Population development of Ireland if not for the Great Famine?

Morty Vicar

Banned
I'd actually be surprised if anyone was really thinking in terms of "industrialization" as the wave of the future in the 1770s. If anything, given how factories at the time were basically little more than cottage industries in specifically fabrics, it would tie the colonies to the motherland because of the need for trade links.
But, then, maybe I'm wrong and there was some of this sense. It seems anachronistic to me, though.

It was written in the vein of 'Murrica: good, Britain: Evil Empire bent on oppressing the settlers and taking their guns, taxes and freedoms.

(I presume you mean "British North America" instead of "The USA", though - that sounds like an anachronism too, because by the time it was "The USA" Britain had neither policy control nor a fear of rebellion, it was kind of late for that...)

How pedantic! :p JK good catch! :)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
It was written in the vein of 'Murrica: good, Britain: Evil Empire bent on oppressing the settlers and taking their guns, taxes and freedoms.



How pedantic! :p JK good catch! :)
Or, more precisely, bent on getting them to pay import duties. (There's a rather tongue-in-cheek poem by Kipling which notes that the desire for "freedom and liberty" came about suspiciously soon after the removal of the threat of French invasion via Canada.)
 

Teejay

Gone Fishin'
Based on the stats I could find the estimated population of Ireland in 1841 was 8.2 million, this is in comparison to England that same year with a population of 15.9 million, this is a population ratio of roughly 2:1 for england.

Just 30 years later after the mass deaths and emigration due to the famine, the population figures stood as this 26.0 million for England and 5.4 million for Ireland in 1871.

If not for the great famine would we have seen a continuation of the pre-famine population growth of Ireland with its population fluctuating around only half or so of England's population, as opposed to closer to 1/10th by the time of the Irish war of Independence? Perhaps with Ireland currently being a much larger country population wise.

There would be still be heavy emigration from Ireland and little if any population growth, therefore I believe Ireland's population now would be 15 million at the maximum. Although The absence of the potato famine could lead to a revival of the Gaelic language. Since the famine hit the Gaelic speaking regions especially hard.
 
The population not recovering in the 20th century has nothing to do with agricultural output, which is just fine considering we are major food exporters. As soon as the ecomony improved the population shot up. 1 million in 20 years, and still climbing even with the crash, though NI has remained pretty stable at 1.8.

Up a million in 20 years is hitting a much lower target than 10 million plus. And most of that growth has happened post-1995.
 
It was written in the vein of 'Murrica: good, Britain: Evil Empire bent on oppressing the settlers and taking their guns, taxes and freedoms.

No, this is absurd. The British very much set up their colonial relationships so that higher value activity happened in the UK. This is what the Navigation Acts were all about. Exports to other countries could only happen via Britain itself, so the raw materials from the colonies would be sent to Britain, and then the manufacture would happen there. This applies to the American colonies, India and Ireland (prior to the second Act of Union). There are actually quotes from colonial officials boasting how they turned Bengal from a manufacturing hub to a raw materials exporter. There was also half-hearted attempts to do this even to services, with the Stamp Act applying strongly to professions like lawyers and (I think) accountants, in the hope this would encourage the more mobile colonists to use firms in London, where possible.

This system of mercantilism within the empire impoverished Ireland and India. In the US, it did nothing of the sort, because of rampant smuggling, but they were well aware of what could happen if the regulations were enforced.

To suggest that any legitimate criticism of British imperialist policy is just "Murica, great! British, evil!" is unthinking British chauvinism. I'm actually a British patriot, born in the home counties and resident in London. It's just, like Edmund Burke, I'm fully capable of looking at the realities of colonialism without misty eyes.
 
Up a million in 20 years is hitting a much lower target than 10 million plus. And most of that growth has happened post-1995.

My point is that the population decrease post famine had less to do with food production capacity and more to do with economic factors. Had those been different I'd bet the decrease would have stabilised at a higher level and reversed, as it is now. In other words not have Dev and his crazy policies driving the economy and who knows what would have happened.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
No, this is absurd. The British very much set up their colonial relationships so that higher value activity happened in the UK. This is what the Navigation Acts were all about. Exports to other countries could only happen via Britain itself, so the raw materials from the colonies would be sent to Britain, and then the manufacture would happen there. This applies to the American colonies, India and Ireland (prior to the second Act of Union). There are actually quotes from colonial officials boasting how they turned Bengal from a manufacturing hub to a raw materials exporter. There was also half-hearted attempts to do this even to services, with the Stamp Act applying strongly to professions like lawyers and (I think) accountants, in the hope this would encourage the more mobile colonists to use firms in London, where possible.

Well naturally they would encourage economic activity to be centred around the homeland, that happens with any Empire or state. But I sincerely doubt they actively went around slowing or stopping progress in their colonies, unless they have no concept of efficiency and good trade practise.

This system of mercantilism within the empire impoverished Ireland and India. In the US, it did nothing of the sort, because of rampant smuggling, but they were well aware of what could happen if the regulations were enforced.

To suggest that any legitimate criticism of British imperialist policy is just "Murica, great! British, evil!" is unthinking British chauvinism. I'm actually a British patriot, born in the home counties and resident in London. It's just, like Edmund Burke, I'm fully capable of looking at the realities of colonialism without misty eyes.

Believe me I'm well aware of the realities of colonialism. Slavery, brutality, exploitation, home and abroad. And I'm far from being a blind patriot, it's just that from time to time I read the American narrative of the evil British Empire bent on oppressing those poor innocent settlers, and I think perhaps there is some degree of romantic revisionism. Am I wrong? Maybe the film the Patriot is actually historically accurate? :D
 

Maur

Banned
Well naturally they would encourage economic activity to be centred around the homeland, that happens with any Empire or state. But I sincerely doubt they actively went around slowing or stopping progress in their colonies, unless they have no concept of efficiency and good trade practise.
That depends. Does reversing the progress count?
 
Well naturally they would encourage economic activity to be centred around the homeland, that happens with any Empire or state. But I sincerely doubt they actively went around slowing or stopping progress in their colonies, unless they have no concept of efficiency and good trade practise.

But they did stop progress. I remember that there was a huge cloth manufacturing industry in South India that the Britsh shut down, forcing cloth manufacturing to relocate to Britain. I agree that there's definitely a lot of historical revisionism with regards to the "Evil British Empire", but this definitely did occur.
 
There would be still be heavy emigration from Ireland and little if any population growth, therefore I believe Ireland's population now would be 15 million at the maximum. Although The absence of the potato famine could lead to a revival of the Gaelic language. Since the famine hit the Gaelic speaking regions especially hard.

Thanks; I as just going to bring up the emigration factor. From my understanding, Ireland was pretty much at its mass sustainable population at the time for its level of technological development. You could even say that it was overly populated, relying on a single food source for its population (okay, that's not entirely true, but the potato had already become the stable agricultural crop for subsistance farmers), and that the blight and resulting famine was the natural outcome of that situation.

I'm not sure if there is a way to really get rid of the blight itself; it seems like something that is going to happen eventually, considering the situation at the time. However, I think you could certainly mitigate it. Germany and Poland both relied heavily on potatoes at the time (Poland especially) and both took a massive hit from the blight, but were able to weather it better due to a more varied agricultural package.

Of course, giving Ireland a more versatile agricultural sector means a) the population likely isn't going to be as high when the blight hits (although still fairly high) and b) the social and political situation is going to be different in order to create a situation where the potato doesn't become as monolithic as it did in OTL.
 
The issue was not so much emigration (which was always high even in times of relative prosperity) but birth rates which slumped after the Famine. Until the 1950s the Irish were less fertile than the English and married later if at all, thanks to cultural markers greatly influenced by the Famine.

A stable level of 15 million+ is doable, with high birth rates and high emigration rates roughly cancelling each other out.
 
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