The Irish Poor Laws were a series of Acts of Parliament intended to address social instability due to widespread and persistent poverty in Ireland. While some legislation had been introduced by the pre-Union Parliament of Ireland prior to the Act of Union, Ireland had no national Poor Law system prior to the 1830s. The statute which governed Ireland's Poor Law system was the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838, closely modeled on the English Poor Law of 1...
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The Irish Poor Laws were a series of Acts of Parliament intended to address social instability due to widespread and persistent poverty in Ireland. While some legislation had been introduced by the pre-Union Parliament of Ireland prior to the Act of Union, Ireland had no national Poor Law system prior to the 1830s. The statute which governed Ireland's Poor Law system was the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838, closely modeled on the English Poor Law of 1834. The Poor Law remained the primary method of poor relief in the Irish Free State until 1925 and in Northern Ireland until after the Second World War.
In 1703 an Act of the Irish Parliament provided for the setting up of a House of Industry in Dublin. It was introduced because:
the necessities, number, and continual increase of the poor within the City of Dublin and liberties thereto adjoining, are very great and exceedingly burdensome, for want of workhouses to set them to work, and a sufficient authority to compel thereto."
In a critical...
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