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We know there was a hospital in High Middle Street in 1509, though it was probably a poorhouse in reality. In 1542, the Corporation built St Bridget’s Hospital on Bohermore. It subsequently served as a Leper Hospital. The 1651 map of Galway shows four hospitals. In 1820, a fever hospital opened on Earl’s Island, and in 1824, a small lying-in hospital was established on Mill Street at Madeira Island. The County Infirmary opened on Prospect Hill in June 1802.

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.