The People of Kilrush Poor Law Union during the Great Famine

4 Mar 2013

by Paddy Waldron

WWW version: http://www.pwaldron.info/FamineProjects.html

Kilrush & District Historical Society and the local committee organising the 2013 National Famine Commemoration are anxious to link those whose names feature in the history of the Great Famine in Kilrush Poor Law Union (PLU) with their next-of-kin living today. We welcome the help of genealogy students who wish as part of their project work to study source material dealing with life in Kilrush PLU during, immediately before, and immediately after the Great Famine and the individuals and families named in this source material. Suitable project material will be submitted to Clare County Library for possible publication at clarelibrary.ie

The objective of these projects is to link, where possible:

• the people who lived and died in Kilrush Poor Law Union during the Great Famine;
• their ancestors;
• their descendants, if any, down to the present day;
• the townlands in which they lived;
• the middlemen and landlords, resident or absentee, who controlled their lives, both directly and/or as Poor Law Guardians; and
• the surviving sources documenting their existence.

The people involved played many roles in the story of the Great Famine, as

• survivors;
• victims (of death or lesser sufferings);
• evictees;
• emigrants;
• evictors;
• workhouse inmates;
• providers of relief;
• clergymen;
• Poor Law Guardians;
• Board of Guardians employees and suppliers:
  • Workhouse master, matron, teachers;
  • Relieving officers or rate collectors;
  • Clerks of the Union;
  • etc.
• landlords;
• middlemen and agents;
• tenants;
• etc.

Kilrush Poor Law Union

• administered local government (social protection) and raised local taxation (property tax);
• was run by the Board of Guardians of the Union, comprising 29 elected and 9 ex-officio Poor Law Guardians (local politicians) ; and
• opened a workhouse in Kilrush, which received its first admissions on 9 July 1842 and which provided indoor or outdoor relief to the starving and the evicted from throughout the PLU.

During the Great Famine:

• The Kilrush Board of Guardians, chaired by Crofton Moore Vandeleur, couldn't cope, and were stripped of their powers.
• From November 1847 until 3 September 1850 Captain (later Sir) Arthur Edward Kennedy (1810-1883) held the position of Poor Law Inspector in Kilrush.
• His detailed reports to Dublin and London are an excellent description of events and conditions in West Clare.
• His daughter is depicted in one of the iconic sketches from The Illustrated London News:
  
• "Kilrush still resonates as one of the places that epitomized all that was horrific about the Great Famine (An Drochshaol)." --- Cormac Ó Gráda, UCD
• The 1838 PLU boundaries are slightly unclear, as is explained in more detail here.
• Each of the 13 parishes within the 1838 PLU is invited to host at least one Famine Commemoration event between Friday 3 May 2013 and the National Famine Commemoration itself on Sunday 12 May 2013, locally produced and/or by visiting lecturers or performers.

The sources which might be consulted for these projects include, but are not limited to:

• Population statistics
• Offline sources:
  • Diocesan, county and parish histories
  • Newspapers (online and offline - Clare local newspapers have not yet been digitised)
  • Directories, esp. Slater 1846.
  • The Famine in Clare exhibition, currently running in Kilrush Library
  • Kilrush Union Minute Books 1842-1923 and Rough Minute Books 1848-1876 and miscellaneous material in Clare County Archives

  • Sheedy, K.

    The Clare Elections

    Bauroe Publications, 1993

    Weir, H. W. L.

    [Historical Genealogical Architectural Notes on some] Houses of Clare

    Ballinakella Press, 1999

  • Reports on Board of Guardians elections in the Dunboyne Collection of newspaper clippings 1824-1873 (NLI and Clare County Library Local Studies Centre) and contemporary newspapers.
  • Parish registers
  • Schools Folklore Scheme
  • etc.
• The Illustrated London News, which brought the situation in Kilrush in 1849/50 to world attention; its iconic sketches from West Clare illustrate every modern work on the Famine.
• Pre-famine sources: 1841 census statistics; Tithe Applotment Books (TABs) at clarelibrary.ie and nationalarchives.ie
• Post-famine sources: 1851 census statistics; Griffith's Valuation at clarelibrary.ie and askaboutireland.ie and subscription websites
• Landed Estates Database
• Famine Orphan girls page on Irish Famine Memorial Sydney website and spreadsheet listing Kilrush Orphans who left aboard the Pemberton from Plymouth on 29 Jan 1849 and arrived at Port Phillip (Melbourne) on 14 May 1849
• Other online sources specific to the famine period.
• Maps
  • OSi
  • Google maps
  • Google earth
  • Google street view
  • post-Griffith's Valuation maps at askaboutireland.ie
  • Griffith's Valuation maps at origins.net

Possible projects could be at:

PLU level, e.g.,

Confirm the boundaries of the original Kilrush PLU by finding maps, lists of townlands, or other contemporary evidence.

Identify the townlands and parishes listed in Captain Kennedy's reports (often mis-spelled) and those not listed and compile a spreadsheet linking them to their official spellings and other sources.

Compile a spreadsheet linking the number of evictions documented for each townland with its population figures for 1841 and 1851.

Find and document all the small settlements of sub-townland level like Moveen, Tullig, Newtown, Oldtown, etc., shown on the OSi maps. Which were completely abandoned by Griffith's Valuation? Did the populations of the corresponding townlands fall by a higher percentage than those with no such settlements?

Identify the precise points from which the sketches in The Illustrated London News were drawn.

Investigate the extent to which electoral divisions (pre-1850) coincided with civil parishes in other unions and in other counties

Parish or electoral division level, e.g.,

Compile a list of all the Famine-era landlords in the parish, using Griffith's Valuation, Captain Kennedy's reports, Encumbered Estates Courts records, and other sources. Which were residents and which were absentees? Which were elected or ex-officio guardians? Which appear as evictors in Captain Kennedy's reports? Which do not? Which employed middlemen or agents? Which owned parts of townlands, whole townlands or multiple townlands?

Townland level, e.g.,

Can the tenants/occupiers in the TABs, the evictees in Captain Kennedy's reports and the tenants/occupiers in Griffith's Valuation be matched up? Where did those who were evicted end up?

Surname level, e.g.,

Carry out a one-name study of a (preferably less common) west Clare surname to determine the extent to which it was influenced by the famine

Family or individual level, e.g.,

Compile biographies and family histories of the Poor Law Guardians and landlords, who will generally have left far better records behind than did their tenants.

Can those involved in assisted emigration schemes be linked back to their origins in Kilrush PLU or forward to their descendants living overseas today?

Can the Kilrush Orphans sent to Melbourne be identified in any Clare records?

Can those who died in the workhouse be linked to their native parishes or townlands?

Find contradictions - are there many families containing evicting landlords and middlemen which also contained relief workers? E.g. Fr. Tim Kelly and his brother Matthew; or George Blackall and his father Henry Blackall and uncle John M'Mahon Blackall.

Statistical level, e.g.,

How was the class of people who left tombstones influenced by the Famine? Are there more tombstones with dates of death during the Famine years than for the years immediately before or immediately after the Famine in online transcriptions (or offline transcriptions, or on tombstones that have not been transcribed)?

Personal level, e.g.,

Where were your own ancestors during the Famine?