A history of the Irish poor law, in connexion with the condition of the people

by Sir George Nicholls

Considerable pains are taken to show that the system of middlemen which then prevailed, or persons holding tracts of land intermediately between the head landlord and the smaller occupiers, was injurious to both, and a bar to improvement. It was defended on the ground of its affording greater security for the rent. But Arthur Young says that the smaller tenantry were found to be the most punctual rent-payers; and he further observes, “that at the last extremity it is the occupier’s stock which is the real security of the landlord,—it is that he distrains, and finds abundantly more valuable than the laced hat hounds and pistols of the gentleman jobber, from whom he is more likely in such a case to receive a ‘message’ than a remittance.” These “profit-renters” are said to waste their time and their means in horseracing and hunting, and to be the hardest drinkers and most dissolute class of men in Ireland, as well as the greatest oppressors of the poor tenantry, whose condition is described as little better than the cottars they employ.

Arthur Young declares, that—to be ignorant of the condition of the labouring classes and the poor generally, is to be wanting in the first rudiments of political knowledge, and he states that he made every endeavour to obtain the best information on the subject, from persons in every class of life. According to some, the poor were all starving. According to others, they were in a very tolerable state of comfort.—Whilst a third party, who looked with a jaundiced eye on British administration, pointed at their poverty and rags as proofs of the cruel treatment of their country. When truth is thus liable to be warped, an inquirer should, he remarks, be slow to believe and assiduous to examine, and he intimates that such had universally been his practice.

The recompense for labour is the means of living. In England the recompense is given in money, in Ireland for the most part in land or commodities. Generally speaking the labouring poor in Ireland are said to have a fair bellyfull of potatoes, and the greater part of the year they also have milk. If there are cabins on a farm, the labourers reside in them. If there are none, the farmer marks out the potato-gardens, and the labourers raise their own cabins, the farmer often assisting them with the roof and other matters. A verbal contract is then made for the rent of the potato-garden, and the keep of one or two cows, as the case may be; after this the cottar works with the farmer at the rate of the neighbourhood, “usually sixpence halfpenny a day, a tally being kept, half by each party, and a notch cut for every day’s labour.” At the end of six or twelve months they reckon, and the balance is paid. Such it is said is the Irish cottar system, and it does not differ materially from that which prevailed in Scotland at a period somewhat anterior. Many cabins are however seen by the road-side or built in the ditch, the inhabitants of which have no potato-gardens—“a wandering family will fix themselves under a dry bank, and with a few sticks, furze, fern &c., make up a hovel no better than a pigsty, support themselves how they can by work begging and pilfering, and if the neighbourhood wants hands or takes no notice of them the hovel grows into a cabin”—these people are not cottars, but are paid in money for whatever work they perform, and consequently have no potato-ground.

The food of the smaller tenantry the cottars and labouring poor generally, was potatoes and milk, of which for the most part they are said to have a sufficiency. The English labourer’s solitary and sparing meal of bread and cheese, is contrasted with “the Irishman’s potato-bowl placed on the floor, the whole family upon their hams around it, devouring quantities almost incredible, the beggar seating himself to it with a hearty welcome, and the pig taking his share.” It must be admitted that the contrast is sufficiently striking, and scenes such as here described were no doubt then often witnessed in Ireland, and with some little modification may even occasionally be met with at the present day. This luxurious abundance was however by no means universal, as is evident by statements in other parts of the work, where many of the people are described as living very poorly, “sometimes having for three months together only potatoes and salt and water.” There is said to be a marked difference between the habits of the people in the north, and those inhabiting the southern and western districts. In the latter, land is alone looked to for affording the means of subsistence. The former are manufacturers as well as farmers, each man holding from 5 to 10 acres of land, and sometimes more, on which he raises the usual crops of corn and potatoes, together with a certain quantity of flax, which is prepared and spun, and sometimes also wove by himself and his family. This double occupation is however not favourable to excellence or improvement in either. The farming was bad, and the people generally very poor. The practice of subdividing the land, until it is brought down to the smallest modicum that can support a family, prevailed in the north as in the other parts of Ireland at that time, and has not entirely disappeared at the present day.

The people are said to be everywhere very indifferently clothed. Shoes and stockings were rarely seen on the feet of women or children, and the men were very commonly without them. They appeared more solicitous to feed than to clothe their children, the reverse of which is the case in England, where, as has often been remarked, it is common to pinch the belly in order to clothe the back. Education as far as reading and writing goes was pretty general. “Hedge schools,” as they are called, were everywhere met with, and it is remarked that they might as well be called ditch schools, many a ditch being seen full of scholars. This shows the people to have been desirous of instruction, another proof of which is, the fact of there being schools for men. “Dancing is so universal among them that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottars pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families.” The people are said to be more cheerful and lively than the English, but lazy to an excess at work, although active at play; and their love of society is as remarkable as is their curiosity, which is declared to be insatiable. Their truthfulness is however not to be relied upon, and petty thefts and pilferings are very common. They are “hard drinkers and quarrelsome, yet civil submissive and obedient.” Such is the summary of the Irish character at that time, as drawn by Arthur Young, and there is no reason to doubt its general accuracy.

With regard to other matters, an Irish cabin is described as being the most miserable-looking hovel that can well be imagined. It is generally built of mud, and consists of only one room. There is neither chimney nor window. The door lets in the light, and should let out the smoke, but that for the sake of the heat it is mostly preferred to keep it in, which injures the complexion of the women. The roof, consisting of turf straw potato-stalks or heath, has often a hole in it, and weeds sprouting from every part, giving it all the appearance of a weedy dunghill, upon which a pig or a goat is sometimes seen grazing. The furniture accorded with the cabin, often consisting only of a pot for boiling the potatoes, and one or two stools probably broken. A bed is not always seen, the family often lying upon straw, equally partaken of by the cow and the pig. Sometimes however the cabin and furniture were seen of a better description, but on inquiry it generally appeared that the improvement had taken place within the last ten years.

The readiness with which habitations are procured in Ireland, and the facility of obtaining food for a family by means of the potato, are considered to be one cause of the rapid increase of population which is shown to have taken place towards the end of the 18th century.[^[27]] Marriage was, and indeed still is, more early and more universal in Ireland than in England. An unmarried farmer or cottar is there rarely seen, and even the house-servants, men as well as women, are commonly married. Yet notwithstanding the rapid increase of population, there was a continual emigration from the ports of Derry and Belfast, several ships being regularly engaged in this passenger trade as it was called, conveying emigrants to the American colonies. These emigrants were however chiefly from the northern counties, partly farmers partly weavers. When the linen trade, the great staple of Ireland flourished, the passenger trade was low, and when the former was low the latter flourished. The emigrants are said to have been chiefly protestants, the Roman catholics at that time rarely quitting the country.

The towns were said to have very much increased during the last twenty years. “It may in truth be said that Ireland has been newly built over within that period, and in a manner far superior to what was the case before.” Towns are the markets for the general produce of the country, which they help to enrich, and at the same time also to improve. The rise of rents is a natural consequence of the increase of towns; and on an average throughout Ireland, the rents are said to have doubled in the last twenty-five years. The entire rental of Ireland at that time is set down at 5,293,312l., but Arthur Young considered it to be not less than six millions. The cost of living was on the whole found to be nearly one-half less than in England. All the articles of use and consumption were cheaper in Ireland, and the taxes trifling in comparison. There was no land-tax, no poor’s-rate, no window-tax, no candle or soap tax, only half a wheel tax, no servants’ tax; and a variety of other things heavily burthened in England, were free or not so heavily burthened in Ireland. The expenses of a family in Dublin and in London, are considered to be in the proportion of five to eight; but the Irish do however, it is added, nevertheless contrive to spend their incomes.

CHAPTER II.

Rebellion of 1798—The Union—Acts of the Imperial Parliament: respecting dispensaries, hospitals, and infirmaries—Examination of bogs—Fever hospitals—Officers of health—Lunatic asylums—Employment of the poor—Deserted children—Report of 1804 respecting the poor—Dublin House of Industry and Foundling Hospital—Reports of 1819 and 1823 on the state of disease and condition of the labouring poor—Report of 1830 on the state of the poorer classes—Report of the Committee on Education—Mr. Secretary Stanley’s letter to the Duke of Leinster—Board of National Education—First and second Reports of commissioners for inquiring into the condition of the poorer classes—The author’s ‘Suggestions’—The commissioners’ third Report—Reasons for and against a voluntary system of relief—Mr. Bicheno’s ‘Remarks on the Evidence’—Mr. G. C. Lewis’s ‘Remarks on the Third Report.’