Dunmanway Board of Guardians
IE CCCA/BG/83
Identity Statement
Reference Code:
IE CCCA/BG/83
Title:
Dunmanway Board of Guardians
Dates:
1840 – 1920
Level of description:
Fonds
Extent:
108 items
Context
Creator(s): Dunmanway Board of Guardians
Archival History The surviving records of the Dunmanway Board of Guardians were deposited in the Archives in the early 1980s.
Administrative & Biographical History The Dunmanway Board of Guardians was the governing body of Dunmanway workhouse and poor law union. Dunmanway 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. The first meeting of Dunmanway Board of Guardians took place on 1 February 1840, the union having been declared on 18 December 1839. The Union Workhouse was declared fit to receive inmates on 16 September 1841 and took its first admissions on 2 October of that year. An Order of 3 October 1849 altered the union, with parts of Dunmanway Union being given to the newly- created Clonakilty Union, and part of Bandon Union being added to Dunmanway. A Reservation Order of 5 December 1849 reserved a portion of the accommodation in Dunmanway Workhouse for inmates from Clonakilty Union, pending the completion of that Union’s own workhouse (opened 5 December 1851). Unions were divided into electoral divisions (EDs) for electoral and rate collection purposes. Over time, larger dispensary districts and relief districts, consisting of several EDs, came into being. The Dunmanway Union consisted of the Dispensary Districts of Dunmanway, Ballineen, and Coolmountain. Each district had a medical officer and dispensary. The workhouse also had a medical officer.
Cork City and County Archives 2011
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