Castletown Board of Guardians
IE CCCA/BG/59
Reference Code:
IE CCCA/BG/59
Title:
Castletown Board of Guardians
Dates:
1849 – 1921
Level of description:
Fonds
Extent:
89 items
Context
Creator(s): Castletown Board of Guardians
Archival History The surviving records of the Castletown Board of Guardians were deposited in the Archives in the early 1980s.
Administrative & Biographical History The Castletown Board of Guardians was the governing body of Castletown workhouse and poor law union. Castletown Poor Law Union was established under the Poor Law (Ireland) Act, 1838. It was one of 16 unions in the overall County Cork area. Each union was centred on a city or market town and its hinterland, and this union area sometimes ignored existing parish or county boundaries. In this central town was situated the union workhouse (usually built between 1838 and 1852) which provided relief for the unemployed and the destitute. Castletown Board of Guardians first met on 29 October 1849. The Workhouse opened on 18 December 1850. The Castletown area had formerly formed part of the area of Bantry Poor Law Union, but two distinct unions were created in 1849. The area of the Castletown Union included the dispensary districts of Castletown and Kilcatherine. Castletown district contained dispensary houses at Castletown, Adrigole, and Bere Island. Kilcatherine district had dispensaries at Cahermore and Eyeries. Before Castletown workhouse was declared, inmates from the union area continued to be accommodated in Bantry workhouse, two-fifths of accommodation in Bantry being reserved for Castletown inmates, with the union liable for two- fifths of Bantry’s costs. A temporary workhouse was set up at Cametringane House near Castletown, rented from Lord Berehaven, until the new
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