The popular view of the Irish poor law is dominated by the image of the workhouse. Built according to a standard plan, Irish workhouses were forbidding structures that became a significant architectural feature of the Irish countryside. The workhouse reformer, Laura Stephens, observed that a visitor to an Irish town would have no difficulty in recognising the workhouse 'for the great gloomy pile of grey stone buildings, surrounded with high walls is unmistakable'.
Prior to the Great Famine (1845-50), relief was only available within the workhouse. Under the pressure of mass starvation and with many workhouses full to overflowing, the system was extended in 1847 to allow poor law boards to grant outdoor relief to the sick and disabled, and to widows with two or more legitimate children. Outdoor relief could only be granted to the able-bodied if the workhouse was full, or a site of infection. Anyone occupying more than one quarter of an acre of land, however, was excluded from receiving relief. The effect of this provision, when combined with falling rent rolls, and the liability of landlords to pay the poor rates on holdings worth less than £4 per annum, was to encourage landlords to evict their smallest tenants. Workhouse occupancy rose from around 417,000 in 1847, to around 932,000 by the end of 1849.
