04 August 2025
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A new collection of 14,179 entries, for babies born in workhouses in Ireland between 1872 and 1874 became available on Ancestry on 28 July 2025.
Babies in workhouses in Ireland, 1872-1874
A new collection of 14,179 entries, for babies born in workhouses in Ireland between 1872 and 1874 became available on Ancestry on 28 July 2025.
The infants listed in the index were either born in a workhouse or they were brought to the workhouse before their first birthdays.
Records in this collection may include: the infant's name, name of the Poor Law Union, inferred birth year, health condition (the latter was categorised as 'discharged', 'healthy', 'in hospital', or 'dead').
It is suggested on Ancestry that, while the index doesn’t have names of parents or images of the original documents, it will nonetheless provide useful pointers, helping family historians to discover more details about an ancestor's infancy in the workhouse or clues to their life thereafter.
The index is based on material gathered for a House of Commons survey published in 1879. It looked at children who had been admitted between 1872 and 1874.
'By the 1870s when the records used for this index were created, orphaned children 10 and younger were often sent away from the workhouses to be nursed and cared for in foster homes,' states the Ancestry record collection guide.
Explore the records of babies admitted to workhouses in Ireland 1872-1874 with a subscription here.
Learn about the history of workhouses in Ireland at Peter Higginbotham's website and see also the Irish Workhouse Centre.
