Defining Begging and Alms-Giving
Keyword(s):
This chapter examines the challenges inherent in defining what precisely constituted begging in pre-Famine Ireland and who were considered beggars. For many poor persons, begging was just one of a number of survival strategies in the ‘economy of makeshifts’ and was resorted to according to fluctuating family circumstances. The giving of alms, meanwhile, was undertaken in various guises and oftentimes was undertaken as much to relieve genuine distress as it was to be rid of an unwanted mendicant.