Irish Workhouse Center Museum & Portumna Castle and Dominican Priory ruins, Portumna Ireland

The Irish Workhouse Center Museum is well worth the visit.  There is a 70-minute tour included in the price along with an art exhibit and a museum with many past pieces of the Workhouse.  We were very lucky because the guide was well-versed in Workhouse history and the Workhouses in all of Ireland. 

 There were over 160 workhouses built by the government in Ireland.  They are a tragic and horrible part of Irish history.  In Canada, we have our own tragic and horrible history in the Indian residential schools that were throughout Canada.  I hope eventually that the remaining Indian residential schools in Canada that are still standing be made into museums like the Irish have done and like the concentration camps in Europe have been made into Museums such as Dacchau and Auschwitz.  Many of the things spoken during this Workhouse tour were very reminiscent of the Indian residential schools of Canada and the Nazi concentration camps of Europe.  The Irish workhouse poor were treated like second and third-class citizens.

I had read many books pertaining to unwed mothers being forced into the workhouses by their families or by sheer destitution.  They were later robbed of their babies and then the babies were given to wealthy and desirable families that were not able to have their own children.  His focus as a tour guide was more on the workhouse poor.  

The workhouse was designed by a young 26-year-old man who had drawn up plans for English workhouses as well.  They were built to be undesirable to the poor to discourage 'lazy' people from getting into the workhouse.  There was massive poverty throughout Irish history and this is why the workhouses were developed.  The landlords of the time did not want to put up with hundreds and sometimes thousands of starving tenants on their lands.  The government paid 90% of the costs of the workhouses and the landlords were responsible for the other 10 percent of the cost.  If a landlord had 10 starving families on his land many would end up in the workhouse.  The landlord was also taxed per head for their tenant's food and shelter costs, while in the workhouse.  The workhouse unfortunately became a revolving door for many people and many families.  You were allowed back in if you could not feed yourself on the outside.

When building the workhouses there was always a meeting room where the landlords met monthly with the headmaster or matron to discuss issues of the workhouse at the time.  These meeting rooms were very nice and made of imported Canadian pine floors, stencilled coloured walls and a large fireplace. 

In the rest of the workhouse, the walls were limewashed to keep disease at bay and the floors were cold stone slabs.

 Even the beams in the workhouses were made from Canadian lumber.  Because Canada was a British colony the schemes began on how to get rid of the poor.  It was much cheaper for a landlord to pay for the price of sailing to Canada for a tenant than to pay for their food and shelter in the workhouse.  Hence thousands of Irish emigrated to Canada.  Unfortunately 60% of those workhouse Irish died during the sailings.  It is said that the workhouse Irish were treated worse than the animals onboard the ships.  

 Another scheme that was conceived by the government was for young orphan girls in the workhouse between the ages of 14 and 18 to be put on ships to Australia to work in the penal colonies.  Thousands of men in Australian penal colonies did not have any women or wives hence after the time of servitude was up for the orphan females, which was usually a few years they were allowed to marry.  Most had between 9 and 12 children, hence helping to populate Australia.

Very interesting to the left.  Earl Grey Tea magnate was integral to the plan of the Irish Orphan Girls and his son has the CFL Grey Cup named after him and we learned this from an Irish Tour Guide.

The work that was done in the workhouses was predominantly busy work like laundry for the women and picking apart used ropes to be sold back to the shipping companies for the young and old (this led to blistered and bleeding hands) and breaking rocks in the quarry for the men. This is reminiscent of what Nelson Mandela was tasked to do while in prison on Ellis Island in South Africa where he broke apart rocks for 27 years.

To the right is an iron laundry caldron that would have a fire under it to boil the sheets etc.

Most of the time whole families came into the workhouse.  There was an interview room and it was most difficult to gain entry into the workhouse because the government did not want the destitute and discouraged 'lazy' people from entering the workhouse.  They were called inmates and were locked in at night and families were separated. But to leave the workhouse you only had to give a 3-hour notice.  Husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers were separated and they all were separated from their children.

 There were dormitories for adult females, adult males, girls and boys.  If you were a mother with a child under 3 you and your baby lived in the nursery until you're child was ready to work at 3.  Visitation rights had to be requested and only on Sundays, husbands and wives could meet and mothers could see their children on Sundays only.  

Windows in all of the buildings were higher than the average Irish male and female. You could not even see your children playing or working out in the yards.  Children were provided an education up to 15 years of age.  Many committed crimes in the workhouse after this age so that they could go to prison where they were fed better and worked less.

Dormitories were frightful places where straw-filled sacks on the floor provided a bed.  Dormitories housed 30-60 inmates per room and most of the dorms did not have fireplaces.  Ireland can get quite cold in the winter and there were open vent areas that were thought to provide ventilation to ward off disease and germs but unfortunately freezing at night and starving in the workhouse, led to many deaths in the workhouses.

To the right is a photo of the vent in the top left-hand corner but is now full of old bird's nests.

Dormitory straw-filled mattresses which were laid directly on the floor were used as beds for the inmates.

The food was horrific. For breakfast, you received a watered-down porridge and if you were a child you received milk with your porridge. 11 hours later you were given a portion of potatoes a slice of bread and more milk if you were a child.  Once again they were more or less starved because the government did not want them to be in the workhouse they wanted them out in society working and feeding themselves.  During the Irish Potato famine, thousands more entered the workhouses.

The latrines that were provided for the inmates consisted of a wooden plank with 7 holes to sit on and the effluent went down into a cesspool area.  There was absolutely no privacy.  In the same building was solitary confinement consisting of a stone bed and darkness.  The stench of the cesspool would be ever-present. Often you were given lashes as punishment after your solitary confinement and in front of the other inmates.

To the right is a photo of the ruins of two solitary confinement rooms with stone beds to lie on.  They were right next to the latrines to the left of the photo and shown in the photo below.

This was our tour guide and he was explaining the latrine ruins which appear behind him.  If you look under the arch below you will see where the effluent dropped down to the cesspool.

Most workhouse Infirmeries in Ireland ended up being turned into hospitals run by the nuns. The nuns were taking such good care of the inmates that village people began to use these infirmaries.  Many of these hospitals are still providing care to the Irish people today. The nuns took these infirmaries over and provided trained nursing care, unlike the infirmaries in the workhouses where it was just female inmates looking attending you with absolutely no formal training.

In Portumna Workhouse there was a Master for 16 years, he is quite infamous. He was skimming off the workhouse poor.  He was allotted a budget for the food and upkeep of the 600 workhouses poor in his care and he purchased even lower-quality food and gave less food to his people.  He purchased Indian corn to make the bread which is a lower-quality food source that animals eat and humans do not digest very well.  Consequently, there was a lot of dysentery caused by this and many deaths and worse starvation.  The local priest found out about the master's thievery and confronted him.  Later that night he fled with his 5000 pounds he had scimmed off of the workhouse poor.  His wage was 50 pounds a year so he stole a considerable amount.  The master made his way to New York City where his family sailed and met him at a later date. Ironically he ended up in the most infamous lunatic asylum on a New York Island and died a horrible death in worse conditions than he provided for his workhouse inmates.  Carma is a bitch.

Portumna Castle is about a 4-minute drive from the Irish Workhouse Center Museum.  This semi-fortified castle at Fortuna was built before 1618 by Richard Burke.  In 1826 an accidental fire took place by the maids it is said.  The inside of the castle was completely burned and only the walls remained.  The castle has been purchased by a trust which is gradually restoring it back to its glory.  We were allowed on the first floor only.  There is a video to watch which gives you the history of the castle which is worth watching. 

The cost of the Castle and garden is 5 pounds which is much less than any other castle we have visited. This is because it is still being restored.

The Kitchen Gardens are quite huge and are now open to the public because they are fully restored.  If you like plants this in itself is worth visiting as it is quite extensive and I even saw some plants that I have never seen before such as St John's Wort.

This is a Rosemary bush in front of me, which is incredible because I struggle to get my Rosemary to grow in a pot all summer.

The Portumna Priory ruins are located outside the castle walls.  They are free and you are free to roam around the ruins.  Later make your way to the Portumna Forest Park trails which provide many kilometers of walking enjoyment.