Irish society and economy is studied objectively in this book as if it were a society in a distant region or in the distant past. The distortions of nationalist anti-British propaganda are removed. In particular the failure of the various separatist movements to devise an ideology which could unite and rally all the people of Ireland behind them is described. Ireland is analysed as a sociologist analyses societies and using the materials that a sociologist uses. Irish society is placed in the context of its time and place. It was one of the societies on either side of the North Atlantic Ocean. These countries were all to a greater or lesser degree developing their industries, improving their roads, building their railways, extending their trade, enlarging their towns and cities, deepening and expanding their ports, and modernising their institutions. Though religion was strong in all of them, new currents of thought, often derived from the American and French Revolutions, were being spread everywhere. It was largely an English-speaking society and its institutions were those of common law countries. As this study shows Ireland was a typical member of this group of nations. It was not the most advanced, but it was far from being the most backward. Some of the Nordic countries for example, were only beginning to follow Irelands path of development. There is no evidence that membership of the United Kingdom hindered or retarded this development. The Irish however being closely linked to England always compared their progress with that of England which was a mistake. The 19th century was Englands century, as the 15th century was Italys. What caused the Industrial Revolution where handcrafts gave way to the production by machinery to occur earlier in England than elsewhere is a subject that fascinates historians. How England came to possess the largest empire in modern times is another fascinating question. Why English institutions, a free press, a parliamentary democracy, religious tolerance, methods of education, and most modern sports came to be imitated is another one. The fact was that in the 19th century great parts of the world looked to Britain to see how they could modernise their societies and improve their economies. Ireland did likewise, and from an earlier date but never so successfully. Why Ireland was not as successful as Britain is not easily explained. Lack of coal and iron is not the explanation for some of Irelands leading industries like linen, shipbuilding, rope-making and tobacco manufacture were developed from imported materials. Likewise in England, industries which depended largely on craftsmanship like the pottery industry flourished. Nor was Irelands backwardness relative to England caused by oppressive law or restrictions for within the United Kingdom all operated under the same rules. Nor can the Catholic religion of Ireland be adduced as a cause, for most Irish businessmen were Protestants. It is not the purpose of this book to ask or settle these questions, but the simpler one of describing the facts of Irish society as it was, and to remove the distortions of propaganda. When one studies the actual facts it becomes clear that not only was Ireland neither oppressed nor backward but was actually one of the most advanced countries in the world at the time as progress was understood in the 19th century. Ireland by 1850 was already a well-developed modern society, more advanced than most countries in Europe. The period up to 1920 was one of increasing prosperity, and increasing social improvement. Every new development in the various aspects of society, industry, agriculture, communications, science and education, social improvements were all adopted. In this book I concentrate on the achievements that Irishmen can be proud of. One can look at Irish industrial achievements. Belfast showed how ships on the North Atlantic run should be built and fitted out. The greatest linen industry in the

This book describes the social and economic conditions in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century--that is up to and including the Great Famine. It is concerned about particular issues like the Catholic emancipation or the famine but looks at Irish society as a whole. Central and local government are described: the economy (agricultural and industrial), the churches, the educational system, the medicine, the arts, the music, and the sports. It aims at presenting, as complete a picture as possible, Ireland at the time.

Now available in paperback, Kevin O'Neill's highly praised study of rural Ireland in the years leading up to the "Great Hunger" of the 1840s explicates the social, economic, and demographic conditions of the era. He argues that overpopulation and deprivation were inextricably linked to a third variable--the rapid economic development of rural Ireland that was shaped by British interests.

This book traces the history of food and famine in Ireland from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. It looks at what people ate and drank, and how this changed over time. The authors explore the economic and social forces which lay behind these changes as well as the more personal motives of taste, preference, and acceptability. They analyze the reasons why the potato became a major component of the diet for so many people during the eighteenth century as well as the diets of the middling and upper classes. This is not, however, simply a social history of food but it is a nutritional one as well, and the authors go on to explore the connection between eating, health, and disease. They look at the relationship between the supply of food and the growth of the population and then finally, and unavoidably in any history of the Irish and food, the issue of famine, examining first its likelihood and then its dreadful reality when it actually occurred.

The companion volume to this one is now almost ready. This book deals with the social and economic aspects of Ireland in the pre-Famine period. The second volume (Ireland 1800-1850}deals with the political history of the same period. This book, Pre-Famine Ireland, grew out of a project I undertook, after completing my doctoral thesis, to read a copy of one or more Irish newspapers for every day between 1800 and 1850. This not only gave me contemporary perspectives on the period but also provided a wealth of information not otherwise readily available. Information, for example, on the courts, on the duties and responsibilities of officers, like mayors and sheriffs, how they were appointed, to whom they were responsible, and who was responsible for seeing they conducted themselves well; who conducted schools, what was taught in them, who managed schools for girls; long-forgotten religious disputes, and so on. It had been my intention to write a single volume on the history of the period, but the vast quantity of data I collected on social and economic conditions compelled me to gather it into a separate volume. The subject is so vast that in the course of a single volume only the barest outline of each topic can be given. There is no room for recounting different interpretations among scholars that belong more appropriately to more specialist publications. My aim is to provide a hand-book for the general reader or general student of Irish history, but also one into which the specialist may dip concerning matters not of their speciality. The period 1800 to 1850 in Irish history has not been particularly frequently or well researched. Distortions too were caused by the political objectives of the various writers. Facts were selected, omitted, or twisted to suit political objectives. Catholic or nationalist writers wrote with their own religious and political objectives in mind, and Protestants or loyalists likewise. Historians concentrated on the political struggles and conflicts, omitting investigation of other aspects of society, particularly the social and economic conditions and practices of the time. Some of these have long since vanished. Others are still with us but very much altered. Local government for example was drastically altered in the second half of the century. Some people too know institutions and customs only in their British or American forms. Nowadays, for the most part, historians take a much more objective approach, and the study of social and economic history has been developed. Social and economic institutions were well developed in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. It was not a primitive country, or yet one where a native population was ground down by colonial oppressors. The people, Catholics and Protestants, regarded themselves as living in a free and democratic country. There might be more freedom and democracy in America, but they considered that what they had was more suitable for their country, and congratulated themselves on having escaped the excesses of the French Revolution. Very few after 1800 looked for a republic. There was a free press and letters to the editor were particularly illuminating. There were great political struggles between Catholics and Protestants, but these were very similar to those between Republicans and Democrats in the United States later in the century, violence and all. Catholics in the nationalist party in Ireland and Catholics in Tammany Hall in the United States came from the same families. It was not an anti-colonial war. There were troubles and disturbances without doubt. Society was very unequal, and many rewards went to those already rich. But there was equality before the law and equality in business. Attempts were always made to remedy real grievances and numerous commissions of enquiry were appointed. Reliance was normally placed on the ordinary processes of the law. Extraordinary measures to deal with outbrea

This book deals with Irish society and history at a turning point. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Irish society was just had it always had been from time immemorial. It was not a state but a collection of warring states. Even that statement is not quite accurate for there were warring statelets within the warring states. The attempts by the kings of England from the twelfth century onwards to impose law and order had been little more successful than the attempts of various Irish chiefs before them to establish a single kingdom in Ireland. Yet the endeavours of the English kings were not without some improvements. They managed, chiefly in the eastern half of the island, to bring in improvements. By the end of the 16th century a Government had been established with a system of central administration based on Dublin and local government and administration based on shires or counties under sheriffs. Ireland might have developed into a centrally-managed state with regular parliaments and systems of courts, as the old ways were abandoned and forgotten. Unfortunaately, a civil war broke out in England which became mirrored in Ireland. In Ireland, in addition, the civil disputes between the king and the English Parliament were complicated by religious disputes. Ireland became polarized on sectarian lines. Though a peace of sorts was established after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the sectarian struggle broke out again, at the end of the century. Both sides sought the help of foreign armies, and the Protestant armies proved victorious. The Catholics paid the inevitable penalty. This might have been confined to the history books, if the Catholics, largely financed from the United States, in the 19th century tried to recover their dominance through political and violent means.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an era of continuity as well as change. Though properly portrayed as the era of 'Protestant Ascendancy' it embraces two phases - the eighteenth century when that ascendancy was at its peak; and the nineteenth century when the Protestant elite sustained a determined rear-guard defence in the face of the emergence of modern Catholic nationalism. Employing a chronology that is not bound by traditional datelines, this volume moves beyond the familiar political narrative to engage with the economy, society, population, emigration, religion, language, state formation, culture, art and architecture, and the Irish abroad. It provides new and original interpretations of a critical phase in the emergence of a modern Ireland that, while focused firmly on the island and its traditions, moves beyond the nationalist narrative of the twentieth century to provide a history of late early modern Ireland for the twenty-first century.

This edition of Cormac O'Grada's study expands upon his central arguments about the agricultural and demographic developments surrounding the Great Irish Famine. It provides new statistical information, new appendices and integrated responses to the new research and writing on the subject that has appeared since the publication of the first edition in 1987.

Arguing that social movements can be explained and understood only in a comparative historical perspective and not in terms of immediate social or political conditions, the author identifies the causes of the Land War in the evolution of social structure and collective action in the Irish countryside over the course of the nineteenth century. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.