Suchergebnisse

In all the various discussions and debates stimulated by poverty and relief in nineteenth-century Ireland, studies rarely go beyond generalisations with respect to relief committee membership. The main aim of this thesis is to go some way towards filling that void by constructing a social profile of the local relief committee member. Using local directories, church records, local newspapers, estate papers and personal diaries, this study reveals the social, religious, and where possible, political backgrounds of relief committees in the four Poor Law Unions of Dundalk, County Louth, Inishowen, County Donegal, Ballina, County Mayo and Thurles, County Tipperary. The social structures within the four Poor Law Unions were examined, revealing a tiered system of wealth in both rural and urban areas. In terms of possible relief workers, it was the towns of Dundalk, Ballina and Thurles who had larger numbers of clergy, gentry, professionals and traders to help the poor in times of need. Outside of these towns, however, figures of possible relief workers dropped sharply, as the range of potential charity workers revolved around the gentry and clergy. In terms of charitable associations formed to deal with poverty on a day to day basis, it was the unions of Ballina and Dundalk that had the more active relief volunteer force. These groups were run, for the most part, by local Protestant clergy, gentry and traders. In Thurles there was a more active Catholic participation in the relief of the poor on an ongoing basis, but it was still a small local Protestant population that seized the initiative with respect to local charity and who sustained it when others lost interest. In terms of ad hoc relief committees formed to deal with specific periods of distress, the pre-famine years saw an evolution in the role played by the relief committee member. Yet while the role of the committee member changed, one aspect of relief did not: the charity worker himself. When the blight attacked the potato crop in 1845, the four Poor Law Unions had a volunteer force that had a long experience of working together. During the famine relief, with a few exceptions, remained a particularly Protestant affair, sustained by lesser gentry and the clergy, Protestant and Catholic. The towns of Ballina and Dundalk did see a more active trader class in terms of relief but in general and despite the fact that these towns did have a growing trader class, they did not form a particularly significant part of relief committees. The famine years saw a concerted relief effort on the part of the clergy, Catholic and Protestant and they proved particularly vital to the relief effort. Government rules on relief committee membership during the famine placed all women outside of the relief committee structure. The government policy of property paying for poverty automatically placed women outside local systems of relief because few women had the actual ownership and management of landed estates directly in their hands. Yet women did operate their own system of relief during the famine. These women were invariably the wives, daughters and sisters of men who were already active local charity workers. Thus charity during this period was very much a family affair. And finally, minute books of famine relief committees confirm certain patterns that may be just hinted at in other contemporary sources. They confirm that it was the same group of people who came forward time and time again to help the poor and it was because of that fact that the social, religious and political backgrounds of relief committees rarely changed. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie