Magherafelt Union Workhouse – James Alistair Bodkin

Description

Twenty years ago in May 2002 Ballinascreen Historical Society paid for, and unveiled, a memorial stone in the otherwise unmarked famine graveyard behind the Mid-Ulster Hospital. This was a natural follow-on from their three successful, and much lauded, publications on the history of the Workhouse and Hospital in 1997/98. Now, in 2022, we have reached the 175th anniversary of the worst year of the Famine, 1847. During that year 2606 paupers, orphans and deserted children flooded into the Magherafelt Workhouse. These unfortunate people came from all parts of South Derry – from Clady to Castledawson; from Lissan to “The Loop”; from Swatragh to Salterstown; from Bellaghy to Ballygillen; from Tyanee to Tobermore and from Bancran to Broagh.