Bandon Board of Guardians
IE CCCA/BG/42
Identity Statement
Reference Code:
IE CCCA/BG/42
Title:
Bandon Board of Guardians
Dates:
1839 – 1925
Level of description:
Fonds
Extent:
118 items
Context
Creator(s): Bandon Board of Guardians
Archival History The surviving records of the Bandon Board of Guardians were deposited in the Archives in the early 1980s.
Administrative & Biographical History The Bandon Board of Guardians was the governing body of Bandon workhouse and poor law union. Bandon 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 Bandon Board of Guardians took place on 4 March 1839. The Union Workhouse opened on 17 November 1841. An Order of 3 October 1849 altered the union, with parts of Bandon Union being given to Dunmanway and the newly-created Clonakilty Union, and parts from Macroom Union being added to Bandon. A Reservation Order of 12 December 1849 reserved a quarter of the accommodation on Bandon Workhouse for inmates from Clonakilty Union, pending the completion of that Union’s own workhouse. 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 Bandon Union consisted of the Dispensary Districts of Bandon, Innishannon, Templemartin, Murragh, and Kilbrittain. Each district had a medical officer and dispensary. On 29 November 1849 a new Union fever hospital opened, the fever hospital and dispensary in the town of Bandon having previously been run by a local committee. The Union had taken over these services some months prior to the opening of the hospital, as the committee was unable to continue to finance them against the backdrop of the Great Famine (1845-49).
Cork City and County Archives 2011
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