The workhouse records at PRONI are not on-line. You need to go in person to look them up (or pay someone else to do that for you). The records for admissions within the past 100 years are closed but that shouldn’t be an issue for someone who died in 1897.
Don’t expect too much from the admission records. It’s fairly basic information. The format varies slightly according to when the records were compiled but, in 1904 for example, you could expect to see:
1. Admission number
2. Date of admission
3. If previously relieved, reference to last register number
4. Name of Inmate
5. Residence previous to admission
6. Sex
7. Age
8. If adult, whether single, widower or widow; if child whether orphan, deserted, legitimate or illegitimate
9. Employment or calling
10. Religious denomination
11. Whether disabled and description of disability
12. Name of spouse
13. Number of children (which appears to be the number of dependent children, as opposed to the total number of children the person has ever had).
14. Observations of inmate when admitted eg “Casual & clean” or “To the infirmary”
15. Date of discharge or death
As Sinann has said, people often went to the workhouse because it had a free hospital. The National Health system of state care only got going in 1948 (and in part replaced the workhouse system). Prior to that you usually had to pay. But you didn’t need to pay for the infirmary attached to the workhouse.
According to this link, the admission records for the 1890s for Newtownards workhouse don’t appear to exist any more:
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Newtownards/
