The Irish Workhouse Museum

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...

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 t he 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 c...

August is always an exciting month for the Irish Workhouse Centre as we celebrate National Heritage Week . Running from August 18th to 26th, Heritage Week will again be a major focus here. Steve Dolan (Our current Workhouse Master) with Claire Doyle (His beautiful assistant) The aim of National Heritage Week is to preserve our folklore, ancient legends and archive the stories of our past in our minds. It is an event tailored to people of all ages and represents every facet of the Irish identity. This year, the theme of Heritage Week is ‘connections’. We encourage people to get involved and ‘make a connection’ to their heritage. Our heritage belongs to us, and it is important that we preserve and cherish it. We will host ten events over the nine days, will hold ten events off-site, and are providing nine free publications over the nine days.   No centre or museum in the county holds as many events as the Workhouse. Perhaps, some of these events might interest you......

Paw-prints in the brick floor of the Laundry House It all started with a chance sighting of animal footprints in the Laundry House. The print was not the result of dirty paws but rather a set of indentations in a brick. A colleague was quick to point out that the marks reminded him of Roman bricks and tiles. I was unfamiliar with the phenomenon but was delighted to find a whole host of examples on-line. My favourite is an example from Northumberland which dates from the 1st century. This Roman tile has three pig-trotter prints and two faint dog paw-prints. So how did the prints end up in our bricks? The secret lays in the process of brick making.  1st Century Roman Tile-Northumberland Bricks and tiles have a long history of being dried in the sun before they are baked in the ferocious heat of a kiln. This basking in the sun lets a lot of the moisture escape. This may seem like extra work when the clay could just be packed into the kiln and fired, but it is wort...

                                                      The exact window from whence Bridget ended her life The story of Bridget Corbett is one of the saddest to come out of Portumna workhouse. Her experiences call into question just how 'free' a person really was to leave the workhouse if they had any sort of physical impediment. In our current era of trying to increase accessibility, this story is especially sobering. We are lucky to have the details of the case from a newspaper report dated November 1872 which tells us about Bridget's plight.  The elderly widow lay  confined to a bed for  12 months, in extreme discomfort from the effects of rheumatism. On November 10 th of that year Bridget made the first attempt on her own life but was stopped. Not to be deterred,   Mrs Corbett must have had her mind made up a...

600 is a site-specific installation by artist Jenny Wood-Sullivan . The title references the quantity of paupers which could be housed in Portumna workhouse. The use of a number as the installation title immediately highlights Jenny's interest in how paupers were processed in the workhouse system, essentially reducing people to just numbers on a page. With this in mind, it is striking how visually pleasing and gentle the installation appears, with the contemplative art of origami (a Japanese technique of folding paper into a variety of forms) taking centre stage. As the visitor walks through one of the original workhouse rooms, they are witness to a flock of 600 origami birds flying down towards the floor, in a desperate attempt to reach a solitary seed. The viewer does not need to be told that there is not enough food for all. The birds themselves are folded from the pages of an old tome titled The Church and Science by Sir Bertram C. A. Windle , printed in 1917. Wha...

The work of Kieran Tuohy has to be seen to be believed. Perhaps it is the fact that his large sculptures are carved from single pieces of bog-wood,   or that the natural cracks in the petrified timber are as vital to the pieces as Kieran's own hand, or that the striking gleam of bog-wood is just so hard to photograph. Whatever the reason, everyone who visits the Dark Shadows Exhibition comes away ineffably changed. The impact of Dark Shadows is even more incredible given the fact that the Famine, or as many people now call it The Great Hunger , is not new to us. It is one of the nation's most defining events, a cataclysm drummed into us at school and reinforced by having Irish communities around the world. It is not for love of travel alone that the Irish Diaspora is proportionately one of the largest in the world. So to mount an exhibition which solely focuses on The Great Hunger would seem a risky venture. That is, until you are confronted with the sculptures thems...