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In 1825, Daniel O’Connell was invited by the House of Lords Select Committee to give a first-hand account of the living conditions in Ireland, which he did in graphic detail.
The UK government was alarmed so it set up a royal commission chaired by the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Richard Whately, who was also an economist.
The commission sat for three years and produced a report in 1836 which has a number of voluminous appendices which contain a vast amount of information of great historical value. (They are available at UCD Library Cultural Heritage Collections.)
The difficulty was that in Ireland, unlike Britain, there was no work available. Legislation in 1834 abolished outdoor relief and admission to the poorhouse was mandatory for those claiming relief.