Children in the Workhouse
It is estimated that there are currently 300 children living in the County Workhouses. Various counties are looking at the best way of addressing this problem, and one solution that appears to be working is the establishment of a special school for workhouse children where they can be educated and trained. At a meeting of the Clonmel Board of Guardians the Local Government Board Inspector spoke highly of the Glin School in Limerick, noting that ‘the children are taken from the workhouse experience at such an early age that they soon forget they have ever been there, and when they left school most of them secured decent employment’. The Inspector hopes that such schemes can become part of a national strategy to remove children from the workhouse environment altogether.