Tipperary Famine records go online
A vast wealth of information on how the Irish Potato Famine impacted on the people of Nenagh, Roscrea and other parts of Tipperary has now been digitised and is available online, thanks to the dedication of the County Council Library Service.
Tipperary County Council Library Service holds a vast collection of Poor Law Union Minute Books, Rate Books, and Workhouse Registers, encompassing virtually the entire county.
Prior to the famine period, in 1838, an act for the more effectual Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland was passed into law on July 31st. This act set in motion a relief system which would assist people in distress, those in poverty and the underprivileged.
Workhouses were erected in the various Poor Law Unions of Tipperary, of which records survive in the Tipperary Studies collection from Borrisokane, Cashel, Clogheen, Clonmel, Nenagh, Roscrea, Thurles and Tipperary.
In the recent past 130 rate books, a sample of those which have survived from the Cashel, Nenagh and Thurles Poor Law Unions were digitised and put online on the Tipperary Studies digital platform www.tippstudiesdigital.ie
In addition to these records workhouse admission registers for Cashel, Roscrea and Thurles were also digitised and uploaded, as well as a death register from the Cashel Union.
Indeed the Cashel records proved very important in the ancestry of actress Mandy Moore, who came to Ireland to record an episode of the acclaimed television series Who Do You Think You Are? in 2018.
One of Mandy’s ancestors died in the workhouse in Cashel and the entry was recorded in the Cashel PLU death register, 1847-1849 and it also featured in the programme itself.
POOR LAW GUARDIANS
On January 18th, 2021 staff at Tipperary County Council Library Service undertook an ambitious project to commence digitising its Famine related Minute Books from the above eight Poor Law Unions.
The Poor Law Guardians, a sort of forerunner to the local elected representatives, met weekly and the findings, reports and statistics presented at their meetings were recorded in hard bound minute books.
There are just over 90 Minute Books in the archives at Tipperary Studies, which embrace the pre-famine and famine years up to 1852, of which 70 have been scanned, comprising 35,000 images.
It is envisaged that these records will be uploaded to the Tipperary Studies digital website by mid-May and they will be freely available to view and read, as well as to download, anywhere in the world.
These Famine records provide a unique weekly insight into pre-famine relief and distress in County Tipperary, the emergence of the potato famine itself and what it meant in the day to day workings of the various Poor Law Unions.
Statistics form a valuable tool in quantifying the level of admissions, relief and death rates, and the minute books contain a wide range of such figures. Names of young girls who were part of the Earl Grey Scheme are also found in some of the minute books.
Under this scheme young girls who had been orphaned during the Famine and who were resident in Irish workhouses, were sent to the Australian colonies. The entries in many parts of the minute books are often stark, at times cruel and on the whole very sad.
Dr John Crowley, University College Cork, and one of the editors of the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine commented: “Tipperary County Council Library Services are to be congratulated on this excellent digitisation project. Making such records available online for the first time will facilitate not only a much greater public engagement with the history of the Famine but will also prove to be an invaluable resource for researching and understanding its impact at local level.”
Dr Ciarán Reilly, Historian of nineteenth and twentieth century Irish History, Maynooth University, said the digitisation of the Famine records was “a fantastic project and a massive undertaking by Tipperary County Council Library Service”.