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60 Toward Partition, 1860s to 1910s It is clear that the Great Famine of 1845–51 had a profound effect on Ireland , leaving its mark on a significantly altered and diminished society. It is also clear that the Famine’s impact was not uniform across the entire island. The death and dispersal it caused were catastrophic, but the processes it set in train were just part of an ongoing demographic tragedy for Ireland. The extent to which the Famine was a watershed in these events, or simply acted to accelerate preexisting trends, remains controversial. Nevertheless, it is clear that in the second half of the nineteenth century—the post-Famine period—significantly different paths were followed by the northern and southern parts of Ireland. This led to a divide that encompassed economic, political, ethnonational, and religious aspects, and all of these had distinct and interrelated geographies. This mix would explode in the early twentieth century. Population in the North of Ireland Mary Daly’s book The Slow Failure deals with independent Ireland’s continued population decline in the twentieth century.1 The fall in population that she discusses was a continuation of an ongoing trend that had been set in place by the Great Famine and that gathered pace during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Despite the virulence of the demographic hemorrhage, it soon became apparent that the differing spatial impacts of the Famine earlier noted were leading to lasting differences in the event’s historical footprint. Figure 5.1 shows demographic trends throughout the island of Ireland over the period 1821 to 1911 broken down by the spatial units that would become the separate political entities after Partition. The graph illustrates how much more profoundly the area that was to become the Republic of Ireland was affected by population decline subsequent to the Famine than what was to become Northern Ireland. While the population of the six northern counties had stabilized by 1901, south of what was to become the border the population continued to decline for decades. Table 5.1 elucidates these findings a little further. The initial fall between 1841 and 1851, by which point the full immediate effects of the Famine could not even yet be properly enumerated, was much more severe in the south than in the north, with the Republic of Ireland area dropping by 21.7 percent compared to just 12.5 percent for the Northern Ireland area. The disparity in decline continued, with only the 1881 census showing a convergence in the rate of decline north and south of the future border. Afterward the pattern 5 61 Toward Partition, 1860s to 1910s diverged further, with the south returning toward more rapid decline, while the north headed toward population stability and, finally, growth. The series of maps in figure 5.2 show the impact of population decline on population density. The maps for 1871 and 1891 are at the barony level. The baronies had been replaced by the rural and urban districts by the turn of the century, as described in chapter 1.2 Comparing figure 5.2 with figure 4.1 shows that over the period 1861 to 1891 there appears to be a continuation of the pattern of population loss across the rural areas of midConnacht , mid-Munster, and mid-Ulster. Even the most densely populated and prosperous area of rural Ireland, the linen triangle of north Armagh, was showing signs of serious population decline in this period. Figure 5.3 Table 5.1. Population figures and percentage change in population for the island of Ireland and the Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland areas 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 Ireland* 6,802 7,767 8,175 6,552 5,746 5,412 5,175 4,708 4,459 4,392 RoI area* 5,421 6,193 6,529 5,112 4,350 4,053 3,870 3,469 3,222 3,141 NI area* 1,380 1,574 1,646 1,441 1,396 1,359 1,305 1,239 1,237 1,251 RoI area % change 14.2 5.4 −21.7 −14.9 −6.8 −4.5 −10.4 −7.1 −2.5 NI area % change 14.1 4.6 −12.5 −3.1 −2.7 −4.0 −5.1 −0.2 1.1 * Population in 1,000s. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 Population (Millions) Year...

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