Irish Workhouses and Genealogy (Part 1)


In-house Records

The workhouse system in Ireland is an often overlooked treasure trove of names, personal histories and local business names. It takes some time to find this information but it is well worth the effort.

At the time of their operation, from 1840 up to the early 1920s, vast quantities of records were kept by each workhouse. These records were created by The Board of Guardians (the group of men in each individual Poor Law Union which formed the administrative core of a workhouse), or the workhouse staff such as the Master, Medical Officer, and Clerks. 

The Board of Guardians

This group of men were very interested with statistics and how their Poor Rate was being spent. To this end they discussed tenders for workhouse supplies and posts within the workhouse, salaries of staff and the suggestions of Poor Law Inspectors.

From the minutes of the Board of Guardian meetings, we have a roll call of the board itself and there is evidence that the concerns of the rate-payers were not just about their pockets. We also see concerns about the treatment of workhouse inmates, education and their diet. For family historians bear in mind that your ancestor may have been a pauper, but they may also have been an employee of the bureaucratic machine that was the Poor Law System in Ireland.

Meetings were attended by both the Guardians themselves and the Workhouse Master and Clerk.  Often times the Master would be directed to discipline staff or dictate what food the paupers would be given. In May 1853 for example, the Clerk of Tuam Workhouse, ‘called attention to the fact that potatoes were not now used in the soup, the price being excessive and requested that the Board under the advice of the Medical Officer authorise a change in the preparation of the soup as an article of diet’.[1]

Like most minutes, these records include a diverse range of subjects and names. These can include mention of those evicted from their lands seeking admission, as well as others already resident in the workhouse brought to the attention of the Board. The latter group may have been charged with assaulting staff or absconding from the workhouse school while others are listed among the dead or dying found at the workhouse door each morning.
The years have not been kind to these registers and not all workhouses have surviving records. Many that do survive can be found in local authority archives, particularly the Board of Guardian Minute Books.

Workhouse Staff


The Master and other workhouse staff created records such as lists of purchases, provisions needed, salaries, the names of admitted paupers and pensions. These staff records look more closely at the day to day operation of the workhouse than those created by the Board. If you are interested in these records, they exist nowadays in two main forms.

1.    The original paperwork. If the paperwork is extant, it can be located at your Local Authority archive. However, the survival of workhouse records is extremely potted and it should be noted that Local Authority archive cataloguing is not exhaustive. 

2.    Contemporary newspaper articles. All of the above information was of great interest to the public, and featured regularly in articles. Whichever website you are using to access newspaper articles, an easy way to search is to put in the Poor Law Union of your choice e.g. ‘Galway Union’. 


Once you get to grips with the different records, a whole new source of genealogical information will be open to you. Part two of these articles will look at the types of records generated outside the workhouse walls. Happy searching!

Clare Doyle (In-house archivist and genealogist at The Irish Workhouse Centre) 




















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