Irish loan funds (original) (raw)

The Irish loan funds were microcredit organizations that operated in Ireland between 1720 and 1915. They were run by local associations that made small loans to the industrious poor, and were often very successful.At peak there were about 300 loan funds. Most of the records from the loan funds supervised by the London-based Irish Reproductive Loan Fund Institution before the famine have been preserved and are of great value to people researching their ancestry.