By December 1846, with over-crowded conditions the Workhouse death rate rose.

Outside too the poor were getting desperate. Bardon (p283) reported of ‘Newry people constantly holding nightly meetings’ to discuss the withholding of rents. Dr Davis complained that his hospital was so over-crowded that those afflicted with infectious diseases (whooping cough etc.) had to be retained in the Workhouse. He requested as a preventative, more clothes for women and children, the most delicate of them requiring ‘shoes and stockings’. Where any footwear was available at Union expense, it was believed to be open clogs. He rather ambitiously also requested flannel waistcoats and shoes and stockings for men and boys.

Because of the insufficient supply of buttermilk and the too frequent use of treacle (causing bowel complaints) he requested that Lent Broth [a thin meatless soup] be offered because it is ‘as cheap as buttermilk and more comfortable in cold weather’.

Within a month he was again begging Guardians to end further admissions and to supply a little (half pint) sweet milk with their evening stirabout to nursery children and the infirm. He commented on the wretched destitution and diseased state (fever, dysentery) of new inmates. The Workhouse needed ventilation, clothes and a supply of fresh, dry straw for bedding. 

Just one week later he was complaining that though the milk was approved by the Guardians, it had not been supplied. There were nine new cases of fever, four of measles and two of scarlet fever. Newry Fever Hospital, elsewhere in town, would not accept new fever patients at the Union’s expense. New patients needed a subscriber’s ticket (paid for in advance).

As things became worse, the master and schoolmaster died. Dr Davis was off work ill. The Clerk of the Union (2 March 1847) reported that therefore ‘the provision account could not be drawn up’. A week later, things worsened again. The Board resolved...

 ‘that cess pools be immediately cleared by the inmates  

that to abate the nuisance created within the building by the concentration of four privies with cess pools in the centre of the building the privies connected with the boys and girls yards and the probationary wards be immediately removed 

and that new privies be erected in the most remote positions 

and that cess pools be sunk apart from the House  

also that a water-closet be erected for the officers of the Workhouse.

Just two weeks later, Davis’s assistant Surgeon Savage reported 362 inmates under medical treatment, of which 57 including the schoolmistress were fever patients.

Under these circumstances, he admitted to the infirmary as many as he could, and transferred chronic cases from the infirmary to the infirm wards.

The disease abated in the summer, but by autumn Davis was again requesting... ‘a more sufficient and wholesome diet, adequate winter clothing, dry, clean straw and the absolute necessity of suitable hospital accommodation for the infirm.’

The 'Irish Poor Law Extension Act' 1847 came into effect in August of that year but was not acted on for several months more.  Its principal effect was the granting of relief to the poor not resident in the workhouse. 

The Dundalk Union in November agreed to a rate of 7d per adult and 3.5d to children under nine years.  Outdoor relief was anathema to the Government, but this was a crisis situation.

 In 1848 the Commissioners advised the Guardians that they might ‘grant such allowances as are required to supply the paupers with lodging fuel and clothing as well as food’ so as to avoid authorising outdoor relief to able-bodied men. By the mid year temporary buildings were accommodating (with the main Workhouse) 1,283, including 200 aged and infirm, 422 able-bodied, 632 boys and girls and 29 infants. The hospital had 77; there were 14 lunatics and 4 deaths. 1,824 received outdoor relief, Indian meal, at depots around the Union.

An additional workhouse for 300 was provided and was filled within a month. By September with some easing, the commissioners were demanding strict adherence to the Workhouse Test to reduce outdoor relief. By February of 1849, even with auxiliary capacity all places were filled and there was an outbreak of cholera. Dr Morrison recommended the renting of a house in Drumalane to isolate these patients. By April the medical officer, relieved of the cholera outbreak, was back complaining that paupers were being deprived of their stated allowance of food. The privy in the auxiliary workhouse garden had not yet been erected. Cholera returned in May. Dr Davis, the responsible physician not just in the Workhouse but in the town too complained that cholera patients lived in destitution and filth and lacked medicine.

One must remember prevailing conditions too in the town itself.