Newry News and Irish Fun
History of Newry Workhouse [Part 2]
by
John McCullagh BA , BSc
Prior to the 1830s some little local Poor Relief was sporadically offered – mainly through the Churches – in almshouses to orphans and to the most destitute. Under the Poor Law Act of that decade a central Board, known until 1847 as the Poor Law Commission and thereafter as the Poor Law Board had overall responsibility for relief.
I have been assured by a number of people who usually know what they’re talking about, that Jesse James’s forebears hailed from
There are a few cynics too, who would be surprised if this were not so!
In any case this is the story of Ronald Ban Donaldson, whose forebears certainly did, and whose distant American relations were acquaintances of that same James family.
We conclude, with this item, our series on the murder of Pearl Gamble by Robert McGladdery on Saturday 28 January 1961. Today is the forty-sixth anniversary of that fateful night. Had this terrible fate not befallen her,
SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN HISTORY OF NEWRY
1819 St Mary’s Parish Church (COI) opened.
1823 Gas lighting comes to town: to Ballybot in 1834.
1825 Foundation stone laid of Catholic cathedral.
1828 Cathedral opened.
In Parliament, Counsellor O’Hanlon’s son Hugh sponsored a bill for “the better lighting, watching, cleansing and paving of the town of
1829
)
Catholic Emancipation Act passed at
Control of Canal goes to Newry Navigation Company.
1830 Order of Poor Clares opens a convent in Newry.
1831 Patrick Jennings of Newry becomes P.M. of
1833 Cholera in Newry: 271 people affected; 127 die
Charles Russell (Lord Killowen) born in
.
1835 Bank of
1838
Daniel O’Connell visits Newry.
1841 Newry Workhouse opened.
1842 Celebrated novelist and traveller William Thackeray visited and praised Newry in print.
1843 Courthouse at Trevor Hill built.
1846 Old bridge at Ballybot (the
1847 Poor Law duty (to make ratepayers responsible for local poor – i.e. Workhouse inmates) established.
1849 Newry-Warrenpoint railway opened.
1845-9 Great Famine decimated
Great hunger, disease and loss of life throughout wider district and rest of
Accelerated emigration from Newry and Warrenpoint ports.
1851 Christian Brothers came to Newry
1854 Towns Improvement (
1855 Kerrs Mill / Sands’ Clanrye Mills erected
1865 Towns Improvement (
Newry-Greenore railway link opened
Christian Brothers’
1870 Dominican Fathers come to Newry
1871 Newry Water Act for improvement of town’s supply
Newry’s population reaches 14,158
1875 John Mitchel (and John Martin) dies.
Householder Lists, South Down 1848 : compiled by Father Ryan (Administrator, Donaghmore 1848) …
The centre of the S Armagh
People think they are hard done by these days.
Read an edited version of an entry in Newry Reporter 31 March 1908:
I’m thinking it must be word-and-idea association that drives me! Anna Belle spoke of Ballinliss and that brought to mind another past-pupil of that tiny school.
John McNally of Ballinliss, Killeavy spent twenty years gold-mining and prospecting in
Though we are happily not aware of it most of the time, we are all familiar with parasites living in our bodies – especially, as now, in winter, when it seems we are constantly assaulted with a host of viruses and bacteria living off us.