Men and women who were born, grew up and died in Ireland between 1850 and 1922 made decisions - to train, to emigrate, to stay at home, to marry, to stay single, to stay at school - based on the knowledge and resources they had at the time. This, the first comprehensive social history of Ireland for the period 1850-1922 to appear since 1981, tries to understand that knowledge and to discuss those resources on the island, for men and women at all social levels, as a whole. Using original research, particularly on extreme poverty and public health, and neglected published sources - local history