The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 35, February 27, 1841Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 35, February 27, 1841
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
We may confidently attribute whatever facilities have been found to
attend the practical introduction of the law into Ireland, to the fact
that its management was entrusted in the first instance to a Commission;
that the Commissioners were men already perfectly conversant with the
subject, and that they were invested with sufficient powers to accomplish
the object. No better machinery could have been devised, and we shall
soon be enabled to perceive that it has not disappointed the expectations
to which it might fairly have given rise.
The first great object which presented itself for consideration, in
connection with the act of Parliament, may be supposed to have been the
division of the country into suitable districts for the administration of
the system. It required a new series of boundaries for its own provisions
and purposes, as the proposed relief was to be afforded territorially,
according to none of the existing divisions, either parochial, baronial,
or by counties. The Commissioners were empowered to “unite such and so
many townlands as they might think fit to be _a Union_ for the relief of
the destitute poor;” and the subject was one that evidently demanded the
most serious examination.
The principle of forming the Unions was that which the Commissioners had
previously adopted in England, namely, that the Union should consist
of a market-town as a centre, and the district of country surrounding
and depending on it, and extending to about ten miles round it in all
directions. The size of Unions was indeed a subject which caused a good
deal of anxious consideration. People, generally speaking, were at first
desirous of having smaller Unions--not taking into account, that by
increasing the number of Unions, more expense would be incurred, as the
larger the Union, the smaller is the establishment charge in proportion.
However, the Commissioners, guided by local facilities, formed Unions of
townlands already combined by social affinities as well as geographical
position, and have thus exceeded the number at first estimated on a
theoretical scale. The number declared up to the 25th of March last is
104, and 26 more, it is supposed, will comprise the whole of Ireland, and
constitute the entire.
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