Looking Back: Porter for the workhouse

Over the years, I have covered quite a few local authority meetings with deliberations on a wide variety of issues, but I never came across a discussion on what to do with a consignment of porter, writes Brian Byrne. That was a conundrum which took up some time at the weekly meeting of guardians of the Athy Union as reported in the Kildare Observer of 29 December 1883.

The Athy workhouse Master told the meeting that he had received ‘a lot’ of porter during the previous week from Castledermot, and he did not know what to do with it. When MJ Kavanagh asked if it was “for the use of the guardians or the inmates?”, the Master said he didn’t know, and confirmed that he hadn’t received any directions as to the distribution of the beverage.

It transpired that the Union’s clerk had met with his Castledermot Petty Sessions counterpart the previous week and discovered that the Magistrate’s court had confiscated the porter from a woman who had been operating an illegal shebeen. The magistrates had “made it over for the use of the Athy Infirmary”, which was part of the workhouse complex.

The woman in question was described as a ‘poor widow’, and it seems from the tone of the report that the guardians had some sympathy for her, though that didn’t last as the prospect of free booze became more clear. “I think we would be paying the magistrates a bad compliment if we gave her back the porter,” JW Dunne said. Noting also that to do so would be “encouraging illegitimate traffic.”

The Master said the porter was “first class.” To which MJ Kavanagh replied that if the porter was “fit for us”, to use it. “As to giving it back, I think it would be in very bad taste,” he added. It’s not clear from the report if he intended that as a pun, and anyway JW Dunne commented that to send it back would be “a regular farce.”

The Master was then directed to use the porter. Whether for the guardians, or inmates, was not specified.

Another beverage entirely, milk, was also discussed at the same meeting. In particular milk supplied to the workhouse. In a series of letters read out, it seems that one of the guardians who was not present had written directly to the Local Government Board in Dublin, asking them to instruct the Athy Union to re-advertise a tender for the milk supply. Major JR Keogh had suggested that the tender recently accepted had been in contravention of a relevant regulation. The letters made clear that the Local Government Board did not agree with his complaint, but the meeting expressed a level of disappointment that Major Keogh had taken the course he had rather than write to his fellow guardians about his concerns, with suitable notice. JW Dunne said the Major was acting in a ‘ridiculous’ manner, Robert McDonnell felt it was all wrong and that if Mr Keogh “does not choose to attend [the meetings] then he should not find fault with those who do.” Timothy Fennin suggested that the letter be marked ‘read’, and after a final comment from MJ Kavanagh that it was a great pity the board of guardians could not determine their own business in a “common-sense practical way”, the matter was dropped.

Other business of the meeting included an up to date statement of affairs at the institution, which had 312 ‘indoor’ paupers chargeable to the Union, of whom 220 were described as healthy, 84 were in the Infirmary, and there were 8 in the nearby Fever Hospital. The average weekly cost of looking after them was 4s 2d per person. The Master noted that among two who had died during the week was “a pauper named Foley” who had left behind £3 14s 1d, and he wondered if the cost of his maintenance should be deducted from this? Mr Foley had been an inmate in the house for two months, the meeting heard. The board instructed that the cost should indeed be reimbursed to the workhouse. There was no note of how the remaining 40s 7d of Mr Foley’s money would be disbursed, but we can hope that there was some needy relative waiting on the outside for their share of his estate.

Maybe the same relative might even have been given a few bottles of the Union’s porter windfall, to which presumably the late Mr Foley would have been entitled as an inmate of the Infirmary had he lived a little longer?

[EDITOR NOTE: After the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Athy workhouse was redesignated as a County Home for the aged and infirm, chronic invalids, and expectant mothers. Since 2002 it has been St Vincent's geriatric hospital. A sculpture commemorating the Great Famine stands at the entrance.]

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