Prof. Peter Gray
Queen’s University Belfast
Three aspects:
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Economic developments
Perceptions of the Irish economy and the
politics of the economy
Economic policy
What was the ‘Irish economy’?
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A regional economy within
UK?
A series of regional
economies within Ireland?
A Irish national economy?
A colonial economy?
A global economy?
Irish railway network, 1900
1. An era of boom
c.1793-1815
2. An era of malaise
c.1815-45
3. An era of catastrophe
1845-52
4. An era of rising expectations c.1852-77
5. An era of rural conflict
c.1878-1903
6. The eclipse of economics?
c.1903-1921
Population of Ireland (millions)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1800
1813
1821
Ireland
1.
2.
3.
1831
Leinster
1841
1851
Munster
1861
Connacht
A regime of population growth
A regime of demographic collapse
A regime of sustained decline
1871
1881
1891
Ulster
c.1793-1845
c.1845-51
c.1852-1921
Domestic textile production in Ulster, late 18thC
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1793-1815 wars boost Irish agriculture
through high demand and rising food prices
Growing shift from pasture to tillage and
increasing grain exports to GB
Ireland as Britain’s ‘bread basket’ from 1790s
Growing landowning expenditure and
indebtedness
Increased labour-power and potatocultivation the basis of Irish tillage expansion
Subdivision of landholdings
promotes rapid rural
population growth from
1770s: early marriage
 ‘Cottier’ peasants on 5-10
acre holdings rented yearly
 ‘Conacre’ labourers rent 1-5
acre potato land in return for
labour
 Growing reliance on potato
subsistence
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‘Clachan’ settlement, Derrynane,
Co. Kerry, 1845
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Linen industry expands rapidly from
1770s
Primarily a cottage industry in
spinning and weaving, but boosts
commercial centres such as Belfast,
Derry, Newry and Dublin
Also promotes rapid subdivision and
population growth
Epicentre of proto-industrialisation in
Co. Armagh
Development of early cotton
manufacturing in Belfast, Dublin, Co.
Cork 1780s-1820s
First shipyards open in Belfast 1790s
Green Linen Hall Belfast (c 1834)
Cottier’s cabin, Co. Kerry, 1845
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1815 Corn Laws fail to protect
Ireland from growing competition
Currency deflation creates debt
crisis
Harsher landlord-tenant relations
increase rural conflict
Expanding grain exports to 1830s
make some richer…
But leave ‘cottiers’ and labouring
poor impoverished and vulnerable
Emigration starts to rise (c.1.5m
1815-45)
Potatoes being taken to
market, Co. Kerry 1845
• Ireland subject to intensified British
competition post-1815
• Irish cotton and woolens production
collapses 1820s
• Mechanisation of linen spinning
develops from mid-1820s in Belfast
• Retreat of linen production into
‘linen triangle’ of east Ulster from
1820s
• Small textile producers in NW, SW
and midlands thrown back into
dependence on agriculture
•Collapse of industry in Dublin 1826
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Union followed by measures of economic
assimilation
Abolition of Irish pound and exchequer 1816
Full free-trade between Ireland and GB 1824
1826 Subletting Act seeks to create Englishstyle landless labouring class
Preference for laissez-faire, especially under
Tories
Crisis response to regional famines, 1817, 1822,
1831
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Increase infrastructural spending from c.1815
Irish Board of Works 1831
- develops Shannon waterway, roads and harbours
National Board of Education 1831
- offers non-denominational primary education
Irish Poor Law 1838
- 130 union workhouses with basic relief of ‘destitute’
- some assistance to dispensaries, hospitals
Irish Railway Commission Report 1838
Devon Commission Report 1845
But constraints of laissez-faire
Soup Kitchen queue, 1847
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Potato crop hit by fungal blight
phytopthora infestans
Partial failures 1845, 1848, 1849
Total failure 1846
Shortfall of 12m tonnes of potatoes
by 1846-7: a real food crisis
Continuing food exports 1846 cause
uproar
Failure of affordable imports to
meet ‘food gap’ 1846-7
Prices falling with growing imports
1847-50, but ‘crisis of entitlements’
means continuing famine
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Famine accompanied by
devastating epidemic diseases
and fevers
Large numbers of deaths from
late 1846-spring 1849
Late and inadequate state
response hampered by laissezfaire ideology
Some, but never adequate,
private charity
Coincides with industrial
downturn in GB 1847-9
Charitable relief in Co. Clare,
1849
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Relatively generous aid 1845-6
Withdrawal from interference in
food markets from 1846
Relief through public works (18467); soup kitchens (summer 1847)
Poor Law Extension Act 1847
Encumbered Estates Act 1849
places burden of Irish recovery on
‘free trade in land’
Some relief from famine debts
1853, in return for extension of
income tax
Punch on British aid,
1846
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1.1m ‘excess deaths’ 184651 (1/8 of population)
1m emigrants 1846-51
Crisis accompanied by
widespread ‘clearances’ by
landlords
Population decline highest
in western counties
Legacy of trauma and
political anger in Ireland
and its diaspora
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Agriculture shifts increasingly to cattle raising and export
Ireland increasingly tied into global market trends
Some rise in living standards, but subject to sharp
recessions 1859-63, 1877-80
Expansion of commerce, shops, credit, literacy
But continuing poverty and high emigration especially
from rural west
Five million emigrants 1851-1914
Tensions between ‘improving’ landlords and tenant
farmers, especially early 1850s, later 1860s, later 1870s –
forces Gladstone’s first land act, 1870
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Harland and Wolff, Belfast: one of
world’s largest shipyards by 1900
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Specialised development
of linen industry
Harland and Wolff
shipyard established 1861
Diversification into
engineering, rope making
Population of Belfast more
than triples to 386,000
1851-1911
Draws in population from
rural Ulster
Eviction scene, 1881
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Attack on a ‘process server’, 1880
Agricultural crisis 1877-80
The ‘Land War’ 1879-82, led by
Irish National Land League
Features ‘boycotts’, rent strikes,
initimidation, riots
1881 Land Act grants ‘3Fs’ (fair
rent; fixity of tenure; freedom
of sale of tenant right)
1882 Arrears Act
Land War curbs powers of
landlords, but fails to deliver full
demands of small farmers and
labourers
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Anti-landlord cartoon, 1882
Further agrarian depressions
1884-9, late 1890s
‘Plan of Campaign’ agitation
1886-90
United Irish League agitation
1898-1901
Conservatives accept principle of
land purchase from 1885
Wyndham’s Land Act 1903
begins mass purchase of farms by
occupying tenants with state
loans – completed 1920s
New Creamery, Killeshandra, Co. Cavan, 1911
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1885 Ashbourne Land Act
1903 Wyndham Land Act
1891 Congested Districts Board seeks to
promote development in west
Sir Horace Plunkett promotes agricultural cooperation through Irish Agricultural
Organisation Society (1894)
1899 Irish Department of Agriculture
established
Widespread establishment of creameries
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Growing concerns over urban slums –
Iveagh Trust in Dublin
Emergence of mass labour movement:
1907 Belfast dock strike;
1909 ITGWU formed;
1913 Dublin lockout strike
James Larkin promotes Irish
syndicalism
Marxist James Connolly attempts to
tie Irish Labour movement to
Republicanism, Easter 1916
But Labour damaged by
national/sectarian divisions
James Connolly
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‘Ranch War’ 1906-9, but land
radicalism increasingly marginal
Sinn Féin demand for Irish
economic autarky from c.1905 –
part of ‘Irish Ireland’ movement
1916 Proclamation contains vague
socio-economic promises
Dáil Éireann appeals to labour
through 1919 ‘Democratic
Programme’
‘Labour must wait’ 1919-21
Arthur Griffith, leader of
Sinn Féin, 1905-17
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High water mark of Ulster heavy
industry: RMS Titanic launched
1912
Belfast businessmen fund Ulster
Unionism
Argument that Ulster prosperity
based on Union and empire
First World War reinforces
economic differences of ‘two
Irelands’
But collapse of Belfast’s heavy
industry after 1920
Titanic propellers, Belfast 1912
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Lasting trauma of Great Famine
Considerable economic advances from 1850
Irish living standards above most of E and S
Europe (but below GB and US)
Land issue mostly resolved by mid-1920s
Continuing high structural emigration
Significant poverty in rural west and urban areas
IFS heavily dependent on agricultural exports to
GB
NI dependent on outdated heavy industry
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Visit QUB’s interactive website:
Irish History Live
www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/