As one can guess from the title, the following book is concerned with delving deep into the history behind the Irish poor law. They 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.
