At the start of the eighteenth century, the most reliable estimates put the total population of the country at around two million.
By 1754, this had risen to only 2.3 million, (a tiny rate of growth by contemporary standards,) due to poverty, disease and Ulster emigration.
By 1800, the number was between 4,500,000 and 5,000,000; in the 1821 census it was recorded as 6,800,000; by 1841 it was 8,100,000. This increase was largely concentrated in the period from about 1780 to 1830, and overwhelmingly affected the poorest labouring classes.
What caused such rapid growth is still a matter of controversy, but at least some of the reasons are clear: traditionally, the marriage age was relatively low, which led to very large families; and the subdivision of holdings, enforced by the Penal Laws, permitted increasing numbers to marry and stay on the land, albeit at the cost of increasingly poorer standards of living. |
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