The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Society

The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society in Dublin, Ireland, is the city's oldest surviving charity.

It was left to parishes (which in the poorer areas of the city had very little to spare), private individuals and institutions to ease poverty through voluntary work.

"[2] The founders of the society were, as described in the History of Dublin (1815), "a few individuals in the middle ranks of life, inhabiting a part of the town where the population was poor and crowded, had daily opportunities of knowing that many poor creatures who were unable to dig and ashamed to beg, expired of want and were often found dead in the sequestred garrets and cellars to which they had silently returned".

The Society has traditionally acknowledged the following to have been the founders: Samuel Rosborough (linen draper), Christopher Connolly (grocer), Patrick Magin (grocer), Philip Shea (carpenter), Michael Stedman (stone-cutter), Peter Fleming (fruitman), Timothy Knowlan (pawnbroker), Thomas Wilmot, William Blacker, Laurence Toole (schoolmaster) and James Reilly.

Members paid a subscription of at least 2 pence per week, which entitled them to recommend deserving persons to be given relief by the Society.