Unlike England, Ireland, prior to 1834, did not have any kind of poor law system to relieve the distress of its poor. Outdoor relief was provided through local parochial (Church of Ireland) boards. The tithe applotment was a direct result of relief to the poor by the parochial boards. However, that relief proved inadequate as the problem of Ireland's poor escalated. To keep pace with the problem, various relief measures were proposed, such as the Select Committee's recommendation that a combination of public works, emigration, and county government reform be adopted. It wasn't until the passage of the Poor Law Act of 1834 and subsequent amendments that the problem of Ireland's poor was in part alleviated.

The poor law system in England provided a centralized program of poor relief based on local workhouses. A local Board of Guardians governed the workhouse. Men serving on the board were elected by the rate payers of the poor law unions. To insure that only the truly destitute were sheltered in the workhouses, conditions inside were far less comfortable for the inmates than life on the outside. A rule was also enacted which resulted in the separation of families (wives from husbands and children from parents).

The English workhouse and outdoor relief systems were unpopular in Ireland. Instead, a three-part program was suggested, consisting of:

1. A state-subsidized system of organized emigration

2. Drainage of swamp and bog land in order to reclaim unproductive land, and agricultural education provided by special Boards of Improvement

3. A program of public works and institutionalized relief for the disabled poor

Unfortunately, this humanitarian program was rejected by the Government and the English workhouse system was adopted instead. A Central Board in Dublin, which was subject to the control of the English Board of Poor Law Commissioners, administered the program. Ireland was divided into poor law unions. Each union was to have an elected Board of Guardians. The Board was responsible for building and administering workhouses and otherwise caring for the poor within its bounds.

An Irish poor law union consisted of an area approximately ten miles in radius. Multiple townlands, usually with a large market town as the center, were found in each union. While most unions were located within one county, some encompassed areas in as many as three counties. Large cities contained their own unions.

Because Ireland lacked any kind of institutionalized (other than jail) means of caring for its poor, there was little opposition at first to the building of workhouses. By 1841, thirty-seven houses were in operation. In that year alone, more than 30,000 people sought relief. By 1846 the 130 Irish poor law unions housed 94, 437 destitute people in its workhouses. The system, up until then, had proved adequate. But the catastrophic potato famine of the 1840s was to tax the system far beyond its means, resulting in the death or out-migration of more than half of Ireland's population.

As devastating as the famine was and as harsh as the poor law system seems today, poor law relief in Ireland resulted in the creation of some unique and useful records. Given the destruction or lack of primary record sources such as probate records, parish registers, and census returns, poor law records can be a potential source of genealogical information.

• Name
  
• Sex
  
• Age
  
• Employment (occupation) or calling
  
• If an adult, whether single, married, or widowed
  
• If a child, whether orphaned, deserted, or bastard
  
• Religious persuasion
  
• If disabled, a description of the disability
  
• Name of wife or husband
  
• Number of children
  
• Observations on the condition of the pauper
  
• Date admitted or born in the workhouse
  
• Date died or left the workhouse

The outdoor relief form is similar in content and lists:

• Date when first relieved
  
• Name
  
• Sex
  
• Age


• Married or single


• Name of wife or husband


• Number of children


• Date of application for relief


• Electoral division and townland in which a resident at the time relief was first received

Record of Birth and Record of Death
Workhouses also kept a record of births and deaths. Printed forms were used in the recording of that information. The union workhouse birth record called for:

• Number of the child in the workhouse register


• Date of birth


• Sex


• Name of parents


• Religious persuasion of parents


• To what electoral division chargeable


• Whether the child was legitimate or illegitimate


• If baptized, the date, name given at baptism, and name of person who baptized the child.

The death form is far less informative. It includes:

• Date of death


• Cause of death


• Name


• Sex


• Date of last admission to the workhouse

Vaccination Register
To prevent the outbreak of disease, compulsory acts were passed requiring that children be vaccinated, and registers of vaccination were kept. The printed form in the register listed:

• Name of child successfully vaccinated


• Age at time of vaccination


• By whom vaccinated


• Date the vaccination certificate was issued


• Name and residence of the father, mother, or person in charge of the child


• Entry number of the child in the birth record (civil registration)


• Signature of the registrar and date of registration

Other Records
Although there were 130 (the number eventually grew to 163) poor law unions in Ireland, the poor law records previously discussed may not be available for each union. Many of the sources available for counties in Northern Ireland are deposited at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast. The LDS Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, has filmed copies of poor law records deposited at PRONI. To access the poor law records, check the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) under Ireland, County - Poor Law.

Richard Hayes' Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation (sic) is a catalog of records available in various repositories in Ireland and throughout the world. For poor law records, check the subject indexes of his catalog under the headings of workhouse, vaccination, poor and poverty, poor laws, and relief and relief works.

The county libraries in Ireland hold some poor law records. Most prevalent are the Board of Guardian minute books. Libraries may also have copies of rate books. An excellent bibliography of sources available for the counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary is The Poor Law Records of Counties Limerick, Clare and Tipperary, which was published as a supplement to the North Munster Antiquarian Journal in 1979.

The condition of the poor in Ireland, and particularly the problems associated with the potato famine, resulted in a number of enquiries by Select Committees in England. Hence, the British Parliamentary Papers contain a tremendous amount of information about the poor of Ireland. For example, there is a return of names and ages of paupers in workhouse in Ireland as of March of 1863 who were born in England, Wales, or Scotland. Another return lists persons born in Ireland who received relief in England, Wales, or Scotland during the first six months of 1875 and 1877. A list of people who died in the workhouse of Castlebar Union in 1850 is also included in the Parliamentary Papers.

Select Committees also heard evidence concerning various problems involving the poor. For example, correspondence, papers, and testimony involving people who were removed from England (often illegally) to Ireland were admitted into evidence. The amount of detail that can be found in the case studies is amazing.

Elizabeth Finn, in giving testimony before the Office of the Commissioners (Relief of Poor) in 1866, reported that she was thirty-two years of age and born in Monavullen, Howlot (Oulart) Catholic Parish, Co. Wexford, which is five miles from Enniscourthy. She left Ireland the summer the Queen was crowned (she was then a child) and went to Liverpool where she worked as a servant. She returned to Ireland about 1853 and spent a week with her sister, who lived in Howlot (Oulart) parish. In the 1840s, Elizabeth gave birth to an illegitimate son who was born in the workhouse at Birkenhead. That son later became a sailor.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Dempsey and Owen Finn, a laborer, married on February 20, 1850 at St. Werburgh's Catholic church in Birkenhead. Owen, at the age of nine, came to England from Ireland with his father. He had an older sister (Mrs. Regan) who lived in Stanley Court, Dryden Street, Scotland Road. Owen and Elizabeth were the parents of four children. Margaret was born on April 8, 1851 and John on September 9, 1853 in Liverpool. Thomas was born about 1858 and Mary about 1862 in Cheshire. The family lived in various places in Toxteth Park and attended St. Patrick's Catholic church. Owen worked for a Mr. Miller for twelve years. In 1865 he went to America to work. His health failed, and he returned to England. Because Elizabeth and her children had to rely on poor law relief during her husband's absence, the family was removed from Toxteth Park, Liverpool to the Wexford (Ireland) poor law union. Thanks to money raised by friends, Elizabeth and her children later returned to England to rejoin Owen, who had recently returned from America.

The British Parliamentary Papers are found in many major university libraries. The Irish University Press (IUP) has published 1,000 volumes of selected records taken from the original Parliamentary Papers. Records about the poor in Ireland are found in the IUP series.

Unfortunately, there is not an every-name index to the Parliamentary Papers. Peter Cockton, Subject Catalogue of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 1801-1900, is a somewhat complete listing of subjects covered in the Parliamentary Papers. While his index is not all-inclusive, it is useful in getting the researcher into certain records. Further reading beyond what is listed in the Subject Catalogue may yield additional records relating to the poor in Ireland.

There are many Irish books that contain information about poor law, particularly Irish history books and books about the potato famine. The FHL and other local repositories have a number of books. To locate FHL sources, check the FHLC under Ireland-History, and Ireland-Poor Law. One book that contains information about the workings of the poor law system during the famine is E. Margaret Crawford's Famine: The Irish Experience 900-1900 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd., 1989). A map of the poor law unions is included in Crawford's book. The chapter "Valuation and Poor Law Records" in Tony McCarthy's The Irish Roots Guide (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1991) gives a concise overview of Irish poor law.