Search Results for 'Galway Workhouse'

One of the remedies in dealing with overcrowding, and rebellious behaviour from frustrated and angry women in the workhouses during the famine years, was assisted emigration. This was done on a massive scale. Between 1848 and 1850, 4,175 women were sent direct from the workhouse system to Australia. This was in addition to the thousands already sent away assisted by landlords and other schemes to clear the land of unproductive tenants. The only cost to the individual Poor Law unions was for new clothes, and travel expenses to Plymouth, from where the girls embarked to the colony. 

Our photograph today shows a Karrier double-decker bus which was operated by the Galway General Omnibus Company. It was taken at the Spring Show in the RDS in 1924, before it went into revenue earning service. The side panel carries the name of the company, but not the crest. The small lettering on the chassis below the word ‘Galway’ reads ’12 m.p.h.’ A major problem with this type of vehicle was its chain drive which frequently slipped off and caused breakdowns. The bus had solid-tyred wheels and was uncomfortable to ride in.

Like most towns in Ireland, Galway was used to food shortages; they had occurred here in 1816, 1817, 1822, 1831, and in 1842 there were food riots in the city. Nobody, however, was prepared for what happened in 1845 when the potato crop failed. As winter approached, the situation did not seem any worse than usual, though people were concerned about food being exported from the docks while there was a shortage locally.

The ‘Night of The Big Wind’ on the night of January 6/7, 1839, deprived thousands of people in the Galway area of their homes. Their situation in the depths of winter was more than local charities could cope with. On May 8, the Galway Union was proclaimed to include the city and surrounding townlands to a radius of roughly 10 miles plus the Aran Islands, all of which would be served by a single workhouse in Galway. The first meeting of the Galway Board of Guardians was held in the Courthouse on July 3 of that year.