The Irish Workhouse Museum

Mangel Wurzel-a popular vegetable grown in Irish workhouses   For a long time, the 'work' in Irish workhouses was thought to exclude farming. However, recent research shows that many Irish workhouses had farms. Due to irregular or no account keeping, it is hard for us to piece together a picture of what farming was like in a workhouse setting. However, what we can do is look at a snap shot of figures from parliamentary documents.* These documents reveal a surprising fact. Out of the 163 workhouses across Ireland, only 37 had no land under cultivation. Over half of these 37 are from the second wave of building. Workhouse building in Ireland took place in two waves. There were the first 130 which were planned as a complete set to provide relief for 1% of the Irish population. Then the crisis resulting from potato blight led to 33 extra workhouses being hastily built. These were needed due to chronic overcrowding and it seems that acquiring farmland was the least ...

Ireland's Eye, Howth by Tricia O'Neill The Irish Workhouse Centre is delighted to be hosting a photographic exhibition, The Martello Towers of Ireland, by Tricia O'Neill. The exhibition will launch on the 18th April with a talk by historian James Scully, an expert on Napoleonic fortifications. I managed to catch up with Tricia prior to the exhibition. After 20 minutes on the phone with photographer Tricia O'Neill, I realise that we should be talking about the history of Martello towers. Instead the stories come thick and fast. Did she tell me about the time an army officer had to back her car onto a small ferry because the ramp was too precarious? Or that it takes two seasoned historians to row out to Meelick Island? Or that in Boston an exhibition visitor doubted her photographs because of the beautiful light and he believed it rained in Ireland, constantly? Ireland's Eye, Howth from afar by Tricia O'Neill I soon realise that The Martello Towers ...

Two original items from Portumna workhouse, one is a child's shoe & the other a man's boo t. At the Irish Workhouse Museum we are delighted to have several specimens of pauper shoes. However shoes were viewed as a troublesome topic by workhouse management. Some workhouses ordered boot parts and had the paupers assemble them. Others bought them in ready made. Whomever supplied the shoes, it is clear that covering the feet of the poor was not a priority. In Co. Galway alone, six of the ten workhouses were in dispute with the Poor Law Commissioners in England over shoe and stocking provision. The result was newspaper descriptions like the one below: stockingless and  h is feet   were scarcely protected by wretched old shoes   (The Nation-Saturday July 30, 1864) The old pauper described in this article was alleged to be suffering from exposure due to his treatment at Portumna workhouse. A mere six months later, Rev. P. Donalan R.C.C. alleged two women nam...

-The Finnish Famine-    An Interview with Dr. Andrew Newby on his current exhibition at The Irish Workhouse Centre How did this exhibition come about? In 2012 I was pleased to receive an Academy of Finland Award to work on a five year project to compare the Irish and Finnish famines. This exhibition came out of that project. It travelled to Ireland to be displayed in The National Famine Museum at Strokestown but then migrated to the National University of Ireland, Galway. Just when I thought the exhibition had to return to Finland, I was delighted when the opportunity arose for it to be displayed at The Irish Workhouse Centre. How did you get involved in researching the Finnish Famine? I first heard about the Finnish Famine in 1997 from a Finnish Student. Being Irish and specifically a Mayo man, the topic of famine struck a chord with me. The fact that 1997 was the anniversary of Black ‘47 meant that famine research was already on the radar. I visited Fin...

Shorelines has taken over Portumna. The festival has once again filled the town with lots of thought-provoking, quirky, and just plain enjoyable arty-type stuff. The Irish Workhouse Centre has not been spared and we are delighted to be jam packed with delicious art in all shapes and forms. Once again we are all reminded what a great gallery space the workhouse is, and for those of you who wonder how cultural events fit in with the history of this site, here is some food for thought. The workhouse was originally meant to provide help and support to their immediate localities. They failed massively in this duty of care, but we can now readdress this balance using the same site. Heritage spots like ourselves, can and should be embedded in their local communities, providing something for everyone. Let's not keep making the mistakes of the past. Arts are the succour of the soul. The most heart-rending fact I learnt from tour guiding at the workhouse is that paupers, tho...

I am always amazed by the sheer volume of talented artists and crafts people I get to meet as part of stocking the Workhouse Gift Shop. Just when I think I've seen everything, a new product or approach comes along and I have to resist buying one of everything! All the Falling Stones is a series of atmospheric prints by photographer Claire Loader. The prints are fixed onto wooden blocks so that the prints can be free-standing as well as wall mounted. Claire is originally from the 'other' Westport, a coastal town on the South Island of New Zealand. After meeting her husband in China, she took the plunge and moved to Ireland. That was 9 years ago and the New Zealand photographer has been enchanted with Ireland ever since. Like many visitors to Ireland, Claire has never gotten over the amount of castles and abbeys, pure history, often just sitting out in a field somewhere. Immune to steady drizzles, muddy boots and even the odd unfriendly bull, Claire has set about exp...