Bantry Board of Guardians
IE CCCA/BG/43
Identity Statement
Reference Code:
IE CCCA/BG/43
Title:
Bantry Board of Guardians
Dates:
1846 – 1924
Level of description:
Fonds
Extent:
113 items
Context
Creator(s): Bantry Board of Guardians
Archival History The surviving records of the Bantry Board of Guardians were deposited in the Archives in the early 1980s.
Administrative & Biographical History The Bantry Board of Guardians was the governing body of Bantry workhouse and poor law union. Bantry 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. Bantry Workhouse opened on 24 April 1845. Under huge pressure to assist victims of the Great Famine (1845-49) and unable to collect enough rates to fund its work, the board was dissolved in October 1847 ‘on the ground that through the default of the guardians the duties of the board have not been duly and effectually discharged’. The union’s affairs were managed by appointed vice-guardians up to October 1849, when a new Bantry union was created. The Castletown area had formerly formed part of the area of Bantry Poor Law Union, but two distinct unions were now created. Numbers of Castletown inmates continued to be accommodated in Bantry until February 1851. The area of the Bantry Union included the dispensary districts of Bantry, Glengarriff, Durrus and Kilcrohane, and Kealkil. Each workhouse was managed by a staff and officers under the charge of a workhouse master, who reported to the board. Overall responsibility rested with the union's board of guardians, some of whom were elected, and some of whom were ex-officio members appointed usually from amongst local magistrates. The board appointed its own inhouse committees, and received
© Cork City and County Archives 2011
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