The First Great Charity Of This Town

Belfast Charitable Society was established in 1752 with the purpose of raising funds to build a poorhouse and hospital for the poor of Belfast; twenty years later, the foundation stone of the Poorhouse was laid. From here the Society would go on to assume increasing responsibility for a range of matters relating to health, welfare and public order, and its members would play a key part in the civic life of Belfast. It continues to provide vital social services to this day and its Poorhouse, now Clifton House, is still one of the finest buildings in the city. During the century following the establishment of the Society, Belfast was transformed from a relatively small mercantile town into a major industrial city, a transformation that was accompanied by political upheaval and the major societal challenges associated with rapid industrialisation and urban growth. Taking as its focus the work of the Society, the global connections that influenced its thinking and the societal issues it sought to address, this fascinating volume provides valuable insights into the wider social, economic and political life of the nineteenth-century Irish town of which the Society became such an iconic part.

In a sleepy village nestled deep in County Carlow, Ireland, rests a small churchyard filled with ancient headstones. Who knew that one woman’s daily walk through this leafy graveyard would unravel stories of landlords, Cromwellian soldiers, bankers, Quakers, and twins whose parents have never been found? This book follows the author’s journey of transcribing gravestones as a hobby, detailing the village church and the secrets buried within its graves. It illustrates how information on headstones allows a glimpse at long-forgotten social conditions, politics, religion and grave robbing. It highlights the social lives of headstones and touches on ways the famine, typhoid and child mortality affected parts of Carlow, and a selection of sketches show the reader the beauty of Fenagh and its people.

The Great Irish Famine was one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of the nineteenth century. In a period of only five years, Ireland lost approximately 25% of its population through a combination of death and emigration. How could such a tragedy have occurred at the heart of the vast, and resource-rich, British Empire? Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland explores this question by focusing on a particular, and lesser-known, aspect of the Famine: that being the extent to which people throughout the world mobilized to provide money, food and clothing to assist the starving Irish. This book considers how, helped by developments in transport and communications, newspapers throughout the world reported on the suffering in Ireland, prompting funds to be raised globally on an unprecedented scale. Donations came from as far away as Australia, China, India and South America and contributors emerged from across the various religious, ethnic, social and gender divides. Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland traces the story of this international aid effort and uses it to reveal previously unconsidered elements in the history of the Famine in Ireland.

A perspective on the relationship between charity and medicine in Western Europe between the Middle Ages and the advent of welfare states in the 20th century. Medical history is analyzed in terms of social history and for the insight it offers into relations between various aspects of society.