Queen's University Belfast | Welfare and public health in Belfast

Welfare and public health in Belfast

List of Resources

If you click on the link below you will find resources available for the study of poverty and public health in Ireland. This list is not exhaustive and we will be adding to it in the coming months.

Resources for the study of poverty and public health on the island of Ireland

Our new video channel‌

Over the last few months we have been producing some video material (courtesy of vimeo) based on presentations made by the project team. You can click on the vimeo icon above or click on the links provided below to two presentations made by Dr Olwen Purdue and Dr Georgina Laragy.

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To listen to Olwen Purdue speak about the Belfast workhouse in the nineteenth century and to see her presentation slides please click here to take you to the video

To hear Georgina speak about crime and paupers in Belfast c. 1901 and to see her presentation slides please click here

More audio from our February Workshop

You can listen here to participants Prof Virginia Crossman and Dr Larry Geary give their papers to our workshop in February 2013. The titles of their papers were;

L.M. Geary (UCC) ‘The best relief the poor can receive is from themselves’: The Society for Promoting the Comforts of the Poor

Virginia Crossman (OBU) Some reflections on the urban / rural poverty divide in Ireland 1850-1914


V. Crossman, Politics, pauperism and power in late-nineteenth century Ireland (Manchester, 2006)	L.M. Geary, Medicine and charity in Ireland, 1718-1851 (UCD Press, 2004)

Prof Virginia Crossman, Oxford Brookes

Dr Larry Geary, UCC

British urban poverty and welfare - listen here

Earlier in the year we held a workshop on 'Poverty and Welfare in Comparative Urban Contexts' at Queen's University in Belfast. If you are interested in hearing what Dr David Green and Dr Janet Greenlees had to say that day, click on the audio links below.

The titles of their papers were;

David Green (KCL) ‘It is here that we find the English poor law system in its most complete form’: London and the poor law in the nineteenth century

Janet Greenlees (GCU) The Church of Scotland and the poor: politics and paradoxes, c 1880-1950

Dr Janet Greenlees, GCU

Dr David Green, KCL

Project Activities

Recently the project team have been involved in a number of outreach activities which included hosting events (e.g. Crumlin Road Gaol QUB Impact event, 17 April) and improving our online presence. We have created a new project blog which you can see at www.belfastpovhist.com and we are also tweeting @belfastsickpoor.

You can click on the above link to read our latest post, written by Robyn Atcheson, which looks at religion and philanthropy in early 19thC Belfast. A sequel, which looks at the Shankill Road Town Mission in the 1890s, is provided by Stuart Irwin and will be up in the next few days.

Please keep an eye on our blog (or subscribe by emailing g.laragy@qub.ac.uk) to find out what we are up to.

We will be adding resources over the coming months including audio from our February workshop and the Crumlin Road Gaol event, and pointing you in the direction of externally-produced resources for the study of poverty and public health in Belfast since 1800.

For now though, listen to the dulcet tones of Olwen Purdue as she provides context and comment on a series of evocative images revealing the backstreets of Belfast at the turn-of-the-century that were collated into a slideshow by BBC Northern Ireland. Click here

Welfare and public health in Belfast and its region, c.1800-1973

This is a collaborative research and dissemination project on the welfare and public health history of Belfast and its hinterland (north-eastern Ulster), informed by three interlinked and co-ordinated case studies focusing on specific dimensions of that history.

Principal Investigator – Professor Peter Gray

Co-Investigator – Dr Olwen Purdue

Research Fellow /Project Manager – Dr Georgina Laragy

Research Fellow – Dr Sean Lucey

Project PhD Student – Ms Robyn Atcheson

Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2012-15

Project Office: 15 University Square, Room 202 (ext. 3664). Email: g.laragy@qub.ac.uk

For more details on the individual project elements click here

Queen's Historians go to Gaol: Prison, poorhouse and philanthropy in the lives of Belfast's poor, 1800-1939

Time: 2-4pm

Date: Wednesday 17 April 2013

Venue: Crumlin Road Gaol, 53-55 Crumlin Road, Belfast, BT14 6ST

Contact: g.laragy@qub.ac.uk

As part of the ‘Queen’s in the Community’ initiative, members of the School of History are holding an event at Crumlin Road Gaol where we will discuss the poor, criminal and sick of Belfast in the past.

Speakers include Prof Peter Gray, Drs Olwen Purdue, Sean Lucey, Georgina Laragy and Elaine Farrell as well as QUB postgraduate students Robyn Acheson and Stuart Irwin.

ALL are welcome to what promises to be a fascinating afternoon. For a look at the programme please click here

Crumlin Road Gaol Flyer