Workhouse records

The workhouse looms large in Irish history, particularly in relation to the Great Famine and its immediate aftermath. Workhouses were introduced to Ireland in the early 1840s and continued to function up until the 1920s. There were 163 workhouses in total throughout Ireland. Along with being a place of last resort for those who had become destitute, workhouses were also a place for assisted emigration. Surviving workhouse registers are often kept locally. Unfortunately, not all records for every workhouse survive. For Cork, minute books (recording the proceedings of Board of Guardians’ meetings), are the largest series of poor law archives that have survived; workhouse registers, financial accounts and correspondence and several other series also survive for some areas.

To discover which poor law union your Irish ancestors may have resided in, you can check the map of Irish poor law unions at www.workhouses.org.uk/ireland