In 1872, the Religious Sisters of Charity were asked by the Bishop of Ossory Dr Moran to care for the homeless girls of Co Kilkenny.
In September 1873, St Joseph's industrial school was founded and operated from a new building made up of a convent, school and chapel.
The school had certification for 130 girls but the number of children in the institution ranged from between 131 in 1933 down to 97 in 1983.
Numbers decreased throughout the 1980s until the 1990s, with 25 children in residence in 1993 and only 10 there when the school was handed over to the South Eastern Health Board in April 1999.
From its foundation until 1966, the school catered for girls only. With the closure of St Patrick's School for Boys in Kilkenny, the Department of Education gave permission for the enrolment of boys in St Joseph's, which began that year.
By 1972, there were 58 boys and 56 girls. Between 1933 and 1999, when St Joseph's was handed over to the South Eastern Health Board, upwards of 1,900 children passed through the school.
Reasons for almost all admissions related to parents not exercising proper guardianship or being unable to cope, destitution, illegitimacy, or illness or death of a parent. Numbers admitted for offences such as larceny were negligible.
Many of the children came from the Kilkenny area, with a significant number from Dublin.