Ireland's population had the famine & emigration not taken place ?

wexfordia

Ireland had a population of 8 million in 1845, just before the famine started. Why estimates do historians give as to what it would be today had the famine and the emigration that followed not taken place ??

gbee

Was this not revised upwards to near 12 million?

We'd have probably had enough troops to win in WWI on our own.

chughes

Brian Lenihan senior would have cleared out a huge number of the population. After all, he said we can't all live on this little island.

CDfm

Ireland was 8 million to Britains 20 million around 1840.The UK had immigration. 1 in 12 have an Irish parent or grandparent.


France Spain and Portugal trebled from 1840 to 2000 as did the UK - so 24 million is my optimum guess

http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/westeurope.htm

24 million ??????


I have seen figures saying the total emigration after 1700 at 10 million.Estimates of the diaspora settle on around 80 milion

The other issue would have been what population would the country support. So the question is not just mathematical.

The population growth depended on the success of the potato so 8 million was probably the maximum on subsistance potato farming.

Fratton Fred

Ireland had a massive population boom in the ten years prior to the famine did it not?

Would a more accurate guess be to compare the 1835 populations rather than the 1845 ones?

CDfm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Ireland had a massive population boom in the ten years prior to the famine did it not?

Would a more accurate guess be to compare the 1835 populations rather than the 1845 ones?

I think the generally accepted figure is 8 million or so pre famine

Cmon Fred - have a go at a calculation

But what type of farming would the land support

http://www.dochara.com/the-irish/food-history/food-in-ireland-1600-1835/

Potatoes were the cheap ingredient that fueled population growth

PatsytheNazi

chughes wrote: »

Brian Lenihan senior would have cleared out a huge number of the population. After all, he said we can't all live on this little island.

Yes indeed, what a great little state we live in that has immigration as an economic policy instead of seeing it as the function of the state to provide jobs and look after the welfare of it's citizen. It gave rise to the BS of the "diaspora" and the "international Irish community" etc Ah yes, the Gombeen state.......

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Ireland had a massive population boom in the ten years prior to the famine did it not?

Would a more accurate guess be to compare the 1835 populations rather than the 1845 ones?

Yes your right there. Indeed it might be better to analyse the huge growth of population from say 1790 to 1847 ( if some reliable stats are available ? ).

CDfm

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Yes your right there. Indeed it might be better to analyse the huge growth of population from say 1790 to 1847 ( if some reliable stats are available ? ).

i tried to work this out before somewhere in the history forum.

now if only i could remember what rant i was on that day

marchdub would know .

CDfm

Found something

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Check it out for yourself, here are estimates by Angus Maddison:

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls

from:

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/

I probably don't need to mention that estimates are not fact.

Anyway, the estimate for Ireland in 1500 is 800,000 people.

Not by me but FD's figures are from a good source.

wexfordia

CDfm wrote: »

Ireland was 8 million to Britains 20 million around 1840.The UK had immigration. 1 in 12 have an Irish parent or grandparent.


France Spain and Portugal trebled from 1840 to 2000 as did the UK - so 24 million is my optimum guess

http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/westeurope.htm

24 million ??????


I have seen figures saying the total emigration after 1700 at 10 million.Estimates of the diaspora settle on around 80 milion

The other issue would have been what population would the country support. So the question is not just mathematical.

The population growth depended on the success of the potato so 8 million was probably the maximum on subsistance potato farming.

24 million sounds about right. I'd say there is enough space on this island for that amount of people.

Ostrom

Excuse the pedantry but I'm working on this chapter at the moment and happened to have Vaughan and Fitzpatrick's Irish Historical Statistics open beside me

From the original census abstracts;

1821 - 6,801,827
1831 - 7,767,410
1841 - 8,175,124
1851 - 6,552,385
1861 - 5,798,967
1881 - 5,174,436
1911 - 4,390,219

The more interesting figures are the 17th and 18th century hearth returns estimates - those revised by KH Connell and cited in evidence of early marriage and high fertility through potato-dependent reclamation

1687 (Petty's estimate - Connells revision) - 2,167,000
1732 - 3,018,000
1781 - 4,048,000
1791 - 4,753,000

Emigration was not systematically enumerated at port until 1851, after which the figures show a total emigration of 1,136,116 from 1851 - 1860. I think O' Grada estimated total deaths as around 500,000, most of which were from disease - I have the paper somewhere if ye want the reference

MarchDub

efla wrote: »

I think O' Grada estimated total deaths as around 500,000, most of which were from disease - I have the paper somewhere if ye want the reference

Cormac O'Grada in The Great Irish Famine states that estimating the precise death toll is difficult but "two recent estimates confirm the traditional guess of excess mortality of one million or one in nine of the population".

He also points out that as in any famine starvation usually leads to disease.

charlemont

CDfm wrote: »

Ireland was 8 million to Britains 20 million around 1840.The UK had immigration. 1 in 12 have an Irish parent or grandparent.


France Spain and Portugal trebled from 1840 to 2000 as did the UK - so 24 million is my optimum guess

http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/westeurope.htm

24 million ??????


I have seen figures saying the total emigration after 1700 at 10 million.Estimates of the diaspora settle on around 80 milion

The other issue would have been what population would the country support. So the question is not just mathematical.

The population growth depended on the success of the potato so 8 million was probably the maximum on subsistance potato farming.

We had other famines before that in the 1700's and we had Cromwell before that so even the then our population should have been higher, Ireland could easily support a lot more people, Look at Japan. Another poster said we should have around 24 million now, Thats same as I think myself.
When you realise all these small villages/hamlets in the countryside had several times the modern population back in the 1830's, It makes me think how different our island would be had we not been cursed with a neighbour like that.

Ostrom

MarchDub wrote: »

Cormac O'Grada in The Great Irish Famine states that estimating the precise death toll is difficult but "two recent estimates confirm the traditional guess of excess mortality of one million or one in nine of the population".

He also points out that as in any famine starvation usually leads to disease.

I'm thinking of a more recent paper with some unresolved back-and-forthing of authors estimates. I'll dig it out tomorrow, might have been a regional estimate?

MarchDub

efla wrote: »

I'm thinking of a more recent paper with some unresolved back-and-forthing of authors estimates. I'll dig it out tomorrow, might have been a regional estimate?

In his recent Famine - A Short History published in 2009 and which deals with world wide famines O Grada gives a chart of number of deaths from famine in different countries and under Ireland has the figure of 1 million.

Ostrom

That beats mine

The one I was thinking of was from 1986 (journal of demography), and was a discussed of Mokyr's estimates (based on continued 1841's trends)

The 500,000 is a cited estimate from Cousens from the 1960s

MarchDub

efla wrote: »

That beats mine

The one I was thinking of was from 1986 (journal of demography), and was a discussed of Mokyr's estimates (based on continued 1841's trends)

The 500,000 is a cited estimate from Cousens from the 1960s

Yeah - O Grada does say in The Great Irish Famine [1995] that the historic estimates go as high as 2,500,000 and that, his word "revisionists" have put it as low as 500,000 but he himself clings onto the one million figure. And like I said - he sticks with that figure into his 2009 publication.

wexfordia

charlemont wrote: »

We had other famines before that in the 1700's and we had Cromwell before that so even the then our population should have been higher, Ireland could easily support a lot more people, Look at Japan. Another poster said we should have around 24 million now, Thats same as I think myself.
When you realise all these small villages/hamlets in the countryside had several times the modern population back in the 1830's, It makes me think how different our island would be had we not been cursed with a neighbour like that.

I'd say we would be much stronger economically first and foremost, probably more of an urban society and a more confident nation also. Perhaps also we might not be as culturally influenced by the UK as we are now. Maybe maybe not.

Wibbs

Then again if the landmass of Britain didn't exist we may have ended up being Britain anyway? It's likely the romans, saxons, vikings and finally the normans would have invaded and a similar trajectory would have occured. Up to the reformation anyway.