Mohill Workhouse

Reliance on the potato crop

In late 1847, the number of people admitted to Mohill Workhouse soared to 1,275. By February 1850, it held 1,810 – more than double its capacity. 

Even in good times, the workhouse was an undesirable option for the destitute: families were forcibly split up, living conditions were bad and food was inadequate. In the bad years of the Famine, it was the last resort of the hopeless. When the workhouse opened in 1842, adult inmates could expect a breakfast of seven ounces of oatmeal with a half-pint of milk and for dinner, three and a half pounds of potatoes with a pint of buttermilk. By 1847, the potatoes and milk were gone and adults were limited to a dinner of eight ounces of oatmeal. At one meeting of the Board, it was agreed that rice would be added to the dinner on three days a week and meat would be offered as a treat on Christmas Day. There is reason to believe that even these meagre rations were not dispensed, and that the money supplied to pay for them disappeared into the pockets of the workhouse managers.

By April 1847, having reached the capacity it was designed for, the Board of Guardians concluded that it was not ‘expedient to admit any more applicants on account of the Sickness prevailing in the House, the want of proper officers and the confusion of the accounts’. They also resolved that, considering the Union’s heavy level of debt, the dead would, in future, be interred without a coffin. They argued that the feelings of a dead person’s loved ones could hardly be ‘more hurt than they are at present’, given the ‘melancholy and distressing state of destitution and hopelessness in which they have been thrown’.

By summer, the situation in Mohill was such that it was listed officially as one of twenty-two ‘distressed’ Unions: these formed a nearly continuous line down the whole of the west coast from Glenties in Donegal to south Kerry, and inland from Galway to Leitrim.

Opening doors to the destitute poor

On 8 June 1842, Mohill Workhouse opened its doors to the ‘Destitute Poor’. It had cost nearly £8,000: £6,700 for the construction and the rest on furniture and fittings. It was located in Hyde Street and was typical of its kind: it covered over six acres and was designed to hold a maximum of 700 inmates (though the average number of inmates in the first three years was about 230). 

When it opened, the workhouse was neither a popular nor attractive option for the destitute. Men, women, girls and boys were all housed in separate quarters and families might only be allowed to meet once a week; the day was regimented and anyone breaking the many rules suffered severe punishment. Food was poor and portions were small; bedding was uncomfortable and there was little to protect a body from the cold and damp. Illness and fever were endemic. In 1844, a Fever Hospital was built to deal with the increasing incidence of Typhus and ‘yellow’ fever, but many died and were buried in a mass ‘paupers’ grave’ beside the workhouse. 

Incompetent response to the crisis

As the Famine increased its grip, it became obvious that the management of Mohill Workhouse was incompetent in its response to the crisis. Clements was one of many who complained about the Mohill Board. Although the complaints were taken to government level, they were dismissed as having no real substance and attributed to Clements’s personal animosity to the Poor Law and its administrators. While it is true that Clements did irritate the administration in Dublin Castle with needless submissions, his animosity came from a genuine belief that the government’s incompetence had caused the Famine. In this case, Clements’ irritation was justified. In short, the Mohill Board of Guardians was apathetic and uninterested in organising themselves to deal with the growing crisis. This general attitude could be a cause of, or a result of, a very high turnover of workhouse management and staff during the period. Four Board members resigned. Some members of staff were lost to death or illness, but in one case the Master and Matron were sacked because the Board disapproved of their marriage. In another, the workhouse clerk, John Clarke who looked after the workhouse accounts was sacked from his position when the Commissioners deemed him ‘unfit for office’. (A month later he was to be found holding the same position in Carrick Workhouse.) There were also continued reverberations from the prosecution of three Board members in January 1846. 

By late 1847, Mohill Union was drowning in debt and contractors were refusing to supply the workhouse. The Poor Law Commissioners had enough evidence to justify removing the Board and replacing it with salaried Vice-Guardians. Probably in anticipation of opposition, they picked a time when Lord Clements was away from home.

Report on Mohill Workhouse, 1847

The Vice-Guardian’s submitted their report to the Poor Law Commissioners within a week: in it, they condemned the management of Mohill Workhouse. The Report on Mohill Workhouse, 1847 paints a vivid picture of the place as a filthy, lawless, neglected pit whose funds were probably siphoned off by members of the Board of Guardians:

The building we found most dilapidated, and fast advancing to ruin, everything out of repair, the yards undrained and filled, in common with the cesspools, by accumulations of filth – a violation of all sanitary requirements; fever and dysentery prevailing throughout the house, every ward filthy to a most noisome degree, evolving offensive effluvia; the paupers defectively clothed, and many of those recently admitted continuing in their own rags and impurity; classification and separation set at nought; a general absence of utensils and implement; the dietary not adhered to, and the food given in a half-cooked state – most inadequate, particularly for the sick; the meals distributed through the medium of one-sixth the number of vessels required, and uproar and confusion, the stronger securing an over quantity to the privation of the weaker, and the breakfast not completely dispensed until late in the evening; no contracts existing, no stores of provisions to meet even the wants of a day; the able-bodied not employed, and without restraint or discipline; the destruction of all description of Union property proceeding rapidly, many hundreds’ pounds worth appearing to be missing; the children in the schools receiving no education or industrial training, in other respects their neglected state painfully exhibited by their diseased and emaciated aspect; no means for the proper treatment of the sick, the officers ignorant of their duties; coffins unused in the internment of the dead.

The Vice-Guardians’ task was not an easy one. Over the next few months, they complained frequently about the interminable difficulties they faced: the ‘useless’ workhouse officers and a ‘most worthless set’ of workmen ensured that repairs were made slowly and with reluctance. They were also frustrated by their inability to find anyone to take on the job of Poor Rate collector.

Despite being offered the ‘extravagant rate of fees’ (two shillings in the pound), ‘proper persons’ were, apparently, deterred from taking the job by a host of issues, including: 'The extreme poverty of the area, which we regret to say, is retrograding still further every day, every description of chattel property fast disappearing its lawless state, the unusually high rates, and the previous irregular habits formed in meeting this species of demand.'

By December 1847, the positions of the Poor Law Union in the whole country were in such a state of chaos that the administration suspended the functions of all the local voluntary Boards of Guardians and replaced them with salaried administrators. Unfortunately, many of these drew the salary but did little.

Sending migrants to Australia

As the Famine progressed, emigration was seen as the best option for many who found their way to the workhouse. Under the Gregory Clause of 1847, prospective emigrants were to be assisted by the Guardians of the Union with their landlord committing to provide a fair and reasonable sum to fund the emigration and to forego whatever rent was due. The guardians were empowered to provide a sum up to half of that provided by the landlord with this being levied off the rates.

The new Board made money available to buy suits of clothes for inmates whose (mostly female) relatives had sent home money to pay their passage to America or Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). In some cases, funds were provided to contribute to the cost of passage. Between 1845-55, nearly two million people emigrated from Ireland to America and Australia, and another 750,000 to Britain, the largest single population movement of the 19^th century. Thousands died on board ‘coffin ships’ as they crossed the Atlantic to America. Thousands more died soon after they arrived.

In 1848, Mohill Workhouse responded to a request from the Colonial Lands & Emigration Commissioners in London for female migrants to Australia. Women and girls were wanted as workers and wives to balance out the disproportionately male population that had grown in Australia out of the high rates of transportation. The girls in Mohill were typical: aged fifteen to eighteen, the girls were not orphans, but were selected by the master, matron and chaplain for their good health and moral character. And they were supported by the girls’ parents who saw emigration as the only option for their children. The girls were sent on their way with a box of supplies, including petticoats, gowns, shoes, a shawl and bonnet, two pounds of soap and a prayer book. At least forty-five girls are known to have been shipped from Mohill: two separate groups landed in Sydney, Australia, one in 1848, the other in 1850.