Belfast Union Infirmary James Swan

Helen,

Belfast Union Infirmary was part of Belfast Workhouse. The records are in PRONI (the public record office) but they are not on-line. Workhouse records within the past 100 years (like this) are closed for privacy reasons. It is possible to make an application under the Freedom Of Information Act to see them. To do that you have to contact PRONI by letter or e-mail, explain your connection and ask for access under the FOI. If approved what you will get are redacted records. In this case you should get the records for your ancestor but references to other inmates will be deleted. At present PRONI is closed because of Covid and seems unlikely to reopen before April/May at the earliest.  

A little information on Belfast Workhouse here:

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Belfast/

Most workhouses had an infirmary attached. When the National workhouse system was closed down in the 1940s, in many cases the infirmary part kept operating as a conventional hospital and joined the fledgling National Health Service. Today that infirmary is Belfast City Hospital. The main hospital buildings are all of recent construction but some of the old workhouse administrative buildings are still standing.

When someone died in the workhouse their relatives could collect the body and bury it privately but if no-one came forward then normal practice was to bury it in a communal grave in the workhouse grounds. As the City Hospital expanded during the 1970s, that burial ground was required for building, and the bodies were exhumed and reburied in another cemetery.  I think they were taken to Milltown but cannot be 100% certain.

This might be your John Swan (JS, single, Presbyterian, aged 35, born Co Down, tailor) in Belfast lunatic asylum, on the Falls Rd, in the 1911 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Antrim/St__Anne_s_Ward/Falls_Road/182598/

Their records, if they survive, should also be in PRONI. Records prior to 1921 should be in the public domain, but if he was still there after that, you again may need an FOI request for privacy reasons.

Dear Elwyn,

Thanks for that information, it is extremely useful and somethin I would never have found.

Kind Regards

Helen