Geata na Marbh Multi-Cache

Celbridge workouse was constructed between 1839 and 1841 as one of three workouses in County Kildare. It was designed to house 519 people from Celbridge, Lucan, Rathcoole, Leixlip, Maynooth and Kilcock, an area containing 25,424 people. A site on the Maynooth road has a memorial to 1,500 - 2,500 inmates who died and were buried there during the Great Famine of 1845-1847, recently restored by the community. According to Tony Doohan’s “History of Celbridge” during the worst of this disaster, a human being died every hour. Another historian Seamus Cummins suggests that the effects of the famine in the Celbridge Poor Law District area were less traumatic than elsewhere (such as south Kildare) because of the availability of wage economy employment in the district.

 

After the 1860s the workhouse was used as a fever hospital, regarded as progressive for its time, as a home for the elderly and infirm, and for unmarried mothers. Orphans and illegitimate children were fostered out in to the village community from the workhouse and also from the Holy Faith convents in Dublin.

 

In 1922 the workhouse was used as a base by the Free State army, was visited by General Michael Collins and there are claims that the barracks was the first in which the uniform of the new Free State army was worn. After 1923 the workhouse was closed and the barracks vacated. By 1933 the Union Paint factory had been established on the site and in 1934 there were plans for a rope factory by Henry's from Cork Street in Dublin. In 1939 the current Garda barracks was built on part of the workhouse site. The workhouse is now a paint shop.