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Athy Poor Law Union Minute Books
Identity Statement
Repository Code: IE 2036
Archive Reference: KCA/PLUA/M/1-25
Title: Minute Books of the Athy Board of Guardians
Creation Dates: 1841-1920, with gaps
Extent Medium: 25 volumes
Context
Administrative History: An Acte for the more Effectual Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland, 1838, extended the powers of the existing English Poor Law system to Ireland, with poor relief to be financed by local rates and offered only via the workhouse. It provided for the division of Ireland into 130 unions based on 2,049 electoral divisions which were made up of townlands of varying sizes. Each division was charged with maintain the destitute poor who had resided in it before entering the workhouse. An additional 33 unions were created between 1848 and 1850. Each union was required to build a workhouse for the single purpose of relieving the poor and destitute, administered by a board of guardians, who levied a rate to finance it. Two thirds of a Board of Guardians were elected annually on 25 March, and a third were appointed ex officio. Only rate-payers were eligible for election which excluded most of the population, and the clergy could not be members of the boards. Voting was based on a system of multiple votes with owners and occupiers entitled to equal votes on their holdings based on a scale. A central governing body in Dublin, the Poor Law Commissioners (PLC), oversaw and directed the work of each union and ensured that regulations and directives were followed at local level. Ownership of the workhouse lands and buildings were vested in the PLC; they scrutinised the weekly Board minutes from each union to ensure that official policies and regulations were adhered to, and they were responsible for the appointment of chaplains. The PLC were later merged with the Local Government Board in 1872. Three Poor Law Unions covered County Kildare and parts of the adjoining counties of Wicklow, Laois, Offaly, Meath and Dublin, with workhouses established at Athy, Celbridge and Naas. The money to construct and maintain each workhouse was obtained from the poor rate, levied in equal parts on the owners and occupiers of holdings. In 1843 occupiers of property under £4 valuation were exempted and their rates became payable by the owners. The workhouse building was basic in design, devoid of comforts to ensure that only dire necessity could drive a person to seek admission. The first meeting of the Athy Board of Guardians was held in the Courthouse, Town Hall, Athy on 29 April 1841. The Athy Poor Law Union covered an area of 252 square miles and was overseen by 24 elected guardians representing the electoral divisions of Athy, Ballybracken, Castledermot, Davidstown, Kilberry, Monasterevin, Moone, and Narraghmore, Co. Kildare; Ballyadams, Dysertenos, Killabin, Moyanna, Stradbally and Tullamoy, Queen’s Co. (now Co. Laois), and 8 ex-officio guardians. On 20 July the guardians agreed to raise a loan of £6,700 to finance the construction of the workhouse to accommodate 600 persons on a 6.5-acre site, half a mile north-west of the town of Athy. It opened on 09 January 1844 and admitted five men, four women, ten boys, five girls and one infant. Initially concerned with the administration of poor relief, as time progressed, the guardians took on more varied responsibilities including the boarding-out of children from the 1860s, outdoor relief, dispensers of public health, and providers of houses for labourers under the Labourers Acts, 1883. The Medical Charities Act,1851 brought dispensaries under the control of the Irish Poor Law Commission for the first time, with each union having a salaried Medical Officer. Under the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, the boards of guardians became the rural sanitary authorities. The poor law system was finally abolished in 1923 when the responsibilities of the guardians were transferred to county councils. The workhouses were replaced by a system of county homes and county hospitals.
Content and Structure
Scope & Content: Minutes of proceedings at the weekly meeting of the Athy Board of Guardians. Contains weekly statistical information on the state of the workhouse. Information recorder under headings which include ‘number of inmates for which accommodation is provided’, ‘workhouse’, ‘temporary buildings’, ‘additional workhouse’, ‘fever hospital’ and ‘fever sheds’. Also ‘numbers admitted during the week’, ‘numbers discharged or died’ and ‘number of lunatics and idiots in workhouse’. Record of out-door relief also given, including ‘relief district’ and ‘no. of cases relieved’. Each meeting records the name of the chairman and the board members in attendance. The agenda at the meeting typically included the reading of the clerk’s report, an examination of the Workhouse and Outdoor Relief Registers, the cost of ‘provisions and necessaries’, the treasurers book of receipt, the clothing accounts and Medical Officers book and the report of the Master of the Workhouse or other officers. Letters from the Poor Law Commissioners are read into the minute and any additional business dealt with, including staff absences, sick leave, adverts for tenders and medical expenses for the dispensary districts. Each minute book contains an alphabetical index.
Arrangement: Manuscript and printed bound volumes are arranged chronologically.
Conditions of Access and Use
Access Conditions: Full Access, except for fragile items
Conditions Governing Reproduction: Permission from archivist required
Creation Dates: 1841-1862
Extent Medium: 25 volumes
Material Language: English
Allied Materials
Copies Information: Six of the surviving twenty-five Athy Board of Guardians Minute books have been digitised and can be viewed here. These volumes were microfilmed in 2007 with funding from The Heritage Council under the Archives and Museums grant scheme
Related Material: Athy Poor Law Union Admission and Discharge Registers (KCA/PLUA/R).
Publications:
150 years of caring: a history of St. Vincent's Hospital, Athy, by Frank Taaffe (1994)
Naas Poor Law Union during the Famine, by Karel Kiely (1994)
The Cluxtons of Kilcullen, by Barry Kinane (2023)