but they weren't prisons. People could leave if they wanted :

 

“When you were admitted to the workhouse, you were stripped, searched, washed and had your hair cropped. You were made to wear a prison-style uniform. When a family entered the workhouse, they were separated. Women were at all times kept separate from the men, including their husbands. The attitude of the authorities was if a family needed public assistance, the husband and wife hardly needed to be together to conceive additional children. The children were also separated from their parents and the boys and girls also separated. In one instance, a girl aged 15 years died in the workhouse. Her records showed that she was born in the workhouse and had never been outside the place.”

 

After the Great Famine, the number of people entering the workhouse decreased and over time it became a place for people that society did not want: unmarried mothers, children born outside of marriage, orphaned and abandoned children, “lunatics and idiots”, old and diseable people...

With the Free State (from 1922 onwards) all workhouses were shut down.

 

 

Portumna Workhouse opened its door in 1852. It is now since 2011 a visitor centre, museum in progress. A person will guide you around the site, sharing with you the history attached to what remains, the life in the Workhouse.

There is a short video as an introduction. Not all buildings are yet accessible.

 

Ursula Marmion, project coordinator :

 

“Over a number of years, we removed all the ivy, re-roofed five of the buildings and tidied up the entire site. We’ve also conserved a number of the original windows, we have 280 windows in total and there’s more work to be done there.”

 

 

More information: http://irishworkhousecentre.ie/conservation-and-redevelopment/introduction/

Source :

http://irishworkhousecentre.ie/the-workhouse-story/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Poor_Laws

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

http://www.gillmacmillan.ie/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/056/Irish_Social_Policy_-_Look_Inside_Sample.pdf