Labourers' Cottages

In 1898 the Local Government Act was passed for Ireland, setting up Donegal County Council, which held its first meeting in Lifford on the 22nd April 1899. The Act also set up Rural and Urban District Councils in the County. One of the responsibilities of these councils was to provide new homes for people who could not build or buy their own. In rural areas these houses were called Agricultural Labourers' Cottages and between 1899 and 1924 the Rural District Councils of Donegal built 1,458 cottages for the local poor.

People who applied to live in these new homes were visited by the district inspector who reported on their living conditions. The Councils then used these reports to decide on who should live in the newly built cottages. Some of the inspectors recorded terrible housing conditions, as you will see from the report.

These early cottages had not running water, electricity or indoor toilets but were a vast improvement in the living conditions of the rural poor.

Lawrence Collection

The Lawrence Collection is a collection of over 40,000 photographs taken between 1870 and 1914 by William Lawrence. Lawrence and his chief photographer Robert French travelled all over Ireland taking photographs of towns and villages in every county, including Donegal, and then sold copies to the public.

In the late 19th century all photographs were black and white. The cameras were very large and were fixed to a stand called a tripod. Negatives were made of glass, which made them heavy and very easily broken.

The Lawrence collection is now safely kept in The National Photographic Archive in Dublin.

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