The Work House
The minutes of the first meeting held by Letterkenny Board of Guardians July 1841 record that a
decision had been taken to build a Workhouse in the town. One, Alex Deane
of Cork was given the contract and agreed to do the work for £5,792.00.
The site was bought from Captain Chambers - 4 acres for £480.
In early 1842 the work
commenced. The job of Clerk of Work was entrusted to William Farrell for
a salary of 2 guineas per week. The flag stones were acquired from Lord
Abercorn's Quarry for 20p per sq yard.
As work reached its
climax George Langan was appointed Master and Clerk and his wife Anne
Lane became matron. Jane Thompson became the School Mistress. The massive
doors were opened in 1845 to admit 46 paupers - all this happened shortly
before the famine. Donegal at that time was largely poverty stricken.
Many people had no alternative but to take to the roads to seek food and
shelter at neighbors houses.
The Workhouse was a
grim building and was only capable of offering the minimum of help to its
inmates, but those people on the brink of privation were in no
position to complain.
You may wonder how the
poor faired in earlier times. When the monasteries flourished a nights
lodgings was available to the destitute. But Henry III put an end to that
when he banished the monks. This meant cruel hardship for thousands whose
misery was further accentuated by the Penal Laws and the Plantation of
Ulster. The Workhouse System was tangible if not woefully inadequate
gesture of concern. Everyone was delighted under native Government they
were scrapped. But the old stigma was hard to obliterate - to most of th
unfortunates who had to take refuge there, it was still the Workhouse.
