Search Results for 'Galway Infirmary'

The first formal meeting of the Board of Guardians of the Galway Workhouse took place in the Town Hall on July 3, 1839, and the building opened on March 2, 1842, one of many such workhouses built around the country. On March 16, the first pauper died from old age and destitution. The numbers of inmates gradually increased to 313 by May 1845, after which the Famine made a huge impact on the project. It was originally designed for 800 destitute persons but this quickly increased to 1,000. Included in the complex was an infirmary for sick paupers but this rapidly became the hospital for the city’s poor.

In the early hours of July 26 1910 Menlo Castle, on the bank of the river Corrib, was totally gutted by a fire. Sir Valentine and Lady Blake’s daughter, Ellen, was lost in the flames. The cook Delia Early, who lived on the attic floor, jumped to her death. Delia shared a room with housemaid Anne Browne, who waited until her clothes were in flames, before jumping. She landed on a pile of hay placed by other household staff to break her fall. Severely injured and burnt, Anne was driven on an open truck, slowly into the Galway Infirmary, lying on a door to ease her movement and pain. Local farmers gave her milk to drink to try to cool her down.