Ireland, Poverty Relief Funds, 1810-1887

Digital images of originals housed at the National Archives. Index includes the borrower's name and the guarantors or witnesses for the loan. The Irish Reproductive Loan Fund was a micro credit scheme set up in 1824 to provide small loans to the 'industrious poor'. Local associations and committees administered the scheme, most often from a small town in a rural area, and county committees oversaw their work. The records of the local associations and county committees are in the The National Archives record series (PRO) T91. As well as the notes of security for the loans, there are loan ledgers, repayment books and defaulters' books. The minimum information supplied is address and occupation, but much additional detail is often given in the local association records, including notes on health, family circumstances and emigration. The local records generally run from the late 1830s to the mid-1840s.