A new perspective on the place of the workhouse in the history and geography of nineteenth-century society and social policy.

This is a study of the nature and operation of the Irish poor law system in the post-famine period. It traces the expansion of the system to encompass a wide range of welfare services, and explains the ideological and political context in which expansion took place. The only local government bodies in rural areas to include elected members, poor law boards provided many Irish nationalists with their first experience of administrative power. As the influence of the nationalist guardians in the south and west grew, so the character of poor law administration in these areas began to change. Crossman explores the nature and significance of this process through detailed analysis of local decision-making and official actions, providing a new perspective on relationships between central and local administrators, welfare providers and welfare recipients, and the respectable and non-respectable. Topics covered include the politicisation of the welfare system, the relief of distress, the provision of labourers’ cottages and the role of women in poor law administration.

This work will be essential reading for social and political historians of nineteenth-century Ireland. It is the first academic study to explore the meanings of poverty, destitution and respectability in post-famine Ireland through the institution of the poor law, and is an original in content and interpretation. Previous works have focussed either on the relief system or on political developments. This book analyses poor law administration from a social and a political perspective. There is currently renewed interest in the English poor law of 1834, on which the Irish poor law was modelled. This book will provide historians of poverty and welfare, with an important comparative dimension

Hannah demonstrates that the modernization of late nineteenth-century America was a spatial and geographical project.