Auxiliary Workhouse 2

Today home to Kehoe’s Auctioneer’s, this building was owned by the Fisher family, prominent Quakers. Anna Fisher was a young Quaker who witnessed the horrors of the famine in Youghal. She helped train women from Youghal how to make lace and that way earn some badly needed money. Anna Fisher married and went to live in Dublin with her husband Richard Haslam. She became a leading Suffragette. A park bench in St. Stephen’s Green commemorates the work of the Haslams. The Fisher family had a mill in Kinsalebeg where there were food riots. However, it was accepted that the Fishers were very fair employers and the anger of the mob was not addressed at them. Just the fact that food was being exported from Youghal at a time when people were starving. At the rear of this building, there was a mill and several outhouses. They were converted into workhouse accommodation for approximately 600 people. There are two doorways, paupers had to use the side door into the building.