The Great Famine, or the Great Hunger, was a period in Ireland between 1845 and 1849 of mass starvation, disease, and emigration. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was primarily spoken, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as An Drochshaol, loosely translated as the "hard times". The worst year of the period, that of "Black 47", is known in Irish as Bliain an Drochshaoil. During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws being codified in 1587–98. The Poor Law system was in existence until the emergence of the modern welfare state after the Second World War.
A soup kitchen, meal center, or food kitchen is a place where food is offered to the hungry usually for free or sometimes at a below-market price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, soup kitchens are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church or community groups. Soup kitchens sometimes obtain food from a food bank for free or at a low price, because they are considered a charity, which makes it easier for them to feed the many people who require their services.
The term coffin ship is used to refer to the ships that carried Irish immigrants escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances. A coffin ship was also a ship in poor condition that was overloaded and overinsured so it was more valuable to its owners if it sunk. Overloaded, overinsured ships frequently carried Irish emigrants over the Atlantic and were coffin ships of both types.
Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1922. For almost all of this period, the island was governed by the UK Parliament in London through its Dublin Castle administration in Ireland. Ireland faced considerable economic difficulties in the 19th century, including the Great Famine of the 1840s. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a vigorous campaign for Irish Home Rule. While legislation enabling Irish Home Rule was eventually passed, militant and armed opposition from Irish unionists, particularly in Ulster, opposed it. Proclamation was shelved for the duration following the outbreak of World War I. By 1918, however, moderate Irish nationalism had been eclipsed by militant republican separatism.
Hugh Boulter was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, the Primate of All Ireland, from 1724 until his death. He also served as the chaplain to George I from 1719.
A poor law union was a geographical territory, and early local government unit, in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The Coercion Acts, formally Protection of Person and Property Acts were British Acts of Parliament to respond with force to popular discontent and disorder.
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state.
Boards of guardians were ad hoc authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930.
Events from the year 1845 in Ireland.
Events from the year 1847 in Ireland.
Events from the year 1851 in Ireland.
Events from the year 1845 in the United Kingdom.
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, the most radical and comprehensive attempt was the Irish act of 1838, closely modelled on the English Poor Law of 1834. In England, this replaced Elizabethan era legislation which had no equivalent in Ireland.
Peter Gray is Professor of Modern Irish History at Queen's University Belfast. He specializes in the history of British-Irish relations in the 19th century, particularly the Great Irish Famine.
The Chronology of the Great Famine documents a period of Irish history between November 29 1845 and 1852 during which time the population of Ireland was reduced by 20 to 25 percent. The proximate cause was famine resulting from a potato disease commonly known as late blight. Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland – where a third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food – was exacerbated by a host of political, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate.
Poor Law policy after the New Poor Law concerns the time period c. 1847–1900 after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act until the beginnings of the decline of the Poor Law system at the start of the 20th century.
The Temporary Relief Act also known as the Soup Kitchen Act was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in February 1847. The Act allowed the establishment of soup kitchens in Ireland to relieve pressure from the overstretched Poor Law system, which could not adequately feed people suffering from the Great famine.
The R574 is an Irish regional road in the Beara peninsula which crosses the Caha Mountains via the (Tim) Healy Pass. It runs from the R572 at Adrigole in County Cork to the R571 near Lauragh in County Kerry. It is a popular tourist route with the pass at an altitude of 300m giving panoramas towards Bantry Bay to the south-east and the Kenmare River to the north-west.
