The early history of Athy's Workhouse

The first meeting of the Board of Guardians of the Athy Union was held in the Courthouse, Athy on Thursday, 29^th April 1841 (the Court room at that time was located in the Town Hall).  Present at that meeting were Lord Downes of Bert House, Sir E.H. Walsh of Ballykilcavan, Sir Anthony Weldon of Rahinderry, W.H. Cole of Moore Abbey, Monasterevin, Benjamin Lefroy of Cardenton and Edward Bagot of Kildoon.  They were ex officio members of the Board, as was B.A. Yates of Moone Abbey and George Evans of Farmhill who were not present at that meeting. 

Those attending also included the following guardians who had been elected to the position.  Patrick Cummins, Athy; Gerald Dunne, Snugboro; P.C. Doran, Castlemitchell; John Butler, Athy; Thomas Fitzgerald, Kilberry; Robert Cassidy, Monasterevin; Edward Conlan, Monasterevin; John Hyland, Ballitore; Patrick Maher, Kilrush; William Pelan, Ballindrum; James Caulfield, Pilsworth, Castledermot; Joseph Lyons, Moyanna, Stradbally; Thomas Budd, Timogue, Stradbally; Michael Dowling, Inch, Stradbally; Francis Roberts, Stradbally; Thomas Kilbride, Luggacurran; John Hovenden, Modubeagh and John Kehoe of Ballylinan.  Elected guardians who were absent included Daniel Browne, Ashgrove, Monasterevin; John Dowling, Kildangan; Andrew Dunne, Dollardstown; William Caulfield, Levitstown; Major E.H. Pope, Carlow and William Tarleton, Stradbally [the last two representing Ballyadams].

At that first meeting of the Board George Evans was elected Chairman, William Caulfield Vice Chairman while Patrick Dunne was elected Clerk to the Board at a salary of €40 per year.  Arrangements were made for the Union area to be surveyed and valued for the purpose of fixing rates to finance the running of the Workhouse which would open in Athy in January 1844. 

At its next meeting on 27^th May it was agreed to admit the press to board meetings and to divide the union area into eight vaccination districts, with vaccination stations located at Athy, Castledermot, Monasterevin, Stradbally, Luggacurran, Nurney, Ballylinan and Moone. 

On 20^th July 1841 the Board received an order from the Poor Law Commissioners directing it to raise or borrow the sum of £6,700 for the building and fitting out of a workhouse in Athy. 

On 10^th March 1842 the Board met to decide applications from persons claiming the right to vote at the annual election for members of Athy Board of Guardians scheduled for 26^th March.  The only change following that election was the replacement of John Butler by John Peppard.  The outgoing chairman, George Evans, retained his position following the first meeting of the newly elected Board when defeating Sir Anthony Weldon by one vote.  However, his name is absent from the record of all subsequent meetings and on 11^th October 1842 the Board unanimously agreed to elect Sir Anthony Weldon as Chairman of the Board of Guardians on the proposal of Lord Downes, seconded by Captain Lefroy. 

In July 1842 the salaries for the various officers of the workhouse were fixed by the Board.  The Workhouse Master was to be paid £40 per year with furnished apartments, fuel and candles and a limited quantity of house provisions.  The Matron was to receive £20 a year, with similar allowances, while the workhouse porter was granted £10 a year and allowances.  The workhouse schoolmaster and mistress were to be paid £20 and £15 respectively in addition to the earlier mentioned allowances.  Their duties were to include ‘assisting the master in the management of the workhouse.’  The medical attendant’s salary was fixed at £50 a year and his duties included the ‘compounding of all necessary medicines.’  A ‘nurse teacher’ was to receive £10 a year with the agreed allowances.  However, the Poor Law Commissioners took issue with the Board of Guardians decisions and directed that the fixing of salaries was premature and consequently refused to sanction any appointments. 

The dispute between the Board and the Commissioners was eventually resolved and on 7^th February 1843 the Board proceeded with appointments of various officials to Athy Workhouse.  William Bryan was appointed Workhouse master, with Elizabeth Quinn as Workhouse mistress and James Butler as the porter.  The appointment of the Workhouse medical attendant appears to have been the only appointment which necessitated a vote, even though there were several applicants for each position.  Dr. Ferris, Dr. Kynsey and Dr. Clayton submitted their applications and the position went to Dr. Kynsey who received 16 votes to 13 votes cast for Dr. Clayton.  The hapless Dr. Ferris received no votes. 

A rate of five pence in the pound was levied on all rateable properties in the Athy Poor Law Union area to fund the operation of the local Workhouse and John Mulhall was appointed to collect the poor rate in the Athy and Kilberry districts.  Collectors were also appointed to the other areas of the union.    As the opening of the Workhouse in January 1844 approached the preceding months were taken up with arrangements to purchase equipment, clothing and food products for which local businesses were asked to tender. 

……………………………………….TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK………………..

Athy's Workhouse

A few years ago attempts were made to retain part of St. Vincent’s Hospital as a Famine Museum. Despite the active cooperation of the Eastern Health Board, nothing came of the suggestion. Today the former workhouse remains a silent testimony to the many helpless people who passed through it’s doors since January 1844.

The poor who entered the Athy Workhouse were not allowed to succumb to idleness and all bodied inmates were put to work. Generally this consisted of stone breaking, although at Athy Workhouse paupers were also required to help on the Workhouse lands which in 1853 totalled 34 acres.

In October 1853 the Workhouse master summoned four paupers at Athy Petty Sessions for refusing to work and for disobeying his orders. They were sentenced by the local Magistrates to one months imprisonment with hard labour. Criminal prosecution of “vagrants” as the wandering poor were called was a common action taken by both Athy Town Commissioners and Athy Board of Guardians at different times during the second half of the 19th century.

Understandably the Workhouse contributed to the town’s problems in terms of unwanted vagrants and a local citizen was moved to write in a local newspaper in February 1862 “Athy’s rate payers have their doors constantly besieged by troops of beggars in every grade of wretchedness.” On 24th June, 1886 ten poor men and women admitted to the Workhouse on the previous evening were prosecuted at Athy Petty Sessions for vagrancy. Four of them were sentenced to two weeks imprisonment with hard labour.

In 1906 the Workhouse Clerk reported that a large number of vagrants were coming to the Workhouse. “Twenty five this week, forty five last week and forty seven the previous week”. Mr. Minch, a member of the Board of Guardians and a local resident in Athy, claimed that at one time upwards of 1,500 vagrants visited Athy Workhouse in one year but immediately the Board of Guardians instituted criminal prosecutions, the numbers fell to 500. It was also noted that a number of vagrants arrested in the locality of the Workhouse had notebooks containing the names and addresses of the good Workhouses and those which should be avoided, an early example of an Irish Tourist Guide perhaps! Clearly despite the efforts of the Board of Guardians the knights of the road were attracted to Athy Workhouse. Perhaps it was the meat dinners which the Board of Guardians first authorised for the Workhouse inmates Christmas Dinner in 1859 and for Easter Sundays from 1862 which were the big attraction.

Foundlings were another group cared for within the Workhouse and over the years many young babies abandoned at birth were to live out their early lives there. Names were generally attributed to these babies by reference to the Saints’ Day on which they were found and sometimes also the place where first seen. A child found wrapped in hay was names Hays, while another infant found in the Peoples’ Park was given the surname Parker. A boarding out system for children was introduced in 1862, thereby ensuring that as far as possible those youngsters would not spend all their formative years within the grim surroundings of the local Workhouse.

Schools were opened in Athy Workhouse in 1844. On the 16th of July, 1896 the Commissioners of National Instruction reported on Athy Workhouse School which by then was under the charge of the Sisters of Mercy. “The School is in a high state of efficiency and the course of instruction is carried out by the Sisters in charge with earnestness, zeal and ability. The girls of second and higher grade received instruction in shirt making, dressmaking, underclothing, knitting and darning and the use of the sewing machine”.

A further report on the Workhouse School in 1907 noted that “the pupils are making satisfactory progress. Oral English, Arithmetic and Drawing will require increased attention; kindergarten occupation for a large number of infants attending are urgently required.” The Workhouse Schools continued to operate until the 1940’s when the children then remaining in the Workhouse were sent to the local primary schools in the town.

Today the former Workhouse revamped and refurbished over the years is now a geriatric hospital. The wandering poor and abandoned children are no longer to be found there. To a generation which has lived in the shadow of a comprehensive health and welfare system it is sometimes difficult to realise the difficulties experienced in the early years of the workhouse system. Next year will see the winding down of the Great Famine Commemoration events and it is hoped that Athy will remember in an appropriate way the people of the South Kildare area who died so tragically 150 years ago.

The former Workhouse graveyard adjoining the Grand Canal is presently in a sadly neglected state. Perhaps we should show a measure of respect for the dead by having this sacred ground tided up. After all the poor people who died in the Workhouse so many years ago deserve to have the dignity denied to them in life restored even if only in death.