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THE FIRST NATIONAL conference on Irish workhouses will take place in Galway next month.
The conference will give an overview of the workhouse system and also consider the future of workhouse buildings that remain today.
Researchers, writers and lecturers will give presentations during the weekend on May 17 and 18 in Portumna.
The Workhouse
Emigration, starvation or the workhouse…those were the options for many people during the famine in Ireland and so the numbers in the workhouses increased dramatically.
By the autumn of 1846, the workhouses couldn’t deal with the overcrowding, disease and deaths.
Corpses, without coffins, were carried on carts day after day to be thrown into mass burial pits in the workhouse grounds.
But it wasn’t just the famine years that workhouses operated in Ireland, they existed from the early 1840s to the early 1920s, 163 of them in total.
While there was widespread destitution before the famine years the number of people entering the workhouses was low as they were the last resort of destitute people.
But that changed when the potato crop diseased in 1846.
Hardship
The workhouses are considered to be the most hated and feared institution ever established in Ireland.
Life was meant to be harsh so as not to encourage people to stay but people got food in return for doing work.
One of the cruellest aspects of the system was that family members were split up into separate quarters. There were a lot of children in the workhouses and the conditions were terrible for them.
One of the ways to get out of the workhouse was through emigration.
Mary Ann Taylor received assisted passage from Mountbellew Workhouse in County Galway to go to Australia in 1853 when she was 18 years old.
Her great grandson, Bill Marwick will be at the conference to recount Mary Ann’s story.
Bill was born in York, Western Australia and is a former mayor and councillor of the cities of Wanneroo and Joondalup.
The workhouse system was abolished by the new Irish parliament in the early 1920s. However, it continued to operate in the six counties until the 1940s.
Future
While many of the workhouse buildings were destroyed or became derelict, a number still survive today.
Presentations will be given on the current efforts to find new appropriate uses for old workhouse buildings. Workhouses remain in:
The conference will be opened by Minister for Skills and Training, Ciarán Cannon.
Guided tours of the Irish Workhouse Centre will take place on both days, it’s located in the former Portumna Workhouse.
This conference is organised by the Irish Workhouse Centre, Portumna in partnership with the Heritage Office, Galway County Council.
For further information e-mail info@irishworkhousecentre.ie
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Ffg and thier election bull has no ends
There is no end to what this government will do to try win votes. I hope people can see through this and vote these guys out for ever. These guys can only have their own greedy interests at hand. Remember the little kids in hospital with terrible pain from scoliosis and the money that was squandered on the bike shed and the RTE bail out and the most expensive hospital in the world that facilitated a developer to have an ever ending cash cow from this government. It’s a pity we don’t have laws like they have in America where these crooks would be in jail.
@Dave Barrett:
I think strengthen the Pedo laws should be a priority
before the election.
Just in case.
FF FG GP Bribery and Corruption Specialists .
@Jim Ryan:
Bribe away if it puts money in the people’s pockets
PS
IRELAND 15th on the list of LEAST corrupt counties in the world.
@H Woo: 193 countries in UN
Micheal Martin, trying to bankrupt the country a second time. It’s the fiannna fail way.
@Michael o connor: ffg one party, one agenda.
@Colette Byrne:
Sin. Fein, the one trick pony party.
@Michael o connor:
Sin Feins proposed spending over the years when added up would have wiped out the middle income families with the tax increases needed to finance their waffle.
Again, not targeted. Oh we do love giving away money, esp when it’s not theirs to give away. People need to wake up.
It’s a few years since we protested at Shannon Airport !!!!!!!
@Elizabeth Doyle:
Who cares?
Cue, the schools will exploit an opportunity to introduce a new voluntary charge, just wait!
More bribery, more freebies, more welfare handouts, more Hamas appeasement, more anti-West nonsense, more wacky environmental policies, more disrespecting of America, does this government have no end to their terrible policies? Is Simon Harris allergic to supporting any sort of policy that isn’t left-wing? This current government has been nothing more than a Statist leach, mooching off the taxpayer and their money. At some point, the people of Ireland will wake up and realise that they are being screwed over, but it looks like they are blinded once again and continue to stab themselves and their wallets in the chest. Harris and Varadkar are up there with Jack Lynch and Garret Fitzgerald as the person who was the worst Taoiseach in our nation’s history.
@Frank O’Hara:
That’s it, get it all up, yill be grand.
@H Woo: You haven’t offered any sort of coherent rebuttal to what I said. Is that because you know that I’m right?
Recognising Palestine is so hypocritical when aeroplanes carrying war equipment flies over Irish airspace and Shannon is used as a stopover.
@Hector turtlehead:
Good to see we play our little part keeping the the free world free
Fantastic news well done government
I see the Sinn Fein (kangaroo cult) bots are creeping back out
@John Nolan: You must have great eyesight to see them in the herds of pro FG & Trump bots …. Weird you haven’t noticed them !! FG supporting Trump bots man.. Like they do stand out, considering FG has always tried to liken SF and their supporters to Trump and his supporters in an attempt to smear them.. but now it’s a good thing when FG bots are supporting Trump bots ..
have your say