Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-famine Ireland
Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-famine Ireland

Author: Ciarán McCabe

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1786941570

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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.

Old Age in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Old Age in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Author: Chris Gilleard

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-05-16

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1137585412

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Using a combination of statistical analysis of census material and social history, this book describes the ageing of Ireland’s population from the start of the Union up to the introduction of the old age pension in 1908. It examines the changing demography of the country following the Famine and the impact this had on household and family structure. It explores the growing problem of late life poverty and the residualisation of the aged sick and poor in the workhouse. Despite slow improvements in many areas of life for the young and the working classes, the book argues that for the aged the union was a period of growing immiseration, brought surprisingly to an end by the unheralded introduction of the old age pension.