Workhouse in Tuam
By John Cunningham
Galway Advertiser October 15 1998
One OF the historical buildings in County Galway which has disappeared in recent years is the old Workhouse in Tuam — one of a system of institutions around the country set up in the last century under the Poor Relief Act to provide at least shelter and basic food for people classed as 'paupers'. At one time the population of these institutions nationally rose to an estimated 932,000: that was in 1849, after the terrible years of the Great Famine in which a million died of starvation, typhus and 'relapsing disease', and a million others emigrated to the U.S., Canada and Britain.
The Workhouses were run by an elected Board of Guardians of local ratepayers in a particular 'Union' (an area or grouping of townlands approved by the Poor Law Commissioners), but they proved totally insufficient to the task of the Famine years when the failure of the potato crop, and a reluctance of the British Government to become sufficiently involved in securing food, were a death sentence for thousands.
We can get some insight into the running of the Workhouses and life in them — one rule was that life inside was not to be better than life outside! — from the 'General Order for Regulating the Management of Workhouses in Ireland and the Duties of the Workhouse Officers', published in amended form in 1871. The regulations published in this article, are all taken from the 1871 publication when, it should be remembered, life would have been better than in the Famine years.
Still discernible from the publication, however, are remarkable similarities between the diet then fed (largely it seems to have been based on Indian Meal and milk), and the type of relief operation now being run in countries suffering from drought and famine, with the aid of Irish workers and relief agencies.
The regulations of the Workhouse covered in remarkable detail everything from making 'soup' (even in the 1871 regulations it is quite clear that meat in 'soup' was extremely rare, and was usually reserved for the sick), to making tea, and the banning of a whole series of activities that might have made life more tolerable — things like smoking, drinking, 'games of chance' and even talking when it was time for silence under the rules.
It is also clear that some Unions were having difficulty with the food — circulars of the time talk of Indian Meal not agreeing with people, and the need to vary the food, but only for those with whom the meal did not agree, while the special 'medical diet' was to be sparingly used indeed.
This feature is divided into two parts, part one this week deals with diet in the workhouse as revealed in the regulations governing it, while next week deals with the general rules, and discipline of the inmates.
For the purpose, of diet the inmates were divided into a number of categories in workhouses like Tuam, Loughrea and other Workhouses. The seven classes were
- able—bodied working males
- able—bodied working females
- aged and infirm persons, of either sex, and adult persons, of either sex, above 15 years of age, but not working
- boys and girls above nine but under 15 years of age
- children above five and under nine years of age
- children above two and under five years of age
- infants under two years of age
Classes (i), (ii) and (iii) got not less than two meals a day under the regulations. If they got two meals a day, one meal was to consist of not less than: For class i: eight ounces of Indian meal and half a pint of new milk; for class ii, seven ounces of Indian meal and a half a pint of new milk; class iii, six ounces of Indian meal and half a pint of new milk.
The regulations said that the second meal of the day for classes i, ii and iii, should consist of not less than: class i — fourteen ounces of brown bread and two pints of soup (see recipe for soup); class ii, twelve ounces of brown bread and one a half pints of soup; iii, ten ounces of brown bread and one and a half pints of soup. Where three meals were allowed for classes i, ii and iii, the rule was that the three should not have less nutritive value than the two set out above.
For classes iv, v and vi, three meals per day were allowed. The first meal was to consist of not less than: For class iv, five ounces of Indian meal and a half pint of milk; for class v, four ounces of Indian meal and a half pint of new milk; for class vi, three ounces of Indian meal and half a pint of milk.
The second meal of the day was to consist of not less than: for class iv, eight ounces of brown bread, and a pint of soup; for class v, six ounces of brown bread and a pint of milk; for class vi, five ounces of brown bread and ¾ of a pint of soup.
The third meal for classes iv, v and vi was to consist of not less than four ounces of brown bread.
Class vii (infants) should be allowed not less than eight ounces of white bread and a pint of new milk daily.
The regulations added the recipe for the soup: 'The soup shall be made of peas—meal, or oatmeal, or both, in the proportion of eight ounces of meal to one gallon of water, well seasoned with onions, pepper, and salt, and thickened at all convenient seasons with turnips, parsnips, and carrots, or other such vegetables as the Medical Officer shall approve.
'Instead of articles above named, the following articles may be substituted in framing the dietary:
'Instead of Indian meal — oatmeal, rye—meal, and rice may be used, provided that rice be not used except in conjunction with meal, and then only in proportion of two ounces of rice to six ounces of meal.
'Instead of new milk, buttermilk may be used if the Medical Officer shall approve of it, and the equivalents shall be for half—pint of new milk, one pint of buttermilk, provided that buttermilk shall not be substituted for new milk for either classes vi or vii.
'Instead of brown bread, that is to say bread made of wholemeal of wheat — rye bread may be used, or rye and barley bread, or potatoes, and the equivalents shall be, for fourteen ounces of brown bread, sixteen ounces of rye bread, or rye and barley bread, or three and a half pounds of potatoes weighed raw, and in like proportions as nearly as may be, for other qualities.
"The Board of Guardians may, under, the advice of the Medical Officer, use other articles instead of any of the above, and the same or other articles in proportions other than' the above, whenever the" scarcity of any article, the season of the year, or any other circumstance affecting the sanitary condition of the inmates shall be deemed to justify such changes or departures from the authorized articles and quantities; such changes and departures being subject at all times as to their adoption and continuance, to the approval of the Commissioners (of the Irish Poor Law).
But it is clear from an addition to the dietaries section, that certain parts of the 'hall diet' (all inmates had to eat in the 'hall' and hence the name of the diet), especially the use of Indian meal (mentioned in almost all meals), was not agreeing with quite a number of the people. The following is a photographed extract from circulars in the 1871 edition of the rules:
Soup: The soup shall be made from peas—meal or oatmeal, or both, In the proportion of eight ounces of meal to one gallon of water, well seasoned with onions, pepper and salt and thickened at all convenient seasons with turnips, parsnips and carrots, or other such vegetables as the medical officer shall approve.
Workhouse Rules.
[Part III. 3.]
Workhouse Dietaries.
(See Art. 13 of the General Workhouse Regulations of 3rd February, 1849, p. 759.)
Poor Law Commission Office, Dublin, 31st March, 1859.
Sir,
The Commissioners for administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland have had under their consideration the subject of the union dietaries, in reference more especially to the increased proportion which, through the diminution of able—bodied pauperism and other causes, the sick inmates now bear to the healthy portion of the inmates of workhouses.
Inquiries, moreover, which have recently taken place in particular unions, have shown a disposition on the part of Medical Officers to place on medical diet inmates of the aged and infirm class who cannot properly be classed as sick, but who may be regarded as persons with whom, in the opinion of the Medical Officer, the hall diet does not agree.
The increased expense consequent on this practice, when carried to any great extent, has been shown to be considerable, the medical diet substituted for hall diet in such cases involving generally an allowance of meat.
The part of the hall diet to which most objection has been made is the stirabout, used almost universally for breakfast, and, in a few unions, for dinner also.
Under these circumstances, it appears to be very desirable that the Medical Officer should have it in his power to exempt infirm persons or children in delicate health from the use of stirabout, without the necessity of placing them altogether on medical diet.
The Commissioners suggest; therefore, that in such cases the Medical Officer should be authorized to place the inmate on a bread and tea diet for breakfast; and that stirabout and milk, which form in ordinary cases a most appropriate meal for breakfast, should not be used for dinner for any class of inmates, great objections existing, on sanitary grounds, to the use of the same food for both meals. It is greatly to be desired also, on the ground of health, that as much variety as possible should be introduced in other respects, and the Commissioners recommend that, on some days of the week, bread and milk, — or bread and rice milk, or potatoes and milk, should be used instead of bread and soup.
None of the above recommendations, if adopted by the Guardians, would be likely to be attended with much, if any, additional expense. It appears, however, to the Commissioners that the recently improved circumstances of the peasantry and of the working, classes in Ireland might be hold to justify a further improvement in the workhouse dietary, and not at the same time infringe the principle that the inmates of workhouses ought not to be better fed at the expense of the poor rates than persons maintaining themselves by independent, labour.
The Commissioners submit, therefore, to the consideration of the Guardians of unions in which meat is not already made an ingredient in the soup, to adopt that improvement on some days of the week by the use of ox heads, or shins of beef, or other coarse parts of the carcass of beef, mutton, or veal, as ingredients in the soup.
The additional expense incurred by this improvement will be found in many unions to be compensated in part, if not altogether, by the diminished necessity of placing aged or infirm persons and delicate children on medical diet.
The Guardians of the North and South Dublin Unions have recently agreed, on the recommendation of the Commissioners, to assimilate the dietaries of both those unions, and have adopted, in framing a new dietary, some of the improvements above pointed out.
Workhouse Rules [Part 111. 3]
The Commissioners' annex to this Circular is a more particular account of the recommendations made by them to the Guardians of the Dublin Unions, and now submit the same to the consideration of the Guardians of those unions in which the present established dietaries may appear capable of improvement by adopting the principle recommended.
By Order of the Commissioners,
B. Banks,
Chief Clerk.
To the Cleric of the Union.
Extract from the Commissioners' Letter to the Guardians of the North and South Dublin Unions, dated 26th January, 1859, containing the Commissioners' recommendations in regard to the Workhouse Dietary.
The first point to which the Commissioners would call attention, is the fact that the dinner on two days of the week in North Dublin, "Workhouse and on three days of the week in South Dublin Workhouse, is a repetition, or nearly so, of tin—breakfast on those days, consisting, like the breakfast, of meal made into stirabout, and milk. Now one of the reasons which seems to operate most in causing the Medical Officers to place inmates, not in hospital, on sick diet is, that with certain inmates who are delicate, but not actually under treatment, stirabout does not agree. The Commissioners are also of opinion, in regard to every class of inmates, that, for the sake of variety, the dinner should differ, if possible, from the breakfast on every day of the week.
There is, however, a large class of inmates in every workhouse for whom stirabout and milk for breakfast is a must appropriate diet, and what the Commissioners recommend in regard to this point, to both Boards, is to do away entirely with stirabout and milk as materials for dinner, continuing them, however, as materials for every day's breakfast, and giving a discretion to the Medical Officer to substitute bread and tea in cases of delicate health which may require it, a discretion not likely to be attended with much increase of cost.
The best of the hall diets for dinner appears to be in both workhouses the meat—soup dinner, which is given at present on only two days in the week; and the Commissioners recommend that this should, in both workhouses, be extended to three days equalizing in both the quantity of bread, say 14 ounces for Class 1; on two other days the same quantity of bread with one pint of new milk, and on the two remaining days a smaller allowance of bread with thick rice—milk porridge would afford a proper variety in the hall diet for all classes of healthy inmates, and make the three classes of dinners, that is to say, the soup, the milk, and the rice dinners about equivalent both in cost and nutriment.
These proposed changes would have not only the advantage of nearly equalizing the amount of nutriment on each day of the week, in which at present there is a very great disparity existing in both workhouses, but also that of affording a somewhat greater total amount of nutriment in the course of the week."
There is reason at the same time to expect, from what has been stated in evidence by the Medical Officers, that the additional expense incurred in the improved hall diet would be compensated by the diminished necessity for placing delicate persons on sick diet, and especially on the meat diet."
The Guardians of both unions adopted the principles above recommended, and have framed their dietaries accordingly, with the additional improvement, in point of variety, of using potatoes and milk on one or more days in the week for dinner — 3 ½ lbs. with half a pint of milk for Class 1.
The following unions use meat—soup, prepared, however, with very different proportions of meat, namely : — Antrim, Ardee, Armagh, Athlone, Ballycastle, Ballymahon, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Balrothery, Banbridge, Bawnboy, Belfast, Castleblayney, Celbridge, Ciogher, Clonmel, Coleraine, Cookstown, Downpatrick, Drogheda, Dublin North, Dublin South, Dundalk, Dungannon, Dunshaughlin, Gorey, Lame, Lisburn, Londonderry, Longford, Lurgan, Magherafelt, Naas, Navan, Newry, Newtownards, Omagh, and Strabane. The medium quantity the Commissioners believe to be about three ox heads to 100 inmates, or an equivalent quantity of other description of meat ingredients as above mentioned.
Tea, where given in the workhouse dietary may be prepared according to the standard in Article 13, No. 14 of the Workhouse Regulations; viz.:—in the proportion of half a pound of tea and two pounds of sugar, to eight gallons of water and two quarts of new milk.