Pre-Famine Ireland Research Articles

Microcredit in Prefamine Ireland

Hundreds of independent, local, quasi-charitable microcredit societies, or “loan funds,” were lending to as many as 20% of Irish households in the mid-19th century. Their goal was to relieve poverty by providing credit to the “industrious poor” at competitive interest rates without public funding. They successfully mitigated informational, moral hazard, and enforcement problems, and operated at a surplus in a market where intermediation by the banks seems not to have been profitable. Loan fund activity offers new insights into capital formation in the 19th-century Irish economy and challenges traditional notions regarding the economic activities of the Irish poor. They are also relevant for economists studying current microcredit initiatives.

W. M. Thackeray and the Daguerreotype: Ireland in 1842

In 1843, William Makepeace Thackeray published The Irish SketchBook, an account of his journey to Ireland in the summer of 1842. His book is an unsentimental, perceptive, humorous work that displays a keen interest in all aspects of life in pre-Famine Ireland. Despite the sometimes harrowing nature of the conditions he observed in Ireland, the work displays all that spontaneity of wit, keen observation, good humour, compassion and cheerful disregard of consistency of opinion that was later to distinguish the author of Vanity Fair and Pendennis. One of the distinguishing features of his work is the attention he pays to the life and pursuits of the common people; a people that by turns delighted him with their language and wit, and that exasperated him with their seemingly feckless attitudes. Not all Thackeray's literary travelling predecessors had felt that the peasantry held any attraction for them; some, indeed, had either ignored or despised the peasantry as an impediment to enjoying the spectacular landscape of Ireland.

Big Whigs in the Mobilization of Irish Peasants: An Historical Sociology of Hegemony in Prefamine Ireland (1750s-1840s)

This paper explains the manipulation of small-holding peasants by middle-class groups in their conjoint struggles against Anglo-Irish landlords during a precapitalist conjuncture of external pressures on the institutional practice of class rule in Ireland (see Femand Braudel [1980] On History, Chicago: University of Chicago; Theda Skocpol [1979] States and Social Revolutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Small-holding peasants and middle-class groups sought to reform the feudal practice of jurisdictional privileges by the greater gentry of Anglo-Irish landlords. A middle-class group of Irish nationalists exercised their “hegemony” over small-holding peasants during a social movement for Catholic Emancipation in the 1820s (see Antonio Gramsci [1975] Selections from the Prisons Notebooks,New York: International Publishers). The outcomes of this social movement included the political empowerment of Catholic “whigs” to reform the feudal practices of corporations in Irish towns and the frustration of peasant interests to reform the feudal practices of Anglo-Irish landlordism in the countryside.

Microcredit in Pre-Famine Ireland

Hundreds of independent, local, quasi-charitable microcredit societies, or funds, were lending to as many as 20% of Irish households in the mid-nineteenth century. Monitored by a central regulatory authority, funds in the system were successful in mitigating informational, moral hazard and enforcement problems, and thus operated at a surplus in a market where intermediation by the banks seems not to have been possible. Created under special legislation, their goal was to relieve poverty by providing credit to the industri- ous on a large scale, at competitive interest rates, without public funding. Evidence from the loan funds offers new insights into capital formation in the Irish economy of the nineteenth century and suggests that traditional notions regarding the economic activities of the Irish poor may need to be rethought; it is also relevant for development economists studying current microcredit initiatives.

Rethinking Popular Catholicism in Pre-Famine Ireland

Au cours du XIX e siecle, l'Irlande a fait l'experience d'une revolution dans la devotion qui lui permettrait de devenir la plus romaine des populations catholiques. Avant la famine, on interprete souvent le catholicisme irlandais comme une survivance de pratiques paiennes. L'A. montre que cette hypothese de la survivance du paganisme n'est pas fausse mais qu'elle met l'accent sur ce qui est peripherique et non central au catholicisme populaire irlandais. Les caracteristiques de cette religion etaient l'activite penitentielle, le surnaturel

The role of marital fertility in Irish population history, 1750-1840

and controversy. One problem concerns the cause of the rapid population growth in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth. Irish population data are of such poor quality that several hypotheses can be plausibly advanced. A rise in levels of nuptiality and a decline in mortality have both been suggested as explanations. To these Mokyr and 0 Grada have more recently added the possibility of a rise in marital fertility. In their survey of Irish population history during the period I700-i850 they note that the relatively high Irish birth rate in i840 is explained principally by a high level of marital fertility compared with other west European countries. Nuptiality levels resembled those elsewhere in western Europe. They concluded that while the propensity to marry probably played a major role in Irish population growth in the eighteenth century as Connell postulated, the true picture is more complex. Marital fertility was exceptionally high in Ireland in i840, and it seems at least likely that this variable played an equally important role in the century prior to the Great Famine.2 Mokyr and 0 Grada also reviewed a list of possible causes of the relatively high marital fertility in pre-Famine Ireland. They mentioned 'higher fecundity, social or religious taboos on contraception, and a desire for large families' as possible causes.3 This note aims to show that the employment of a logical framework imposed by demographic constraints may limit the number of possible solutions to questions about the causes of Irish population growth and relatively high marital fertility. For instance, using stable population theory and a fertility model, it can be shown that a rise in marital fertility is unlikely to explain the whole increase in the growth rate in Ireland. Studies of the determinants of marital fertility suggest that only two proximate determinants4 of marital fertility need to be considered in this context. Using additional information supplied by Mokyr and 0 Grada, I shall suggest that the duration of the post-partum non-susceptible period, which is strongly influenced by breastfeeding patterns, was the more likely

The labor market and the distribution of landholdings in pre-Famine Ireland

The size distribution of landholdings varied widely in pre-Famine Ireland. Its determinants are of great interest given the catastrophe of the Great Famine. This paper divides holdings into labor-deficient and labor-surplus. The statistical analysis consists of fitting a lognormal distribution to the holding data and regressing the estimated parameters on the physical characteristics of the locality, such as land quality, and on the economic environment and in particular population density. Their influence operates through the labor market on the sides of both supply and demand. The model explains the inequality in the holding distribution better than the central tendency.

Demographic Pressure and the Irish Famine: Malthus after Mokyr

"This paper presents a fresh analysis of demographic pressure in pre-Famine Ireland. The crucial issue is one of measurement. Population pressure is taken as the ratio of population to non-reproducible natural resources, that is, land." The author develops a measure of land quality that is used to test the Malthusian hypothesis. "The central finding of this paper may be stated quite simply: when proper account is given to the measurement of land quality and demographic pressure, then the Malthusian hypothesis that income per capita decreases with population pressure is not rejected by the evidence of pre-Famine Ireland."

Family and farm in pre-Famine Ireland: the parish of Killashandra. By Kevin O’Neill. pp xiv, 232. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. 1984. £23.75.

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Peasants and Power: The Whiteboy Movements and Their Control in Pre-Famine Ireland

Peasants and Power: The Whiteboy Movements and Their Control in Pre-Famine Ireland

Review: Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Review: Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Family and Farm in Pre-Famine Ireland: The Parish of Killashandra

Michael Beames, Peasants and Power: The Whiteboy Movements and Their Control in Pre-Famine Ireland. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. 238 pp.

Michael Beames, Peasants and Power: The Whiteboy Movements and Their Control in Pre-Famine Ireland. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. 238 pp.

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845. By S.J. Connolly (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. ix + 338 pp.)

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845. By S.J. Connolly (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. ix + 338 pp.)

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845. By Sean J. Connolly. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. vii + 338 pp. $30.00.

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845. By Sean J. Connolly. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. vii + 338 pp. $30.00.

The "blessed turf": cholera and popular panic in Ireland, June 1832.

On 11 June 1832 Humphrey O’Sullivan, a schoolteacher living in Callan, County Kilkenny, made the following entry in his diary:The lower classes of the Irish are a credulous people. Some practical joker sent a fool out with a small piece of charred stick, or some other bit of kindling, which had been extinguished in Easter-water, or holy water, and told him to divide it into four parts, and give it to four persons in four houses, telling them that the cholera would kill them unless each one of them did the same thing. By this means 16 persons, and 64, and 256, and 1,024, and 4,096 etc., etc., got this fire, until the entire country was a laughing stock for protestants.O’Sullivan did not exaggerate. The events which he described were part of a remarkable popular panic which in the space of six days swept across the greater part of Ireland, from County Wexford in the south-east to County Donegal in the north-west, and from County Cork to the outskirts of Dublin city. It was an episode regarded by some contemporary observers with amused condescension, by others with deep alarm. For the modern historian it offers a brief but vivid insight into the mental world of a section of the catholic population in pre-Famine Ireland, and an opportunity to document in detail features of that mental world which are rarely reflected in conventional historical records.

S. J. Connolly. <italic>Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845</italic>. New York: St. Martin's Press or Gill and Macmillan, Dublin. 1982. Pp. 338. $30.00

Journal Article S. J. Connolly. Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845. New York: St. Martin's Press or Gill and Macmillan, Dublin. 1982. Pp. 338. $30.00 Get access Connolly S. J.. Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845. New York: St. Martin's Press or Gill and Macmillan, Dublin. 1982. Pp. 338. $30.00. Donald H. Akenson Donald H. Akenson Queen's University Kingston, Ontario Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 88, Issue 2, April 1983, Pages 400–401, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/88.2.400-a Published: 01 April 1983

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845. By Sean J. Connolly. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. 350 pp. $30.00

Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780-1845. By Sean J. Connolly. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. 350 pp. $30.00