Michael John Keatinge (1793–1877), also Keating, was a 19th-century Irish Anglican[1] priest.
[2] He argued in 1827 that the economic problems of Ireland were largely caused by the system of letting land, with which government should not interfere.
At this time there were proponents in the Church of Ireland clergy of a Poor Law system.
Keatinge belonged to the clerical opposition, as did George Hickey of County Wexford who in 1820 wrote as "Martin Doyle" on The State of the Poor of Ireland Considered and agricultural education, and George Miller of Derryvullan, who advocated laisser faire.
Keatinge saw the solutions, to perceived overpopulation, in emigration, and "moral education".