WORKHOUSE COLLAR
INK ON PAPER
22"x30"
This drawing depicts various labors that inmates were required to perform in order to obtain food and shelter. The decorative skulls and a central circular neck hole resemble the elaborate lace and crocheted collars worn by upper-class women and clergy during that era. This meticulous handwork was typically a supplemental income source for impoverished women and children. In this context, the "prickly collar" could also be interpreted as a symbolic hair shirt of shame, aimed at landlords and other authority figures.
Left side
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Milling of corn for gruel
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Breaking rocks for walls
and roads to nowhere
Center
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Roof: different hats of authorities; guardians of the workhouse, constable, bailiff
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Simple beds
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Empty place settings for food
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Work tools
Right side
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Wool being carded and spun
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Clothes being washed
and stacked
By 1845, 130 workhouses had been constructed in Ireland, one for each district. As in England, the workhouses were created to give the poorest people basic food and shelter. It was the last resort. When a family entered the workhouse, their filthy clothes were taken and they were given a simple uniform, blanket, and mattress. Children were taken from their parents and they were all separated by sex. Each long day was very regimented with work and three meager communal meals eaten in silence. Rules were strictly enforced and punishment doled out. The overcrowding and uncontrollable sanitary conditions, poor food, and hard labor increased diseases and death. Workhouses would feed, house, and require work for over 900,000 destitute Irish during the Famine years, about 25% of whom died in their care.
