Irish Poor Law Recruitment

Abstract

The new Irish Poor Law Commission (IPLC) was empowered by the Irish Poor Law Relief Act of 1838, to divide the country into 130 unions. Remaining under the supervision of the PLB in London until 1847, and modelled on the English system, the IPLC directed the building of 130 workhouses accommodating between 400 and 1000 paupers, administered by boards of elected Guardians with paid workhouse personnel.1 There was to be no outdoor relief. Despite extreme and widespread poverty, by March 1846 the workhouse population of 51 000 residents was relatively low.2 The reasons for reluctant entry into Irish workhouses were much the same as in England, where repugnance was fuelled by the fear inspired by the savagely austere, deliberately repellent, and badly built, high-walled buildings.3 By the end of 1846, the second year of potato crop failure, a mass of wretchedly starving and diseased peasantry were being turned away from workhouses in large numbers.4 KeywordsIrish WomanSmallpox VaccinationIrish UnionLabour PoorImperial GovernmentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.