From 1839, Ballyoughter formed part of the Gorey Poor Law Union, the administrative district responsible for poor relief in the surrounding area. At its centre was Gorey Workhouse, built in 1840–41 and first occupied on 22 January 1842.
The surviving reports and minute books of the Union provide important evidence of life during and after the Great Famine. They record the cost of poor relief, conditions in the workhouse, public-health measures, assisted emigration and the rates paid by communities within Balloughter Electoral Division.
This page introduces the Irish Poor Law system and Gorey Workhouse before presenting records with a direct connection to Ballyoughter, Camolin and the neighbouring townlands.
The Poor Law System in Ireland
In the early nineteenth century, poverty was widespread throughout Ireland. The Irish Poor Laws, introduced through a series of Acts of Parliament, were intended to address the severe social problems caused by extreme poverty. The Irish Poor Law Act of 1838 followed a similar Act introduced in England in 1834 and resulted in Ireland being divided into 130 administrative districts known as Poor Law Unions.
Following the passing of the Act, the Poor Law Commissioners decided not to use the existing administrative divisions of baronies and civil parishes, as these varied greatly in size. Instead, new divisions called Poor Law Unions were established. Each Union was financed through a local poor rate levied within its own district.
A workhouse was established in each Poor Law Union, from which poor relief was administered. The selection of a town as the principal market town of a Poor Law Union was therefore highly significant. The Poor Relief system generated considerable business for local traders, who supplied food, clothing and other goods to the workhouse.
The affairs of each Union were administered by a Board of Guardians comprising elected representatives and ex-officio guardians drawn from local magistrates.
Further unions were subsequently created, eventually bringing the total to 163.
The new system was initially expected to provide for approximately 80,000 impoverished people, representing about 1% of the population. By 1851, however, the Great Famine had driven almost 300,000 people, or approximately 4% of the population, into workhouses. This figure does not include those receiving outdoor relief.
Over time, the Poor Law Unions became important centres of local administration, taking responsibility for services including health provision, housing and sanitation. Under the Local Government Act 1898, some of these functions were transferred to newly established rural district councils, although the Poor Law Unions continued to administer poor relief until most were abolished in southern Ireland during the early 1920s.
Gorey Workhouse
Founding and Opening
Gorey Poor Law Union was formally established in 1839, and a workhouse was constructed on a seven-acre site to the south-west of Gorey in 1840–41. The Union covered approximately 190 square miles and contained ten electoral divisions.
Designed to accommodate 500 people, the workhouse cost £5,675 to construct, with a further £1,025 spent on fittings, bringing the total cost to £6,700. The first admissions took place on 22 January 1842.
Conditions and the Great Famine
Workhouse conditions were deliberately austere and strictly regulated so that admission remained a last resort. Families could be separated on entering the institution, while inmates were required to follow prescribed routines, diets and systems of work. Despite these conditions, extreme poverty, hunger and illness left many people with no alternative but to seek admission.
An extension was built during the Great Famine, providing accommodation for an additional 80 people. The number of inmates fluctuated over the years, reaching its highest level at the height of the Famine in 1847, when Gorey Workhouse held 715 inmates.
Click or tap the image to enlarge it.
Design and Layout
A standard architectural template was used in the construction of workhouses throughout Ireland. The plans were designed by the English architect George Wilkinson.
At Gorey, an H-shaped entrance and administrative block stood at the front of the complex, with accommodation for inmates, a school, exercise yards and service buildings extending behind it. Male and female inmates were housed separately.
Behind the main accommodation ranges were service areas including the bakehouse and washhouse, together with the chapel and dining hall. Beyond these stood the infirmary.
A burial ground was situated on land to the north of the main building, while a fever hospital stood on the southern side of the site.
Click or tap the image to enlarge it.
The Board of Guardians
The affairs of Gorey Poor Law Union were administered by a Board of Guardians consisting of 32 members. Twenty-four were elected to represent the Union’s electoral divisions, while eight served as ex-officio guardians.
The Board met each Saturday on the first floor of the workhouse’s administrative block.
Its work is recorded in the surviving minutes of its meetings. These records contain information about admissions, discharges, births and deaths, as well as details of the assistance and provisions supplied to paupers throughout the Union.
Later History and Surviving Buildings
Many Irish workhouses were later converted into hospitals or county homes, and their distinctive buildings can still be recognised in towns throughout the country.
The workhouse site was later occupied by the Gorey Leather Company. Most of the original complex was subsequently demolished, although the former administrative block and a detached cottage survive and have been adapted for residential use.
Assisted Emigration from Gorey Workhouse
The Earl Grey Assisted Female Emigration Scheme, 1848–50
Earl Grey, the British Colonial Secretary, was responsible for the assisted female emigration scheme that operated between 1848 and 1850.
Under the scheme, suitable female orphans were selected for assisted emigration to the Australian colonies. Fifteen left Gorey Workhouse on 17 April 1849, travelled from Dublin Port to Plymouth and sailed aboard the New Liverpool. A further six left in March 1850 and again travelled from Dublin to Plymouth before sailing aboard the Tippoo Saib.
The scheme was introduced partly in response to a marked imbalance between men and women in the Australian colonies.
The Gorey Union records provide detailed information about the young women selected under the scheme. They record each female emigrant’s name and age, whether she could read, write and spell, and whether she could knit, sew and wash. The records also state how long each woman had spent in the workhouse.
Source: Gorey Board of Guardians records relating to the Earl Grey assisted female emigration scheme, 1848–50. Wexford County Archive.
Assisted Emigration to New Orleans, 1858
This 1858 return records the assisted emigration of five people from Gorey Poor Law Union to New Orleans. The group comprised two females aged over 15 and three children.
This emigration took place several years after the Earl Grey assisted female emigration scheme had ended and should therefore be regarded as a separate episode in the history of the Union.
Source: Eleventh Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland, 1858, Gorey Union extract relating to emigration to New Orleans. Courtesy of University of Southampton/JSTOR Community Collection.
Ballyoughter within Gorey Poor Law Union
Balloughter Electoral Division in 1849
This 1849 parliamentary report records proposed changes to the electoral divisions of Gorey Poor Law Union. Its list of townlands in Balloughter Electoral Division is particularly valuable for local history, as it identifies the administrative area through which poor rates were collected and local representation on the Board of Guardians was organised.
Source: Commission Inquiring into the Number and Boundaries of Poor Law Unions and Electoral Divisions, Twelfth Report, 1849, Gorey Union extract. Courtesy of University of Southampton/JSTOR Community Collection.
From this report in 1849, 11 years after the Poor Law Act of 1838, there were still proposed changes to the Electoral Divisions in Gorey Poor Law Union.
The townlands listed for Balloughter Electoral Division correspond closely with those appearing in later records. One notable difference is the appearance of two separate entries named Clonmore, which were subsequently amalgamated into the single townland now bearing that name.
Further information on these earlier divisions can be found in the Tithe Applotments section.
Historical spelling: Balloughter is the spelling used for the Electoral Division in the official nineteenth-century records. Ballyoughter is used elsewhere on this website for the locality.
Poor Relief, Rates and Expenditure, 1848–68
These official returns provide a detailed picture of the administration and financing of Gorey Poor Law Union during and after the Great Famine. They record the numbers receiving relief, expenditure on the workhouse and poor relief, property valuations and the poundage rates levied across the Union’s electoral divisions.
Of particular local interest are the returns for Balloughter Electoral Division, which record changes in the poor rate levied locally. The surviving extracts include records from 1848, 1850, 1857–64 and 1868.
The returns also provide an insight into the considerable cost of operating Gorey Workhouse, including expenditure on food, salaries, medical care, repairs and other provisions for inmates. In 1848, 7.84% of the population of Gorey Union was recorded as receiving relief, slightly above the provincial figure of 7.51%.
Understanding the poor rate: The poundage rate was the amount charged for every pound of a property’s official rateable valuation. In Balloughter Electoral Division, the surviving returns show the rate varying from five pence in the pound in 1850 to one shilling in the pound in 1863.
Sources: Selected Gorey Union extracts from the Reports of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland, 1848, 1858 and 1868. Courtesy of University of Southampton/JSTOR Community Collection.
The second set of returns provides further detail on the financing of poor relief across Gorey Poor Law Union and is particularly useful for tracing changes in Balloughter Electoral Division. It records the poundage rate levied in 1850, followed by the valuations and poundage rates for the electoral divisions in 1857–59 and 1861–64.
The later return broadens the picture by combining Union-wide poundage rates with figures for the number of paupers receiving assistance and expenditure on both workhouse and outdoor relief for selected years between 1857 and 1862. Together, these records allow changes in property valuation, local poor rates and the financial demands of poor relief to be compared over time.
Source: Return of Name and Valuation of each Electoral Division, and Poundage Rates in Gorey Poor Law Union, 1850 and 1857–64. Courtesy of University of Southampton/JSTOR Community Collection.
Public Health and Vaccination
The responsibilities of the Poor Law Unions extended beyond the workhouse itself. During the nineteenth century, they became increasingly involved in the provision of local medical services, including vaccination against smallpox. Vaccinations were administered through dispensary districts, with medical officers responsible for carrying out the programme in their respective areas.
In the 1850s, smallpox was killing approximately 1,500 people in Ireland each year. Vaccination became compulsory under legislation passed in 1863. For children born after 1 January 1864, parents or guardians were required to have them vaccinated within six months of birth. The programme was administered through the dispensary districts of the Poor Law Unions. By 1867, the annual number of smallpox deaths had fallen to about 20, and by the 1890s Irish health authorities believed the disease had been brought largely under control.
The Commissioners’ Report records five dispensary districts serving the ten electoral divisions of Gorey Poor Law Union. All ten electoral divisions participated in the vaccination programme, which was administered by five medical officers. Each medical officer was paid one shilling for every successful vaccination recorded.
The records for 1858 show that 35 vaccinations were administered in Gorey Workhouse itself, with a further 163 carried out through the Union’s dispensary districts. These returns illustrate how the responsibilities of the Poor Law Union were expanding beyond the relief of poverty and the management of the workhouse into the developing system of organised public health provision.
Vaccination nevertheless faced opposition at a time when medical and scientific knowledge remained limited. Some sceptics turned instead to alternative treatments, including bleeding, the application of leeches, drinking whiskey, herbal remedies and eating chalk.
Although smallpox had become rare in Ireland, a further outbreak occurred in Dublin in 1903, while an outbreak in Wales caused renewed concern in 1963. Smallpox was ultimately declared eradicated worldwide in 1980, more than a century after vaccination programmes had begun.
Reports of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland, selected vaccination returns for Gorey Union, 1848 and 1858. Courtesy of University of Southampton/JSTOR Community Collection.
Poverty in Ballyoughter and Camolin, 1846
A report published in the Wexford Independent in June 1846 preserves correspondence between the Camolin Poor Relief Committee and Rev. William Purcell, Parish Administrator. Written during the early stages of the Great Famine, it provides a valuable contemporary account of the poverty affecting Ballyoughter, Camolin and the surrounding district.
The correspondence also records criticism of the Earl of Courtown, one of the principal local landowners. Rev. Purcell referred to him disparagingly as a novus homo, or “new man”, while questioning the extent of the assistance being provided at a time of increasing hardship.
Unlike the official Poor Law returns, which record statistics, expenditure and rates, this newspaper correspondence provides an insight into how poverty and relief were experienced and discussed within the local community.
Click or tap the image to enlarge it.
Source: Wexford Independent, 6 June 1846. Newspaper images reproduced with the kind permission of Wexford County Council Library Archives.
Sources and Further Research
Further records relating to Gorey Poor Law Union survive in Wexford County Archive, including the Board of Guardians’ minute books, while additional Poor Law records are held by the National Archives of Ireland. The surviving buildings of Gorey Workhouse are recorded by the National Built Heritage Service.