There were factors that featured on a national and wider scale, such as temporary agricultural recessions, government policies and the shift from cultivation to pasture.

The rising and falling trends of Workhouse admissions over Ireland can be traced to a combination of all of these. 

For example, from 1850-1854 there was a marked fall in admissions. This temporary alleviation can be explained by the end of Great Hunger conditions, but also by the effects of the 1851 Medical Charities Act. The Act provided the machinery for supplying domiciliary medical relief all over the country. Prior to this the sick got relief only in workhouse hospitals, county infirmaries or as out-patients at various dispensaries. Most of the latter dated from the beginning of the century, but they were ill-equipped and financed, often voluntary, and received but little subsidy from the county cess. Medical advice was given gratuitously to all comers, but medical supplies were very small and doctors paid domiciliary visits only to some of those who lived close to dispensaries. 

Thereafter larger factors again prevailed. Temporary outbreaks of such rampant diseases as road fever, cholera, relapsing fever and smallpox saw sudden upward swings in Workhouse numbers. Worsened world economic conditions in the early 1860s (partly due to Civil War in America) saw a large upswing. The numbers levelled off again to a high, if fairly constant level for most of the rest of the century. 

More generous outdoor relief continued to be offered to the English destitute over the second half of the nineteenth century. The 1844 General Order had allowed outdoor relief there according to similar provisions to those just quoted, but crucially also allowed paupers to claim it ‘where such person shall require relief on account of sudden and urgent necessity’. The bounds of the latter were not prescribed, allowing Boards of Guardians to decide on each case. As early as 1847 the Poor Law Board in England and Wales had given up hope of prohibiting outdoor relief in one hundred and forty two Unions, one fifth of the total. This was the year that the government closed the Public Works schemes in Ireland and declared the Famine over.

In post-Famine Ireland, it slowly and gradually dawned upon Irish Boards of Guardians – in Newry after much persuasion from their Clerk – that outdoor relief was often more economical to the ratepayers; that paupers maintained within the walls cost more than those given partial relief outside. 

As the shift took place, the annual cost of outdoor relief mounted, from an average of no more than £10 for 1850-1859 to some £39 in the latter year. There was an enormous increase over the next decade, as shown below.

The average daily indoor cost per pauper had increased from 1.4d to 1.6d - a figure much less than one new penny and below the average expenditure per inmate in other Unions throughout Ireland.  The Dundalk Democrat's editor of 1860 was over-generous in 'allowing' Newry Guardians two pence per pauper per day for rations!

The latter year (1869) was exceptional and things began to improve after the first of Gladstone’s Irish Lands Acts in 1870. Still there continued to be complaints about the cost. Mr Quinn J P of the Guardians informed the Board in 1869 that the Relieving Officer assured him that those given outdoor relief were mainly the sick, infirm and the bed-ridden. By the year’s end there were 540 in the House. 

The Clerk reported that in that distressed year, Newry Union had expended over £210 to assist sixty persons to emigrate to America, Australia and Canada. Dr Davis was still in place and still recommending sweet milk for the pauper’s health. “In the name of goodness, are they fed on milk, they get so much of it?” complained Mr R Glenny of the Board. The Poor Law Rate was then 1s 8d in the pound compared with 1s a decade before. Answering complaints, the Clerk said that in Dundalk, Banbridge and Drogheda, outdoor relief was much more extensively given than in Newry. 

In 1872 the Local Government Board Act abolished the Poor Law Commission and substituted a local government board which assumed all the Commission’s powers. From 1879 to 1881 there was a sharp agricultural depression and the government was forced to sanction outdoor relief on a large scale again to the able-bodied. Later in December 1882 it attempted to re-assert the principle of no able-bodied relief outside the Workhouse but without success. The pressure on admissions persisted. 

The 1898 Local Government Act [Ireland] established a system of Urban and Rural District Councils throughout Ireland. Under the Act, the Boards of Guardians ceased to be responsible for the rates collection and for public sanitation but they remained responsible for the Poor Law, for Workhouses and for Infirmaries and Dispensaries. Outdoor relief as an exceptional measure was accepted. If Guardians could satisfy the County Council and Local Government Board that exceptional distress existed in their area, then the Board could authorize relief works schemes or outdoor relief for the able-bodied for a period of two months.  

1900 FIRE IN THE WORKHOUSE

In an outbreak of fire in 1900 which encompassed the main building until it burnt itself out, the school rooms, the male and female infirm wards and all the officials’ quarters were destroyed. There was no injury or loss of life of staff or of the two hundred and fourteen inmates. The fire broke out in an official’s room where an overheated oil heater was blamed. Although the fire brigade (and the military) attended there was nothing they could do for lack of an adequate water supply. Even the pro-establishment periodic magazine ‘The Open Window’ blamed the ‘indifferent’ Guardians who, they quoted… ‘have been generally and deservedly censured for their totally inexcusable neglect’. 

The lack of an adequate water supply for the first sixty years of its existence was a health and sanitation as well as a fire safety risk. This neglect was less easily forgiven since Newry had recently been linked to the water supply of Camlough Lake - passing close by the Workhouse on its route. An alternative water supply ran by the higher ground on the north west, passing through the north end of the Pauper’s Graveyard. This was the clear, fresh water of Derrybeg River tumbling from Camlough Mountain en route to the sea. At any time a channel, diverting water to a pool within Workhouse property, might have been dug. 

The Open Window noted that the total insurance cover was insufficient to cover the whole damage, estimated at £5000. It urged a re-think on renovations. The Workhouse had originally been built – ‘in the barrack fashion’ – for a large percentage of able-bodied, but now should provide for ‘the poverty-stricken, the infirm and the aged.’ Originally for one thousand and forty six persons, it added, half that number would now suffice. It hoped that the destroyed part would be replaced with ‘habitable rooms, proper appliances and humane arrangements’ instead of the ‘big, draughty, rat-infested, bare and utterly comfortless barn-like apartments’. 

When rebuilding was complete, The Open Window was fulsome in its praise. Alexander Whelan built to Mr Brown’s plans. ‘Beyond the porch, which is as before, is a hall and double staircase. Surgery is to one side, matron’s office to the other. Passages lead to the male and female sick wards, measuring 44′ 6″ by 30′. Through them is access to the convalescent and to the infirm ward, all with improved windows and well-ventilated. Baths are attached to the male and the female sick wards. Exits lead to the yard, formerly the children’s playground, now for patients’ use. In wet weather they may access, via an external but covered passage, a day room. Visitors’ and store rooms are off the main hall. 

Upstairs are male and female infirmary sick wards each 53′ by 30′. Store rooms, baths, closets and conveniences are nearby. Through male infirmary is a passage to male private wards and male infirm wards. Female mirrors this with also a maternity ward. On the second floor are Master’s and Matron’s bedrooms, linen stores, water closets, stoves and bathrooms. At the West end are female infectious and infirm wards. On the East are male infectious and infirm wards. All are large and airy. Male and female consumptive (TB) wards are on opposite corners where they will receive plenty of sunshine, air and isolation.

There are six sets of fire appliances with 3′ pipe. A 1′ pipe supplies closets etc. Provision is laid down for external hydrants. Drainage will have man-hole covers and vent pipes, connected at the Camlough Road to the town drainage system.’ 

In 1903 a Vice Regal Commission of Inquiry into Irish Poor Relief was set up, which reported on 10 October 1906. Its recommendations – though never enacted in full – are interesting. It recommended, where possible without hardship to the sick and destitute poor, the dissolution or amalgamation of Workhouses. It suggested that such dissolved workhouses could be taken over by County Councils for such things as auxiliary lunatic asylums. Arrangements should be made for the better classification and treatment of amalgamated inmates, especially in regard to the aged, the sick and infirm, sick lunatics and children chargeable to the said Unions. It enquired as to efficiency measures and how best to provide additional accommodation if necessary. 

Few were ever dissolved or amalgamated, immediately before or after this time. Up to 1851 one hundred and sixty three Unions had been formed. Four Unions were dissolved 1884-1890. By 1905 there were one hundred and fifty nine Unions with the same number of Workhouses. On 11 March 1905 there were 45,195 inmates. These were made up in proportion of about 30% sick, 30% aged and infirm, about 10% able-bodied, a little more than that of children, about 8% insane epileptics and most of the rest were mothers of illegitimate children. The Commission expressed opposition to so many different classes of persons being confined in the same institution. 

Gradually a less strict regime pertained, thanks largely, in Newry, to the good offices of such persons as John F Small, Guardian and first Nationalist M.P. for the area, and the Rev S C Pinkerton and his wife. Small ensured that inmates, on release, could have their own clothes dried and aired; that Sunday be deemed an additional visiting day; that books and papers be provided; and that infirm patients (not paupers) could wear their own clothes when out on leave. Yet for most of the rest of the Workhouses’ lifetime difficult conditions prevailed. The percentages of different classes of inmates varied according to circumstances. 

For example, the number of aged decreased with the introduction of Old Age Pensions in 1908. The Unemployment and Sickness Insurance Act of 1911 eventually led to a sharp fall-off in numbers of able-bodied adults seeking relief in the Workhouses. In Newry and elsewhere by the 1920s for example, the adult able-bodied – the heads of families that the system was originally designed to penalise – constituted on average much less than twenty per cent of inmates, compared with more than sixty per cent in the Great Hunger years. By then, at least in some Ulster Unions the long-term unemployed were treated with a fair degree of generosity and Newry was one such (Bardon: p534). Belfast was less generous in outdoor relief. 

Lily Coleman, the 1920s Unionist Minister of Labour gained notoriety for complaining, “There’s no poverty under the sheets”, an oft repeated phrase thereafter. There was an increase again in the Hungry Thirties, consequent upon world recession. 

By the last decade of the Workhouses in Ulster (1941-1948), around four and a half thousand inmates were on indoor relief while those on outdoor relief averaged about ten thousand over all Unions. Expenditure averaged about half a million pounds.

Gradually – and sadly – these institutions had become dumping grounds for the disabled, feeble, insane, the sick and orphans, and unmarried mothers. In the Irish Free State, the 1923 Local Government Act abolished the Poor Law system, replacing it with public assistance in their own homes for the able-bodied poor, and in county homes, religious/ charitable institutions, and district hospitals for the old and the sick.

In England and Wales the Poor Law system was abolished in 1930. The 1934 Unemployment Assistance Act shifted responsibility in this one area from the Guardians to the central government authority.

Eventually it was the passing of the National Assistance Act in 1948 that tolled the death knell for Newry Workhouse. 

End

{What follows comprises chiefly the reminiscences of living persons}

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