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Poverty and power: the Irish Poor Law in a north Antrim town, 1861–1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2015

Olwen Purdue
Olwen Purdue*
Affiliation:
School of History & Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast
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Extract

Austere and forbidding, the workhouse occupied a prominent position in the towns of nineteenth-century Ireland. Reformer Laura Stephens, writing in the New Ireland Review in 1900, said of the Irish workhouse that ‘the great gloomy pile of grey stone buildings, surrounded with high walls is unmistakable,’ while Anna Clarke quotes William Field as having observed ‘Foreigners remark … that our constitution seems to produce poverty and lunacy; because, either the immense ugly union or the big regular asylum is generally the leading architectural feature in county towns; instead of the fine church or cathedral, the handsome maison de ville, and the pleasurable, instructive galleries to be found in other countries.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 148 , November 2011 , pp. 567 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2011

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References

1 Stephens, Laura, ‘An Irish workhouse’ in New Ireland Review, xiii (May 1900), p. 129Google Scholar.

2 Field, William, Suggestions for the improvement of the Irish Poor Law (Dublin, 1883), p. 9Google Scholar, quoted in Clarke, Anna, ‘Wild workhouse girls and the liberal imperial state in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland’, Journal of Social History, xxxix, no. 2 (winter, 2005), pp 389–409Google Scholar.

3 O’Connor, John, The workhouses of Ireland: the fate of Ireland’s poor (Dublin, 1995), p. 13Google Scholar: McLaughlin, Dympna, ‘Workhouses’ in Bourke, Angelaet al. (eds.), The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, v: Irish women’s writing and traditions (Cork, 2002), p. 722Google Scholar.

4 McLaughlin, Dympna, ‘Workhouses and Irish female paupers, 1840–70’ in Luddy, Maria and Murphy, Cliona (eds), Women surviving (Dublin, 1990), pp 117-47Google Scholar; Crossman, Virginia, ‘Viewing women, family and sexuality through the prism of the Irish Poor Laws’ in Women’s History Review, xv, no. 4 (Sept. 2006), pp 541–50Google Scholar.

5 Return showing the number of cities and towns, with the population of the same, which are governed by the municipal acts for Ireland, distinguishing those for each country which have had charters of incorporation granted to them since the passing of the act 5 & 6 Will 4, c. 76, H.C. 1852 (347), liii, 245.

6 Slater, I., National commercial directory of Ireland, 1870 (Manchester, 1870).Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Introduction to Antrim papers (P.R.O.N.I., D/2977).

9 Census of Ireland 1871, pt. 1, area, houses and population, also the ages, civil condition, occupations, birthplaces, religion and education of the people, vol. iii, province of Ulster, no. 1, county of Antrim [C 964] (Dublin, 1874); Census of Ireland 1891 … [C 6626] (Dublin, 1892).

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12 See, for example, the evidence given to the Bessborough Commission regarding tenants’ concerns, Bessborough Commission, minutes of evidence, pt. i, pp 178–227.

13 See Walker, B. M., ‘The land question and elections in Ulster, 1868–1886’ in Clark, Samuel and Donnelly, James S. Jr. (eds), Irish peasants: violence and political unrest, 1780– 1914 (Manchester, 1983), pp 237–8Google Scholar; McMinn, Richard, ‘Presbyterianism and politics in Ulster’ in Studia Hib. xxi (1981), pp 127–46Google Scholar.

14 For a detailed analysis see Vaughan, W. E., Landlords and tenants in mid-Victorian Ireland (Oxford, 1994Google Scholar) and Donnelly, J. S. Jr., The land and people of nineteenth-century Cork: the rural economy and the land question (London, 1975).Google Scholar

15 Thom’s official directory of Ireland (1870).

16 Quoted in Walker, , ‘The land question & elections in Ulster, 1868–1886’, p. 238Google Scholar.

17 Bew, Paul and Wright, Frank, ‘The agrarian opposition in Ulster politics, 1848–87’ in Clarke, & Donnelly, Jr. (eds), Irish peasants, p. 206Google Scholar.

18 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute books, 15 Sept. 1890 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/63).

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20 Burns, Cecil, Pauper to patient: a history of the Route Hospital, Ballymoney (Ballycastle, 1988), p. 13Google Scholar.

21 Ibid.

22 Crossman, Virginia, Local government in nineteenth-century Ireland (Belfast, 1994), p. 15Google Scholar.

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25 Connaught Telegraph, 6 Mar. 1880, quoted in Feingold, Revolt of the tenantry, p. 104.

26 Feingold, , Revolt of the tenantry, p. 114Google Scholar.

27 Crossman, , Politics, pp 50–3Google Scholar.

28 The Nation, 30 July 1881.

29 Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1881.

30 See Walker, B. M., Ulster politics: the formative years, 1868–86 (Belfast, 1989), pp 39–42Google Scholar.

31 Thom’s official directory of Ireland (1890).

32 Thom’s official directory of Ireland (1880–1912).

33 Thom’s official directory of Ireland (1880).

34 Crossman, Virginia, ‘The New Ross workhouse riot of 1887: nationalism, class and the Irish Poor Laws’ in Past & Present, no. 179 (2003), p. 144Google Scholar.

35 Crossman, Politics, pp 52–3.

36 Ballymoney Free Press, 12 Nov. 1873.

37 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 5 Feb. 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/54). Note that the ‘3F’s’ referred to the three key demands of tenant farmers – fair rent, freedom of sale and fixity of tenure.

38 Ballymoney Free Press, 24 Feb. 1881.

39 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 30 May 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/54).

40 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 1 May 1882 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/55).

41 Ballymoney Free Press, 2 July 1874.

42 Ibid., 30 July 1874.

43 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 30 July, 13 Aug. 1883 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/56).

44 Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) (Women) Act, 1896, 59 & 60 Vic, c. 5.

45 Urquhart, Dianne, Women in Ulster politics, 1890–1940 (Dublin, 1998), p. 112Google Scholar.

46 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 29 Mar. 1902 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/76); Thom’s official directory of Ireland (1910).

47 Private interview, Alex Blair, Ballymoney, Nov. 2008.

48 Census of Ireland, 1911.

49 Ballymoney Board of Guardians minute book, 15 Apr. 1899 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/72).

50 Ibid., 27 Apr. 1899 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/72).

51 Ibid., 7 May, 6 July, 14 Sept. 1899 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/72).

52 Ibid., 29 Apr. 1900 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/73).

53 Ballymoney workhouse indoor register, 1851 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/G/1).

54 Ibid., 1881 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/G/6).

55 Belfast Newsletter, 9 Mar. 1885.

56 Ballycastle workhouse indoor registers, 1871–1911 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/3/G/3–6).

57 Clogher workhouse indoor register, 1911 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/9/G/45).

58 Ballymoney Free Press, 18 Nov. 1877.

59 Ibid., 10 Apr. 1879.

60 Ibid., 27 May 1880.

61 Private interview, Alex Blair, Ballymoney, Nov. 2008.

62 Ballymoney Free Press, 23 Nov. 1876.

63 See Luddy, Maria, ‘Prostitution and rescue work in nineteenth-century Ireland’ in Luddy, & Murphy, (eds), Women surviving, pp 51–84Google Scholar.

64 Ballymoney workhouse indoor register, 1891 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/G/8).

65 SeeCrossman, , ‘Viewing women, family & sexuality through the prism of the Irish Poor Laws’Google Scholar.

66 Ballymoney Poor Law Union minute book, 3 May 1900 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/A/73). Names have been redacted here and elsewhere in the current article so as to protect anonymity.

67 Local Government Board to Ballymoney Board of Guardians, 9 Aug. 1900 (P.R.O.N.I., BG/5/BC/1).