Over the course of the nineteenth century there were many who were sent back to Magherafelt workhouse having arrived in Britain. Clamping down on the arrival of Irish emigrants, Scottish authorities in particular were quick to send people back to the nearest workhouse from which they had left. Indeed, ‘sent from Scotland’ was a frequent entry in the ‘Indoor register’ for the workhouse. Matthew Robinson, aged thirty-four and described as being in the army and now a ‘lunatic’, was sent ‘over from Scotland by the authorities. There were few as exceptional as the ?? Lynns Lynn’, John (aged 11), Samuel (aged 8), and Mary Ann (aged 5) who were sent back to the Magherafelt from Greenock in Scotland. Both their parents from Maghera were said to be dead but such the controversy it prompted questions in the British House of Commons. Year – Hansard reference?
It was a similar story for Jane Brown and three children sent home from Scotland in 1860 after they were deserted. Isabella Walsh and her two children were also sent ‘home’ having gone to Scotland in search of her husband. Two other children, the Michael’s from Ballymaguigan, aged only eight and four, were also ‘sent home from Glasgow’ to the Magherafelt workhouse. Of course, the question here is- how did these orphan children get to Scotland in the first place? It wasn’t just the young who were sent home- eighty-one-year-old, George Sheil was ‘sent home from the port of Glasgow by the authorities’. The Scottish authorities in particular continued this practice into the 1870s and the returned included Henry Sweeney, aged thirty-five and described as a ‘lunatic’ who was removed from the parish of Colmonell; William Beattie removed from Old Kilpatrick parish after a year and a half there; and Patrick Diamond, a sixty-six year old labourer suffering with rheumatism and who was only nine weeks in Scotland.
