The following report a Board of Guardian’s meeting in
Dungarvan shows the precarious existence of poor people in 19th
century Ireland. In this case a widow, Margaret Power, whose house was under
threat of demolition.
Waterford News 14 December 1866
Margaret Power, widow, of Ballinagoul, Ringville, a
poor industrious woman, who, with one son, aged twelve years, is in the habit
of making nets in that locality for fishermen, to enable them to maintain the
younger members of the family , was granted a continuation of two shillings a
week for a month.
The chairman remarked that if the applicant left her
little cabin, that moment it would be levelled to the ground; he might say she
had the fee-simple of it, and if she came into the workhouse she would become a
permanent burthen on the rate payers.