Westport Civic Trust is committed to raising community awareness about the natural, historical and architectural heritage of the west Mayo region, promoting good planning standards as well as providing educational lectures and excursions for members. The public lecture programme runs a series of monthly evening talks during the autumn, winter and spring in the Plaza hotel. Talks are free to members of the Civic Trust. Non-members are welcome for a small cover charge and can sign up as members on lecture nights.
The first lecture this year takes place on Tuesday 7th October at 8pm in the Plaza hotel. Dr Gerard Moran will talk about Westport workhouse during the Great Famine. All are welcome: admission is free to members, otherwise €5 on the night.
Westport workhouse was one of nine set up in Mayo by the Poor Law of 1838 for the support of destitute poor or ‘paupers’ as they were called. It took in its first paupers in November 1845, some months after the potato blight made its appearance. Westport was the third largest Poor Law union (of townlands and parishes) in Ireland - covering 344,000 acres, and many of the poor had to travel up to 40 miles from Achill to be admitted through its grim walls. The building accommodated 1,000 inmates, one of the largest along the western seaboard. After 1847 the Poor Law provided the only relief available to the poor and the workhouse was unable to cope with the demand: additional buildings, auxiliary workhouses and fever sheds were rented – corn stores, breweries, etc. – where conditions were worse than in the main building. Conditions in the workhouse were designed to be harsher than on the outside to deter people coming in. Families were separated on entering, and strict rules were applied. Troublesome inmates were sent to solitary confinement, or had their food withdrawn.
In November 1848 there were 1000 people in the workhouse, 30 in the fever sheds, 112 in the workhouse infirmary, and 700 living in an auxiliary workhouse. During November the workhouse purchased 550 lbs of white bread, 12,000 lbs of brown bread, 50 oz of butter, 4,300 gallons of buttermilk, 800 gallons of milk, 2 lbs salt, 77 lbs meat, 3½ Ibs of tea, 12 Ibs sugar, 280 Ibs molasses, 60 Ibs candles, 70 Ibs soap, 3 Ibs starch and a large quantity of Indian Meal.
Unions like Westport were constantly in debt and only remained open through funds provided by the Marquess of Sligo and other members of the Board of Guardians of the workhouse. The guardians constantly sought ways to reduce expenditure resulting in a decline in the quality and quantity of food which had consequences for the inmates’ health, especially children. Women and children constituted the largest group, with children comprising up to 45 per cent of the overall workhouse population. Children were classified as ‘deserted’ or orphans as some parents used the workhouse as a safety net while they sought work in Britain and North America. Mortality increased in the late 1840s because of overcrowded conditions and the emaciated condition of those admitted. In order to reduce the workhouse population, Westport was one of the unions that sent orphan girls to Australia and Canada.
GERARD MORAN lectured in the History Department at Galway andMaynooth universities. He has published extensively on 19th-century emigration from Ireland, including Sending Out Ireland’s Poor:Assisted Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century (2004). He was joint editor of Mayo: History and Society published in 2014.
