The Poor Law/Workhouse System That Was Introduced in Ireland in 1838 Was Directly Based

‘Lonesome without them’: popular attitudes to poverty and charity in early nineteenth-century Ireland

Niall Ó Ciosáin, NUI, Galway

Writing about the report of the English Poor Law Commission of 1834, which led to the establishment of the New Poor Law, Gregory Smith remarks that The attitudes and behaviour of the agrarian poor were a source of grave concern to the Poor Law commissioners. In all the vast enquiries that accompanied the preparation and implementation of the New Poor Law, however, the commissioners never sought information from labouring folk themselves. (Smith 1997: 211) Two years later, is stark contrast, the Commission of Inquiry into Irish poverty did exactly that. It went to great lengths to discover the opinions and practices of the poor and spent two years gathering oral evidence from all social classes in Ireland, from landlords to beggars, and published over a thousand pages of this oral evidence in the appendices to its reports. They did this despite the fact that the procedures of the Irish inquiry were modelled on those of the English. Rather than summoning interested parties and experts to London, as was the case with most parliamentary commissions and select committees before then, the English inquiry circulated lengthy questionnaires to magistrates, clergy and others throughout the country. The questionnaires were then followed up with visits to localities by hired assistant commissioners, who verified the information provided in the replies to the questionnaires (Brundage 1978 Ch.2). The Irish commission made alterations to this already innovative method, for two reasons. The first was because Ireland did not have a national poor relief system, while in England it had existed for centuries. This meant that whereas the English inquiry was essentially examining the administration of relief, the Irish Inquiry examined poverty in general. It therefore solicited the opinions of a sample of the entire population, rather than simply the views of those who administered a poor law system. The second reason was the view the commission had of Irish society, that it was was much more divided and fractured than English society, that it was ‘divided into politico-religious parties, each regarding the other with jealousy and animosity’ to such an extent its members lived in ‘an anti-social state’ (Parl 1835, ix). What was important to achieve, therefore, was consensus. This consensus was represented by oral evidence collected from large groups assembled in public, in which all social classes were represented. The result is a document unique in the nineteenth century, containing hundreds of pages which report conversations and arguments between beggars, weavers, farmers, merchants, shopkeepers, clergy and landlords. In some parishes, particularly in the west, the evidence is a collage of quotations, usually attributed to named individuals, with little or no comment from the assistant commissioners who report it. Even taking into consideration a probable good deal of tidying up, translation and censorship by those assistant commissioners, this represents an unparalleled resource. It is the largest oral archive in nineteenth-century Ireland and a guide to some of the fundamental attitudes and beliefs of that society, particularly at its lower levels. The most relevant to our purposes is appendix A, consisting of 750 pages of oral evidence on types of poor and relief. The appendix has seven sections. Six of these correspond to the classic categories of the ‘deserving poor’ - widows, orphans, aged, disabled – and one to the ‘undeserving poor’ – that is, what the report calls ‘vagrancy’ or begging. This one section consists of 320 pages, almost half of the appendix, and features substantial discussion of the practices of informal charity. I have concentrated on the evidence of small and medium farmers, labourers and shopkeepers, as it is among these groups that the mechanisms of charity are discussed at most length, and that most opposition to a poor law is expressed.

As regards the mechanisms of charity, two types of issue are discussed, practical and cultural. Practically, a contrast is visible between charity which is urban, given mostly by shopkeepers in cash, and charity which is rural, given by farmers (and sometimes labourers) and in kind. Shopkeepers gave money, usually on set days of the week. This was the case in larger towns such as Athlone, where twenty shopkeepers gave sixpence in toto on two days a week; in Lifford and Letterkenny, Co Donegal, the days were Monday and Saturday respectively. It was also the practice in small towns such as Kilbrogan, Co. Cork, where shopkeepers gave a halfpenny to all beggars who called on Friday. Farmers, cottiers and labourers, on the other hand, gave potatoes, and gave them every day, particularly during the ‘hungry months’ of summer. Some farmers talked about giving to thirty, forty or even sixty beggars a day. This informality and irregularity meant that farmers seemed less calculating about charity than shopkeepers. In Clady, Co. Londonderry, for example, ‘the farmers did not want to calculate in any way what they gave’. Such calculations were not completely unknown. In St. Mullins, Co. Carlow, It is computed by the witnesses that a farmer holding 10 or 12 acres of land, gives away about five pounds of potatoes, one day with another… the amount of what is given by any of the few small shopkeepers who reside in the parish is estimated at a penny daily, which is about equal to the value of what is given by a small farmer. In the same county, moreover, there is a description of farmers devoting the produce of a specific field to charity: It is customary for farmers in this parish to plant some potatoes exclusively for the beggars. Mr Butler states it is ‘habitual’ for a farmer having fifty acres to plant one of potatoes for the poor. A farmer, a tenant of Mr. Bruin, told Mr.Butler he planted two acres each year for the purpose. This is the exception, however. The practice is not described elsewhere, and indeed in north Co. Clare the assistant commissioners specifically asked about it, but were told that it was unknown. Culturally, the evidence provides a detailed ethnography of a traditional Christian conception of charity. Witnesses explain their actions in terms of an underlying religious framework, explaining their charity in terms of a sacrifice to God, a sacrifice which receives a commensurate reward. This conception of charity, in other words, constitutes a system or relationship of exchange which illuminates some of the fundamental values of pre-famine society. This system can be described in a number of ways: in terms of the commodities being given and received; in terms of the rates of exchange involved; and, most relevant to this study, in terms of the intermediaries in this particular case, the beggars themselves. Briefly, as regards commodities, what is being given is potatoes and hospitality, and occasionally money; what is being received is grace in the next life, but also a direct return of potatoes in the form of good crops. According to Boyle, a farmer in Dunfanaghy, Co. Donegal, ‘I think God increases the store of those who give to the poor’. In north Co. Clare, ‘it was a common saying “that what was given away in charity never diminished a man’s substance, and that his crops were often increased by it”’. As for the rates of exchange, witnesses are reluctant to be too precise about them, since this might imply that the divinity was being treated as an equal. This emerges particularly when the assistant commissioners attempt to persuade them that they would give away less under a poor rate system. In Miltown Malbay, These computations surprised some of those who were present, and who showed much reluctance to enter into them; ‘lest’, as they expressed it themselves, ‘it should appear as if they were reckoning what they gave to Almighty God through the poor’. The same idea was expressed by Michael Kelly, a farmer in Licarrow, Co. Roscommon, as ‘I hope God will keep an account of it, but I would not like to do it’, and by the farmers of Killeagh, Co. Cork, who ‘never calculate how much we give for God’s sake, and God forbid we ever should’. At the same time, the existence of an underlying rate of exchange is clearly assumed by these witnesses, and articulated by a few. According to John Griffin, a weaver from Kilcreest, Co Galway, ‘I give, recollecting that I have another place to go to, where, if I give alms, I will receive a four-fold reward’. The intermediaries in this transaction were the beggars, and their efficacy in this role is principally dependent on the Christian idea of poverty as a holy condition. It was virtuous to give to the poor since they themselves were virtuous. The witnesses therefore continually emphasise the good behaviour of beggars, principally by emphasising their charity to each other. According to Francis Robinson, a weaver in Achonry Co. Sligo, ‘they will often share their food with each other in times of scarcity; there is an old saying “beg from a beggar”’. More concrete instances come from John Gilmore, an innkeeper in Killaloe, who told how ‘last summer, I saw a beggar woman complain of thirst to another who immediately gave her milk which I had given her some time before’; and from Patrick Cassidy, a schoolmaster in Kilcreest: ‘I saw a beggar woman open her bag and give some potatoes to another whom she knew to be in want’. The precise mechanism by which the virtue of the poor was transferred to the hospitable was prayer. Alms secured the prayers of the supplicant, often repeated within the hearing of the giver. These prayers, in a culture which prized oral performance, sometimes became a commodity in themselves, and certain prayers, or more precisely prayer performers ‘(prayer-rhymers’ is the term used by John Kelly, a mason in Clifden, Co. Galway), were thought to be more efficacious than others. In Ennistymon, Co. Clare, according to Michael Malone, a farmer of nine acres and tithe collector, ‘it was well known... that the beggar who would say the longest and best composed prayers would inevitably meet with the greatest success in collecting alms’. The notion of exchange is made explicit in a few cases, such as that of an elderly beggar in Moore, Co. Roscommon, called ‘Forty Bags’. Here he is described by J. McNamara, a weaver: His plan is to say prayers for the people of each house he comes to; he repeats them in Irish, and it generally takes him a full quarter of an hour to go through them. The woman of the house can never understand the half of what he says, and I think they are mostly his own invention; as for the quality of them, at least they are good for him. At this point, William Murray, a miller, intervenes and says It is all fair, for he pays before he receives. I should emphasise that the witnesses quoted here are those who made most explicit the conception of alms held within pre-famine society. The exchange was normally not quite as transparent or as rigid as these examples suggest, and it is perhaps better thought of as a framework within which almsgiving took place, rather than a set of rules which had to be strictly observed in each transaction. Thus, on the one hand, there could be prayers without alms, as described by Denis Hurley, in Kildysert, Co Clare: ‘Most of the beggars pray for me, whether I give or not’; and on the other hand, it was the silence and shyness of many of the seasonal beggars which showed them to be virtuous, ‘shamefaced’ poor. ‘I see these poor girls standing by the door, shaking all over and hanging down their heads, as if to avoid being seen... I know by their very manner they are deserving of compassion’, according to James Mulqueany, a farmer of five acres in Ennistymon, Co Clare. These beggars, in other words, didn’t need to pray to manifest their virtue.

As regards the prospective introduction of a poor law system, the doubts or outright opposition expressed by witnesses can also be categorised as practical or cultural. Many practical objections are recorded: an initial tax or rate would act as a precedent, allowing the imposition of ever greater demands; a poor law system would become a type of patronage and jobbery; a poorhouse would attract huge numbers of beggars to the town in which it was built; and, in one case, any innovations whatsoever proposed by the state were to be opposed. The most frequently voiced practical objection, however, relates to the difference discussed earlier between the modes of giving charity of the shopkeepers and of the farmers. Supporting the poor through a tax would mean that farmers would have to change from giving in kind to giving in cash, and from continuous small distribution to a regular large payment. The shopkeepers, on the other hand, already gave in cash and regularly. In Granard, Co. Longford, There is a general desire that a provision should be made for the destitute; but the farmers are afraid of being taxed for that purpose, which they could not afford, even though the amount were not greater than what they now give in charity. True, they would be relieved from the support of vagrants; but they would not feel the relief, as they do not now feel the pressure. And in Kilgeever, Co. Mayo: In contemplating a provision for the aged, all the farmers seem greatly alarmed at the idea of a tax for that purpose falling on themselves. M’Donnell [a farmer with 8 acres] says, ‘We have too many burthens already. Although their support presses on us now, we may not feel six stone of potatoes given from time to time during the week, while it would be impossible for us to give 6d together on a Saturday’. In case the funds were derived from the general taxation of the county, they say they would be very glad to pay their proportion. It is not surprising that some disagreement between shopkeepers and farmers was expressed on this subject. Two shopkeepers in Kildysert, Co. Clare, were adamant that farmers really do not know how much goes out of their houses in charity. If they were to stay at home one long day in summer and watch all that their wives give away, they would soon alter their way of thinking.

Alon with these practical considerations, a poor law was also objected to on cultural grounds, deriving from the conception of charity outlined above. A compulsory poor rate would diminish the virtue of the donor, remove the personal contact between donor and recipient, and undermine the framework within which charity operated. The argument about compulsion was repeated frequently, as in Macroom, Co. Cork: Several [farmers] agreed with Mr. Kelleher, who says “If I was obliged by compulsion to pay a regular sum of money, I think there would be no charity in it.” The social aspect was emphasised in Schull and Ballydehob, Co. Cork, where the assistant commissioners asked about the possibility of putting potatoes aside instead of giving them out, and giving a large amount each quarter to workhouse? The answer was no, ‘I would rather have the gratification of giving them to the poor people myself’. All of these issues, practical, cultural and social, were discussed in what amounts to an argument between the assistant commissioners and a witness in Inishannon, Co. Cork by the name of Leary. (The text does not give a first name, and there are two Learys in the list of witnesses, John Leary, an innkeeper and Thomas Leary, who is described as a ‘foundling overseer’. The emphasis on sociability suggests to me that it is the innkeeper who is speaking.) According to Leary We would much rather give as we do at present; we do not feel it going. But suppose a regular sum of half the amount of what you give would go further in supporting the poor, would you prefer paying it? Why, you know, if I was forced to pay it as a tax, it would not be charity, it would not be my own act. But if you impose the tax on yourself, is it not your own act? Well, but I would not feel the pleasure of relieving a poor creature with my own hand. Then, if there was a poorhouse at the top of the street, where every beggar could get relief, you would rather give them relief than let them go in there? Why if a poor person came to me, I would give them something, to be sure. Even though you knew that a person in real distress could not want relief, and that by giving charity to a stroller you were encouraging idleness? Well, to tell you the truth, I think we would be lonesome without them. This exchange dramatises starkly the difference between the instrumentalist principles which had dominated discussions of poor relief within the elite for a century or two before the 1830s, and an older view of charity based on human solidarity and sociability (and an occasional appreciation of oral virtuosity). There is considerable cultural weight behind Leary’s position, moreover, as legends and exempla which exhorted precisely the type of alms that he is defending continued to form an important part of the oral narrative repertoire in Irish well into the twentieth century. (O Súilleabháin 1952) This does not mean that there is a complete incommensurability between the conception of charity held by the commissioners and that held by the communities they visited. In the exchange quoted above, the commissioners assume that informal charity of the type advocated by Leary ‘encouraged idleness’ by giving to those who were not in real need. They assume, in other words, that the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, fundamental to instrumentalist views of poor relief since the sixteenth century, was not made by those they interviewed. As I have argued elsewhere, however, this distinction was understood and made by the witnesses and emerges perfectly clearly from their testimony (Ó Ciosáin 1998). In Kildysert, Co. Clare, for example, the commissioners concluded that that ‘alms are given indiscriminately, without asking any questions’, suggesting that all beggars were thought to be deserving. A short while before, however, Timothy Gorman, a 12-acre farmer, had described one very clear exception to them: I saw my wife refuse alms to a woman yesterday; and I asked her why she refused on a Monday (a thing we consider unlucky for the rest of the week); she said the woman had been coming to her for the last three days, and that she had a stout able-bodied son who would not work. Mrs. Gorman believed that the woman did not need or deserve alms, and clearly felt strongly about it, since she was prepared to run the risk of incurring bad luck as a result of giving to the undeserving. She refused charity in this case because she knew the circumstances of the other woman. In practice, given the proliferation of beggars in early nineteenth-century Ireland, this knowledge could be rare. In other words, alms were given apparently without discrimination not because people didn’t share the categories of deserving and undeserving, but because of the sheer logistical impossibility of classifying the majority of beggars as deserving or undeserving. On the evidence of the Poor Inquiry, what most people ultimately disliked about a potential poor law was that it would be formal, regular and institutional. Regularising charitable contributions in the form of an annual tax, even if that involved less expenditure in practice, was opposed because its inconveniences would outweigh its advantages, in rural areas at any rate. More fundamentally, it would make compulsory what had been voluntary, and would put an end to a practice which was highly valued, even fundamental to a community’s view of itself. And finally, it would remove an entire area of sociability, a form of face-to-face human relationship that had its own rules and expectations and cultural practices. It is difficult to know if or how these views were transformed by the subsequent introduction of the workhouse system in Ireland after 1838. To judge from newspaper reports, they informed some of the early opposition to the collection of the new poor rates, where, in addition to criticising the amount of those rates, there were also objections to their being compulsory. In the longer term, the bureaucratisation of poor relief may well have eroded the forms of sociability described by these witnesses. There is, however, no later source comparable to the Poor Inquiry that would enable us to measure such a profound cultural shift. It remains an extraordinarily rich, fascinating and unique document.

Brundage, Anthony, The Making of the New Poor Law, 1832-39 (1978) Ó Ciosáin, Niall, ‘Boccoughs and God’s poor: deserving and undeserving poor in Irish popular culture’ in Tadhg Foley and Sean Ryder (eds.), Ideology and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (1998), p.93-99 O Súilleabháin, Seán, Scéalta Cráibhtheacha (1952) Parl 1835: First Report from His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, P.P. 1835 XXIII Part. 1. Smith, Gregory, ‘”The poor in blindnes”: Letters from Mildenhall, Wiltshire, 1835-6’ in Tim Hitchcock, Peter King and Pamela Sharpe (eds.), Chronicling Poverty. The voices and strategies of the English Poor, 1640-1840 (1997), p.211-238