Mothering strategies and the early twentieth-century Irish workhouse: a microhistory

This article traces an Irish woman pauper, Bridget Moynihan, in a County Limerick workhouse across several births and part of her lifecycle to demonstrate that for some women, the workhouse provided a place of immediate support during times of vulnerability. As Bridget Moynihan’s story reveals, engaging with the workhouse did not always result in long-term social isolation, even for marginalised women. Rather, Bridget’s story demonstrates how even unmarried impoverished Irish women could utilise the workhouse to attempt to improve their economic and familial situations, with varying levels of success. Although Bridget’s economic circumstances remained difficult throughout her life, her strategic use of the workhouse during her reproductive years helped procure her a husband, and, ultimately, some security. This microhistory thus also challenges the notion that unmarried women were destined only for social ostracisation in the early twentieth century while demonstrating the benefits of viewing the workhouse via a life-cycle approach and through tracing life-cycle events, such as birth, marriage, and death.