Charitable Committees
Edmund Dwyer Gray, Lord Mayor of Dublin, set up the Dublin Mansion House Relief Fund on the 2nd of January 1880 for the relief of distress in Ireland.
Dublin Mansion House Relief Fund 1880
Successive failures of harvests from 1877 – 1879 led to widespread devastation and hunger, historically known as the "little famine" of 1880.
The work of the fund was administered by a voluntary central committee and moneys were raised in Europe, North America, India and Australia. It was an all-Ireland relief fund with over 800 local committees set up in the thirty-two counties, of which membership of clergy of all denominations and poor-law medical officers was a pre-requisite. The central committee provided funds to voluntary committees who distributed in kind, supplying Indian Meal, turf and clothes to the most needy. The "Little Famine" lasted a comparatively short time, autumn 1880 yielded a good harvest and the Mansion House Fund was no longer required for the relief of distress. It was wound up in December of that year
South City Markets Fire Relief Fund
In the early morning hours of Saturday, 27 August 1892, a fire broke out in the South City Markets, off South Great George’s Street, Dublin. The Markets occupied a neo-Gothic building constructed ten years previously with frontage to George’s Street east and Fade Street on the South. A covered Market Arcade bisected the building and ran from George’s Street to Drury Street. The building was rented to shopkeepers, many of whom lived over their shops; and space was rented to stallholders who transacted business in the Market Arcade.
The fire was described at the time on the words of Lord Mayor Joseph M. Meade as “… the most disastrous … that had ever taken place in the city”. In fact, although there was extensive loss of goods and possessions, there was no loss of life and the building itself, though severely damaged, was salvaged and restored. The original façade is that which we see today.
O'Connell Monument Committee
The O’Connell Monument Committee was established following a public meeting held at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Sackville Street on 13 October 1862. A fund was opened to receive public subscriptions towards a national monument in Dublin to the Liberator Daniel O’Connell, who had won Catholic Emancipation for Ireland. The basis of the fund was the residue of money left over after completion of the O’Connell Monument in Ennis, Co. Clare. A large voluntary committee was established to raise money and arrange for the Monument to be built. There was a nucleus of trustees, including the Lord Mayor of Dublin (ex-officio); John B. Dillon; Charles Bianconi; and Sir John Gray, proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, whose newspaper was foremost in creating and maintaining interest in the project.
The archives of the O’Connell Monument Committee consist of minute books; press-cuttings; correspondence; and printed reports.
Duchess of Marlborough Relief Fund
The Duchess of Marlborough Relief Fund was founded in December 1879 for the relief of distress in Ireland. This distress had been caused by the successive failures of the harvests of 1877 – 1879, and by 1880 it had developed into the Little Famine.
The collection consists of two boxes of documents relating to the administration of the Fund and distribution of relief in the Poor Law Union of Castlebar, Co. Mayo.