Dublin South Workhouse record - 'off pass' ?

[Tickettyboo]

1915, Dublin South Workhouse register no 4291 Margaret Byrne (name was actually Boyne), admitted with no 4292 child Sylvester, age 1 year 1 month  on 12th January 1915.
Margaret was discharged on 9th April and the note says "Off Pass" (I had difficulty reading that note so paged ahead till I found a similar note that was more clearly written)
Sylvester died in the workhouse hospital on  18th April 1915. - which checks out with his death register entry.

Is anyone able to tell me what an 'Off Pass' was?

The record is on FindMyPast  http://www.rootschat.com/links/01lxp/ if anyone has access and wants to see it.

Thanks
Boo

[Milliepede]

Just a guess but could it mean an Official Pass to leave or be discharged.

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks for the suggestion, I was thinking along the same lines. I wonder if the pass meant she could come in and out to visit Sylvester in hospital?
each time I find a new record I have more and more supplementary questions to try to understand what they mean!

Boo

[Elwyn Soutter]

In workhouses the main premises and the infirmary were normally adjacent. I doubt you would need a pass to go from one to the other. But I might be wrong.

[Tickettyboo]

In workhouses the main premises and the infirmary were normally adjacent. I doubt you would need a pass to go from one to the other. But I might be wrong.

Apologies Elwyn for not replying sooner, the living have been having problems and demanding my attention recently so the long dead have had to take a back seat.

Yes I understand that the hospital and workhouse may have been separate buildings, but , straw clutching as ever, I wondered if she had been discharged but the 'pass' meamt she could visit the (adjacent but not in the same building) hospital. Bottom line is I have no idea really, I think its going to have to go on the long, and growing, list of things I don't yet understand :-)

Boo

[Bookbox]

If this had been an English workhouse, and if she was classed as a ‘casual’ (i.e. not a permanent workhouse inmate), she might have been discharged on an official pass in the morning specifically to seek work outside, instead of being allocated an in-house task. The pass would have allowed her back into the same workhouse the same evening, if required. Re-admission the same day wasn’t normally allowed to casuals, who would be expected to move on to a different workhouse, so a pass would be required.

Whether the 'pass system' applied to casuals in Dublin at this date, I have absolutely no idea, and it’s just a suggestion. Have you found any other workhouse admission records for her?

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks Bookbox,
I vaguely knew that about English workhouses but thought that the pass system was discarded long before this date as the powers that be thought it was being abused, though I haven't actually seen any of my ancestors in the workhouses in England so don't have a great deal of experience of these sort of records.
I don't know how it worked in Ireland though.
The only entries I have for her in the workhouse were for hospital treatment for her and her children. Though the family were poor, the husband did work so they had some sort of income, though it would have not gone far.
The stays were solely illness related, rather than needing a roof or food kind of thing.
The other discharge notes for this family were either blank, or (in the case of a child) 'died', or for both her and children to the Cork St Fever hospital.

Boo

[Bookbox]

The stays were solely illness related, rather than needing a roof or food kind of thing.

In that case you can probably ignore my suggestion.