Recovery of another Athy Workhouse ledger

When I was asked by the Eastern Health Board almost 30 years ago to research and write a history of St. Vincent’s Hospital and it’s predecessor, the Union Workhouse, I found to my dismay that the Workhouse records had been destroyed some years previously. The loss of that primary material was regrettable and at the subsequent launch of the book in St. Vincent’s Hospital in June 1994 I pointed out the need for a local archive where business and organisational records could be preserved for study by future historians. It was a call which went unheeded, despite the appointment of a county archivist some years later by Kildare County Council in conjunction with Wicklow County Council. Unfortunately that appointment lasted for a few short years and the position of a county archivist for Kildare has remained vacant since then. Some years after the publication of ‘150 Years of Caring – A history of St. Vincent’s Hospital’ I was contacted by a local man who was in the same class as myself during our school days in the local Christian Brothers school. He worked in St. Vincent’s Hospital for many years and one of the duties assigned to him by the then Matron was to incinerate a pile of old ledgers which were haphazardly stored in a room of the original Workhouse building. Many hours were spent in consigning the old ledgers to the hospital furnace and in doing so invaluable records of the Workhouse period were lost forever. Not all however, for as he bundled the ledgers into the furnace, he retained a few as a memento of a dark period in Irish history. The Workhouse wards opened in January 1844 to accommodate 360 adults and 240 children but were unable during the worst months of the Great Famine to accommodate all those who sought refuge from hunger and disease. To alleviate overcrowding two auxiliary Workhouses were opened, one in Barrack Street and the other at Woodstock south. At one period during the Great Famine over 1,500 men, women and children were inmates in the local Workhouses. When my school friend contacted me, it was to tell me of having kept some of the Workhouse records and over time those same priceless records were one by one passed to me. They can now be found in the local history section of the County Library in Newbridge. The pity is that only a few Workhouse ledgers were saved from the hospital furnace, but there is a possibility that further Workhouse ledgers are in private hands in and around Athy today. My reason for expressing that hope is because within the last few weeks another Workhouse ledger, found in the home of a deceased lady unconnected to my former schoolmate (who is also deceased), was recently passed to me. I am currently in the process of examining that ledger and extracting whatever historical detail I can use before I pass the ledger on to the County Library. In the meantime if anyone has any documents of any kind relating to Athy’s Workhouse could I prevail on them to donate them to the County Library in Newbridge. Returning to my efforts to write a history of St. Vincent’s Hospital and the earlier Workhouse I had forgotten that at the launch of the book I made an appeal for the Eastern Health Board to make funds available for the erection of a suitable memorial in St. Mary’s Cemetery so that, as I was reported in the Nationalist on 10th June 1994, ‘those forgotten people who lie there can be shown the respect and dignity which was denied to them while they were alive.’ It’s a call I have repeated recently, this time calling on Kildare County Council to erect a memorial to those unfortunate men, women and children who died in the Workhouse, the later County Home and the nearby Fever Hospital. Included in those to be remembered will be the eight victims of the fire in Athy’s Workhouse on 11th February 1858. The following press report of that incident is a sad reminder of times past. ‘In the early morning of 11th February a fierce and destructive fire broke out at the Athy Union Workhouse, resulting in the loss of eight lives. The fire was discovered in the Matron’s storehouse at 4.00 a.m. and in less than an hour almost the entire right wing of the building was a sheet of flame, engulfing the schoolroom, warehouse, cooks and school master’s apartments and the boys dormitory. The ringing of the alarm bell brought a gathering of towns people to the scene who assisted in subduing the blaze. A fire engine played water on the rear of the building, while copious water was poured from a ladder placed at the front. After the pumps failed from being overworked, water had to be carried from a canal some distance off. Despite these exertions, a loud cry arose that several persons were still in the building. A rush was immediately made round to the place indicated and several men ascended a staircase down which rolled dense volumes of smoke. They brought down one after another eight bodies, all dead – five adults who were suffocated by smoke and three small children charred to cinders. The scene in the yard was heart rending. The shrieks of women tearing their hair in grief, the cries of children, and the general lamentation heard amidst the falling ruins and blazing timbers, constituted a spectacle that few would wish to witness.’