St.Finbarr’s Hospital (Cork County Home and Hospital) (CCH)

Descriptive List of the Archive of St.Finbarr’s Hospital/ South Cork County Home and Hospital

fashion, patient admission and discharge plus aspects of the operation and development of the institution from 1924, following the reform of the poor law system by the Irish Free State, such as wider availability of services, efforts to better care for patients, for instance through better diets, and better medical care. This advance is particularly visible in the records from the 1940s and 1950s onwards. The home and hospital would have employed large numbers of people at various grades and quite a few records of time and attendance, rations, and wages and salaries survive, which are of use to those pursuing their family history. The hospital was also a significant economic unit in its own right, requiring large amounts of provisions, hardware and services, that were obtained from a range of local and national contractors and suppliers that feature in the administrative and financial records. The archive, though extensive, contains gaps particularly in relation to detailed patient/inmate records, medical care, care of unmarried mothers, care of children, correspondence, death records, and records in relation to the nursing sisters who operated the hospital. Where certain types of records do survive the information within may be minimal. All of the surviving records are in bound volume format, there are no files. Researchers will note that there are significant overlaps of information between certain series, such as information relating to patients/inmates, which may also be found in records relating to administration, hospital/medical/nursing, and financial records. Examples are the Porters Admission and Discharge Books (FN), Daily Admission and Discharge Books (GA) and the Medical (Doctors) Admission and Discharge Books (HI), and the Paying Patients Maintenance Account Books (CA) and Sick Diet Books (HC), all of which contain information on patients. There are limited numbers of records in the present archive dating from after 1960, the year of the establishment of the Cork Health Authority. Researchers will also note that the present archive must be used in conjunction with the minute books and other records of the South Cork Board of Health and Public Assistance (from 1942, the Board of Public Assistance for the South Cork Public Assistance District), which was the governing body of the County Home and Hospital and other health institutions and of all public health services and public assistance services generally in the South Cork public assistance area.

System of Arrangement Correspondence and orders (B) (3 series)

Financial (C) (8 series)

Administrative and Staff (F) (16 series, 37 sub-series)