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Ireland at the turn of the 19th century

  • 12-01-2015 1:50pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,629 ✭✭✭


    I'm looking to get a book that describes life in Ireland circa 1800. I'm particularly interested in how the country was policed and criminality that occurred in the country at the time. Is there any books you could recommend? Please and thank you.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 528 ✭✭✭Godot.


    I too would be interested

    Find it fascinating reading about Ireland under British Rule and this was a time (pre-famine) when Ireland made up a significant percentage of the UK population


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    I'm just just finishing up a book on that very subject, but my timeline is c 1885 to 1915.

    I found that 'unbiased' information on Policing in Ireland during the period extremely hard to come by, mainly because all the written every-day Police activities, Day-books, Investigation reports, etc, Police files, etc were destroyed (upon written instructions from Dublin) by the RIC, and any left are in private hands.

    The op could read 'The Irish Constable's Guide' by Andrew Reed.
    'Tales of the RIC' (various authors)
    or 'The Royal Irish Constabulary' by Thomas Fennell.

    Hope that much is a help.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    I found that 'unbiased' information on Policing in Ireland during the period extremely hard to come by, mainly because all the written every-day Police activities, Day-books, Investigation reports, etc, Police files, etc were destroyed (upon written instructions from Dublin) by the RIC, and any left are in private hands.

    Interesting. Where can one read more about this?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    gaiscioch wrote: »
    Interesting. Where can one read more about this?

    I came across a copy of that official letter ordering the R.I.C. to dispose of their records during my research. I have it....somewhere, but not to hand at the moment.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    magma69 wrote: »
    I'm looking to get a book that describes life in Ireland circa 1800. I'm particularly interested in how the country was policed and criminality that occurred in the country at the time. Is there any books you could recommend? Please and thank you.

    Kevin Boyle did a three-part series entitled Police in Ireland before the Union in the Irish Jurist in 1972 and 1973, which you should be able to access via JSTOR in your local library. I see somebody named Norma M. Dawson wrote an article entitled Illicit Distillation and the Revenue: Police in Ireland in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in the same jounal in 1977.



    According to Hilary Larkin's A History of Ireland, 1800–1922: Theatres of Disorder? (p. 126) in the 1830s there was one (armed) policeman for every 425 people in Ireland. This was two times more police per person than in England or Wales, and 2.5 times more than in Scotland. These were the eyes and ears of Dublin Castle in every parish in the island. From 1800 a massive militarisation of the country took place, particularly in areas which had seen insurrection in the 1790s like Wicklow and Wexford. Barracks building was extensive; by 1852, 1,590 police barracks are recorded in Ireland. The Ordnance Survey office was established in 1824 to map every area of the country as part of that militarisation. Ultimately, the "gendarmerie-style" policing which was developed in Ireland after 1800, in the words of Hachey and McCaffrey (p.31), "indicated that Ireland was much more a colony than an integral part of the United Kingdom. ... The half-police, half-soldier barracks-dwelling RIC became a model security force for the empire." I think Roy Foster talked about Ireland being a testing ground for a load of colonial "reforms" in the early 19th century. Alvin Jacksons gives an overview of the police/military/emergency legislation nexus and how it was used to control Ireland in the 19th century, contrasting it with English policy in Scotland here (p. 196).


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    I came across a copy of that official letter ordering the R.I.C. to dispose of their records during my research. I have it....somewhere, but not to hand at the moment.

    It would be interesting to see more on that and whether it was a general instruction or a specific one. I surmise this instruction to destroy records would have happened around December 1922, when the new state took over, rather than 1915, the end of the period you studied?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    gaiscioch wrote: »
    It would be interesting to see more on that and whether it was a general instruction or a specific one. I surmise this instruction to destroy records would have happened around December 1922, when the new state took over, rather than 1915, the end of the period you studied?

    I'm sure you're correct. It was a General Instruction and came too late in history for my book...however, it still remains the reason I could not conduct proper research.

    Thanks for your reply.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Well linguistically in or about 1800 Irish cease to be majority language. The spilt between Gaeltacht and Galltacht was considerably different from today, with Munster and Connacht been majority irish speaking.

    Gaeilge-early-19th-small.png


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    I came across a copy of that official letter ordering the R.I.C. to dispose of their records during my research. I have it....somewhere, but not to hand at the moment.

    I am interested in RIC history and haven't heard this before. I'd be interested to know why the order was given. Its very strange for anyone to destroy any records, whether they be military, medical, property, legal or otherwise.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,934 ✭✭✭robp


    This might be a good starting point.

    O'Brien, G. (1999). The missing personnel records of the RIC. Irish Historical Studies, 505-512.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4 The Dargle Hood


    I'd recommend "A seat behind the coachman - Travellers in Ireland 1800-1900". It certainly will leave you under no illusion as to what a truly miserable life the peasantry led in the years before and during the famine, and just how backward the country was at the turn of the 19th Century.


    "In this fascinating anthology of extracts from the notebooks of nineteenth-century English, European and American travellers a vivid picture of contemporary Irish life is gradually pieced together. The grandeur and squalor of Dublin and the provincial towns, the miserable cabins of rural areas, drinking and fighting at Donnybrook Fair, Daniel O’Connell and Catholic emancipation, Father Mathew’s temperance campaign, the hedge schools, the famine, emigration. With the fresh eyes of foreigners the travellers chronicled all they saw in compelling detail. Their impressions, linked together by the author’s clear but unobtrusive narrative, span the entire century reflecting the eventual movement away from poverty towards prosperity and economic progress."


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,636 ✭✭✭feargale


    dubhthach wrote: »
    Well linguistically in or about 1800 Irish cease to be majority language. The spilt between Gaeltacht and Galltacht was considerably different from today, with Munster and Connacht been majority irish speaking.

    I would say Irish remained the majority language until the famine. You must remember that 1. The West and South contained a bigger proportion of the total population then than now. The country was less urbanised, and 2. The census returns were not entirely accurate, and probably under-counted the rural population.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    feargale wrote: »
    I would say Irish remained the majority language until the famine. You must remember that 1. The West and South contained a bigger proportion of the total population then than now. The country was less urbanised, and 2. The census returns were not entirely accurate, and probably under-counted the rural population.

    Census didn't ask a question about language usage until 1851, I do accept the point though about under-counting though. It would generally accepted based on written sources that English past 50% about 1800. Of course it's correct to say that the actual number of Irish speakers increased numerically between 1801 and 1841 (as did all sections of population) so there were probably more Irish speakers alive in 1844 then at any time in history.

    I'd imagine between daily speakers and people who were english speakers with knowledge of Irish that you were looking at linguistic community of at least 50% by dawn of the famine.

    As for distribution of population here's some stats from the census, unfortunately they only cover population minus 6 counties:

    Lenister / Munster / Connacht / Ulster (3 counties)
    1841: 30.23% / 36.7% / 21.73% / 11.33%
    1926: 38.6% / 32.6% / 18.6% / 10%
    1961: 47.26% / 30.13% / 14.88% / 7.71%
    2006: 54.13% / 27.67% / 11.89% / 6.3%

    As can be seen Connacht and "Ulster" (Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal) are at half the proportion of "national" population that they held in 1841.

    As side note I recall reading a primary source from late 18th century that put % of Irish speakers at about 65-70% in the 1770's. The shift in the likes of Leinster can be seen with complaints at the likes of Irish College in Paris, due to fact that candidates from training originating in Leinster at this stage were generally english speakers.

    Gaeilge-late-18th-small.png


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