Evans’ Home was built in 1818 at a cost of £5,000 on the former site of a military barracks. It was designed by the Kilkenny Architect William Robertson to provide a home for twelve men and twelve women. In 1911, we know that Evans’ Home had a matron, Margaret MacFarlane who in turn had her own domestic servant. The building would later accommodate an infant school, and the overflow holdings of the adjacent Carnegie Library.
As a protestant landowner, Evans’ stipulated that ‘in the selection of the objects and inmates of which asylum, a preference be given to protestants’. As the protestant community in Kilkenny declined, the Evans’ Home admitted increasing numbers of catholics.
Joseph Evans financed Evans’ Home well enough for it to survive until the 1990s. The building remained in use as a Care Home until the 1996 under the provisions of the trust.
BYOP