Posted in Posts and podcasts

Foy’s Hill – 1848

Foy's Hill, Kinvara Photo: Norma Scheibe
Foy’s Hill, Kinvara
Photo: Norma Scheibe

Galway County Council Archives

By January 1848 temporary fever hospitals were established in Kinvarra and Killeenavau (G01/12/7, p28). In April 1848 the Board accepted the tender of Martin Linnane ‘for the erection of Fever sheds near Kinvarra for one hundred patients at one pound two shillings per foot lineal measurement…’ (G01/12/7, p122). The Board at this time also accepted the tender of Michael Nilan for the erection of fever sheds adjoining the Workhouse, costs divided as follows, Office sheds at £1.1.6 per foot, fever sheds including bedsteads at £1.3.6 per foot, finding and setting boilers at £1.6 pre gallon, and clothes stores £0.12.6 per foot (G01/12/7, p124).

Posted in Posts and podcasts

Foy’s Hill? – 1847

Foy's Hill, Kinvara Photo: Norma Scheibe
Foy’s Hill, Kinvara
Photo: Norma Scheibe
Epidemic Diseases of the Great Famine

Published in 18th–19th – Century
History, Features, Issue 1 (Spring 1996), The Famine, Volume 4 (abridged)

In December 1846, the board of health in Drumkeeran, County Leitrim, resolved to hire a house for use as a fever hospital, there being no such institution within a radius of eighteen miles. The proposal caused ‘inconceivable alarm’ in the town. Sixty-two of the residents, including merchants, shopkeepers, tradesmen, labourers, publicans, and householders, as well as Pat Gallaher, the schoolmaster, addressed a memorial to the Lord Lieutenant, objecting to the establishment of a fever hospital in the centre of the town. They stated that they were not so much opposed to the institution, as to its location.
A rather similar appeal was made by the residents of Kinvarra, County Galway, in July 1847. They claimed that the imminent opening of a fever hospital in the town placed their lives and those of their families in ‘the greatest peril’. They argued that the chosen site was too close to the town, that it either adjoined or was within eight feet of a range of houses occupied by some 300 individuals and was no more than sixty yards from the town centre.