The Ordnance Survey's 25-inch map of around 1890, the only historical map to record the Clones Workhouse buildings, makes no mention of it. The ground gave up its dead only when construction work in the twenty-first century brought archaeologists to the site.

The Clones Workhouse was built by 1843, designed to house 600 inmates. During the Great Famine, the pressure on the institution was severe enough that additional houses were rented nearby to take a further 220 people. The workhouse continued operating into the twentieth century; the 1901 census records 80 people still living there, and the last of its buildings, a hospital to the north of the main complex, was not demolished until sometime after 2003. When pad foundations were being laid just east of the old eastern precinct wall, at its northern end, excavation work uncovered burials almost certainly belonging to the workhouse's official burial ground. In total, the remains of 35 individuals were examined by osteologist Dr Jonny Geber. Fifteen were children or pre-adults. Of the twelve adults whose remains were analysed, seven were identified as male and four as female; five had been over 45 at death. The burials were arranged in the conventional west-east Christian orientation and were interred in spruce coffins, the outlines of which remained clearly visible in the soil. Eight pits were identified at the lowest level, each containing up to four coffins, with a second phase of burial apparent higher in the soil profile. Most of the interments lay in accumulated soils interspersed with lenses of ash, and no burials were found on the western side of the precinct boundary wall.

The skeletal evidence tells a quiet but specific story of lives lived under considerable hardship. Scurvy, caused by vitamin C deficiency, was positively identified in three individuals and probably present in seven others. Signs of pulmonary infection, either tuberculosis or pneumonia, appeared in three cases. Osteoarthritis affected five individuals, and one male also showed vertebral osteophytosis, a compression of the spine associated with age and physical strain. One child may have suffered from iron deficiency. In one case, a young adult male showed evidence of blunt-force trauma to the forehead. The cause of death could not be formally determined for any of the individuals, but the pattern of conditions suggests bodies worn down by poverty, poor nutrition, and chronic illness rather than any single epidemic event.