Loughrea Poor Law Union, Board of Guardian Minutes, 1843-46

Includes:

• Order that the windows of the workhouse be glazed, and ‘to have a boiler fixed in the kitchen in places of the one that is cracked, as the cooking cannot be continued in the probationary any longer’ (64p, 6 Jul 1844).
• ‘Resolved, That we once again urge on the Poor Law Commissioners the necessity of reducing the salary of the Protestant Chaplain more particularly as there is not at present in the House been one Pauper of the Protestant persuasion and we now trust that the Commissioners will no longer oppose themselves to so reasonable a resolution’ (p148, 11 Jan 1845).
• ‘That half a ton of Indian meal be provided for the use of the paupers, and that they be allowed the same quantity therefore breakfast and for dinner if potatoes cannot be procured as is used of the present oatmeal for breakfast’ (p345).
• ‘Resolved that a Special Meeting of the Board be called for Saturday the 19^th inst., at 12 o’clock noon, to take into consideration the present perilous condition of the Poor in this Union as regards the Common necessaries of their existence, and to devise the best and most economical means under the present provisions of the law for meeting a calmity which we have reason to believe is making fast strides towards an eventful crisis (p373, 12 Sept 1846).

‘….There being a meeting of the Relief Committee by Lynch’s Hotel for the purpose of devising means of employment for the poor which commenced at 3 o’clock and was not over until 5 o’clock after which the following  gentlemen attended the meeting’ (p381).