The Workhouse: Mohill

12 Sep 1839: Following the Whig government decision to implement the English Poor Law in Ireland, Mohill Poor Law Union in Co. Leitrim was offically formed, providing the legal basis for workhouse funding and construction to begin.

A Board of Guardians, typically made up of local landowners, gentry and clergy, would be appointed at the Mohill Courthouse 16 Sep 1840 - with Charles Skeffington Clements as their Chairman. They would then strike a "poor rate" intended to offset but not fully fund workhouse construction. This "poor rate" would be payable by the local landowners and gentry. And given circumstances in Leitrim and elsewhere over the next ten years, this would prove to be a major flaw in the plan's design.

Upon completion, the workhouse grounds would cover about six acres west of Hyde Street not far from the eventual location Mohill Station on the Cavan-Leitrim Railroad. The workhouse would provide a final, if insufficient and undesirable lifeline to the destitute poor within a 215 square mile area.

Construction and fittings would cost about £7,000 and the workhouse would accept its first paupers or "inmates" 8 Jun1842.

Within the Union were 13 Electoral Divisions ---Aghavas, Annaduff, Armaghveagh, Ballinamore, Carrigallen, Cloone, Drumreilly, Eslin, Fenagh, Mohill, Newtown Gore, Oughteragh& Rinn. Based on the 1831 census, population within the Union was 66,858 but the workhouse would only have the capacity to house and feed about 700.

For the first several years, the workhouse would accomodate an average of about 230 people. But on a given day between 1847 and 1850 the workhouse would house and feed up to 1,800 souls.

The artificially created “famine", disease and emigration would take an astounding toll on Leitrim and the Mohill Union specifically. By the 1901 census, population within the Union would stand at just 19,854.