Loughrea Poor Law Union, Board of Guardian Minutes, 1848-49

Includes:

• ‘Resolved. That we deem it a matter of incalculable advantage to the Union to promote by every means the Emigration of some considerable number of the paupers who are now crowding the workhouse, not only as a means of providing for the most deserving of those persons but also an ultimate relief to the Union, and as Mr Henry, Emigration Agent, has lately selected from amongst the female orphans of this House a list of 48 deserving objects for emigration to South Australia, and the PLC having sanctioned their being forwarded, do hereby consent to provide them with the necessary outfit as decided upon by the Emigration Commissioners’ (p208).
• ‘Resolved: That in accordance with the Commissioners instructions we dispatch 40 of the paupers (so selected by Mr Henry R. N.) per the “Duke of Cambridge” stream to Plymouth on Saturday the 28^th inst., and we direct the Master (Mr Miller) to proceed to Dublin in charge of the party, the remaining 8 to be reserved for a future vessel and their outfit to be placed in the Master’s store until required’ (p208-9, 21 Oct 1848).
• Report from Dr Lynch to the Commissioners, advising that ‘Dysentery in a very server and fatal form is still extremely prevalent amongst the paupers.  During the past week I have observed that a considerable number of strong, healthy looking paupers have been attacked with this disease in a severe form. I am sorry to be obliged to state that dysentery seems to be on the increase in the Poor House and that the disease continues to assume an extremely un-management and fatal form.
  It is of such importance to discuss the causes of the continued existence for so long a period of so fatal a disease as Dysentery in your Workhouse.  I am strongly of opinion that an impure condition of the air in the workhouse occasioned by impure sewerage in the air of the Poor House, predisposing to dysentery is provided by the fact that most of the officers and other persons whose duties obliged them to spend some time at the Workhouse although not exposed to contagion have had dysentery some very seriously and many repeatedly in most of those instances the individuals complain of perceiving a bad smell before getting ill, and all the inmates at times particularly in rainy weather complain of the foetid effluvia from the cesspools and sewers…’ (p279, 13 Dec 1848).
• Dietary of Loughrea Union, detail quantity of food to be distributed to various classes of inmates, such as male and female adults, and children between 5-9 years, for breakfast, dinner and supper. (p410).