Pre Famine Ireland Social Structure

This book describes the social and economic conditions in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century--that is up to and including the Great Famine. It is concerned about particular issues like the Catholic emancipation or the famine but looks at Irish society as a whole. Central and local government are described: the economy (agricultural and industrial), the churches, the educational system, the medicine, the arts, the music, and the sports. It aims at presenting, as complete a picture as possible, Ireland at the time.

The companion volume to this one is now almost ready. This book deals with the social and economic aspects of Ireland in the pre-Famine period. The second volume (Ireland 1800-1850}deals with the political history of the same period. This book, Pre-Famine Ireland, grew out of a project I undertook, after completing my doctoral thesis, to read a copy of one or more Irish newspapers for every day between 1800 and 1850. This not only gave me contemporary perspectives on the period but also provided a wealth of information not otherwise readily available. Information, for example, on the courts, on the duties and responsibilities of officers, like mayors and sheriffs, how they were appointed, to whom they were responsible, and who was responsible for seeing they conducted themselves well; who conducted schools, what was taught in them, who managed schools for girls; long-forgotten religious disputes, and so on. It had been my intention to write a single volume on the history of the period, but the vast quantity of data I collected on social and economic conditions compelled me to gather it into a separate volume. The subject is so vast that in the course of a single volume only the barest outline of each topic can be given. There is no room for recounting different interpretations among scholars that belong more appropriately to more specialist publications. My aim is to provide a hand-book for the general reader or general student of Irish history, but also one into which the specialist may dip concerning matters not of their speciality. The period 1800 to 1850 in Irish history has not been particularly frequently or well researched. Distortions too were caused by the political objectives of the various writers. Facts were selected, omitted, or twisted to suit political objectives. Catholic or nationalist writers wrote with their own religious and political objectives in mind, and Protestants or loyalists likewise. Historians concentrated on the political struggles and conflicts, omitting investigation of other aspects of society, particularly the social and economic conditions and practices of the time. Some of these have long since vanished. Others are still with us but very much altered. Local government for example was drastically altered in the second half of the century. Some people too know institutions and customs only in their British or American forms. Nowadays, for the most part, historians take a much more objective approach, and the study of social and economic history has been developed. Social and economic institutions were well developed in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. It was not a primitive country, or yet one where a native population was ground down by colonial oppressors. The people, Catholics and Protestants, regarded themselves as living in a free and democratic country. There might be more freedom and democracy in America, but they considered that what they had was more suitable for their country, and congratulated themselves on having escaped the excesses of the French Revolution. Very few after 1800 looked for a republic. There was a free press and letters to the editor were particularly illuminating. There were great political struggles between Catholics and Protestants, but these were very similar to those between Republicans and Democrats in the United States later in the century, violence and all. Catholics in the nationalist party in Ireland and Catholics in Tammany Hall in the United States came from the same families. It was not an anti-colonial war. There were troubles and disturbances without doubt. Society was very unequal, and many rewards went to those already rich. But there was equality before the law and equality in business. Attempts were always made to remedy real grievances and numerous commissions of enquiry were appointed. Reliance was normally placed on the ordinary processes of the law. Extraordinary measures to deal with outbrea

This book describes the social and economic conditions in Ireland in the second half of the 19th century, that is after the Great Famine. Though the famine severely affected the under-developed parts of Ireland, it did not greatly affect the Irish economy as a whole . On the contrary, an ever-increasing output was now spread over a falling population. GDP per capita went on rising, and people had more money to spread. The Government, the economy, agricultural and industrial, the churches, the educational system, medicine, the arts, the music, and the sports are described.

The Irish Famine of 1846-50 was one of the great disasters of the nineteenth century, whose notoriety spreads as far as the mass emigration which followed it. Cormac O'Gráda's concise survey suggests that a proper understanding of the disaster requires an analysis of the Irish economy before the invasion of the potato-killing fungus, Phytophthora infestans, highlighting Irish poverty and the importance of the potato, but also finding signs of economic progress before the Famine. Despite the massive decline in availability of food, the huge death toll of one million (from a population of 8.5 million) was hardly inevitable; there are grounds for supporting the view that a less doctrinaire attitude to famine relief would have saved many lives. This book provides an up-to-date introduction by a leading expert to an event of major importance in the history of nineteenth-century Ireland and Britain.

This book describes the social and economic conditions in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century—that is up to and including the Great Famine. It is concerned about particular issues like the Catholic emancipation or the famine but looks at Irish society as a whole. Central and local government are described: the economy (agricultural and industrial), the churches, the educational system, the medicine, the arts, the music, and the sports. It aims at presenting, as complete a picture as possible, Ireland at the time.

Beggars and begging were ubiquitous features of pre-Famine Irish society, yet have gone largely unexamined by historians. This book explores at length for the first time the complex cultures of mendicancy, as well as how wider societal perceptions of and responses to begging were framed by social class, gender and religion. The study breaks new ground in exploring the challenges inherent in defining and measuring begging and alms-giving in pre-Famine Ireland, as well as the disparate ways in which mendicants were perceived by contemporaries. A discussion of the evolving role of parish vestries in the life of pre-Famine communities facilitates an examination of corporate responses to beggary, while a comprehensive analysis of the mendicity society movement, which flourished throughout Ireland in the three decades following 1815, highlights the significance of charitable societies and associational culture in responding to the perceived threat of mendicancy. The instance of the mendicity societies illustrates the extent to which Irish commentators and social reformers were influenced by prevailing theories and practices in the transatlantic world regarding the management of the poor and deviant. Drawing on a wide range of sources previously unused for the study of poverty and welfare, this book makes an important contribution to modern Irish social and ecclesiastical history. An Open Access edition of this work is available on the OAPEN Library.

This edition of Cormac O'Grada's study expands upon his central arguments about the agricultural and demographic developments surrounding the Great Irish Famine. It provides new statistical information, new appendices and integrated responses to the new research and writing on the subject that has appeared since the publication of the first edition in 1987.

The Great Irish Famine remains one of the most lethal famines in modern world history and a watershed moment in the development of modern Ireland – socially, politically, demographically and culturally. In the space of only four years, Ireland lost twenty-five per cent of its population as a consequence of starvation, disease and large-scale emigration. Certain aspects of the Famine remain contested and controversial, for example the issue of the British government’s culpability, proselytism, and the reception of emigrants. However, recent historiographical focus on this famine has overshadowed the impact of other periods of subsistence crisis, both before 1845 and after 1852. This volume breaks new ground in bringing together foundational narratives of one of Europe and North America’s first refugee crises — making visible their impact in shaping perceptions, public opinion, and patterns of memorialization of Irish forced migration. It documents eyewitness impressions of suffering Irish emigrants, and especially orphaned infants, which became iconic images of the Famine migration.