FindMyPast Friday marks St Patrick's Day with two updates to its Irish collection.
The Books are from the Corofin (1850-1922), Ennis (1849-1877 with many gaps, and 1883-1922), Ennistymon (1839 - 1924), and Kilrush (1848-1923) Poor Law Unions. Some 382,577 records have been extracted from them, naming inmates, staff and suppliers.
The collection description is worth reading, especially if you haven't previously delved into Board of Guardians Minute Books.
Already in the Workhouses and Poor Law collection are similar records for counties Donegal, Dublin, Galway and Waterford, while Workhouse Admission and Discharge Registers are also there for Donegal, Dublin and Sligo. In total the collection holds more than 3.8million entries.
The other update to the Irish collection sees the Dublin, Guiness Brewery Employees join FindMyPast.
The Guinness Archive is based in Dublin. It preserves historical records of the Brewery from 1759 to the present day. Part of that collection includes personnel records of previous employees going back to the 1880s. While this record set is an index, it provides some good detail about each employee. This includes personal information, as well as an overview of the department in which the individual worked. Some 8,697 people are recorded.
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Although we all think of Guinness being a Dublin-based institution, you may well find ancestors from other parts of the island in them. This is because as the company grew, its distribution requirements spread across the island, and then to the UK.
By the 1890s, the Guinness Company has established trade stores in Ballinasloe (1864), Galway (1868), Limerick (1879), Cork (1891), Belfast (1893), Carlow (1895), Longford (1908), Carrick-on-Shannon (1921), Sligo and Waterford.
They were also set up in the UK cities of Glasgow, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester, so don't rule out this record set for ancestors living outside the Irish capital just because its main base was (and is) in Dublin.
If you discover an ancestor in this index, you can contact the Archive in Dublin to find out what additional records they might hold. Some of their files provide outstanding material.
The index can also be viewed at the Guinness website, where it is free.