If you are lucky enough to have created and tended a vegetable patch during lockdown, you may be getting ready to harvest your potato crop of earlies round about now. The Irish, in particular, have an affinity for the potato which, in the 1840s, lead to a very dark time in Irish history; The Great … Continue reading Ireland will never never recover
“The Workhouse was the most feared and hated institution ever established in Ireland” - John O’Connor, The Workhouses of Ireland. The local workhouse building remains a familiar sight in many towns across the island of Ireland. Built to provide relief for the poor, the controversial and tragic history of these buildings reverberates to this very day. … Continue reading The Workhouse Drawings Collection
'The cabin generally of the most miserable description, the furniture corresponding. The bed, a small quantity of straw and an indifferent blanket; sheets none.’ Thus James Kirwan Esq. J.P. describes the housing, furnishings and bedding in the parish of Tuam, Co Galway in 1836 in answer to a questionnaire sent out by the Royal Commission … Continue reading The Poor Law Commission