Rethinking the geography of distress in nineteenth-century Ireland: Excess mortality and the Land War

Eoin McLaughlin and Niall Whelehan

No 2024-04, Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Working Papers from Heriot-Watt University, Department of Accountancy, Economics, and Finance

Abstract: Analysis of excess mortality holds the potential to revise understandings of key moments in modern Irish history. Yet aside from studies of the Great Famine, it has been neglected by historians of Ireland. Examining rates of excess mortality across post-Famine Ireland reveals that the Land War crisis of 1877-1882, a transformational period, was one of the worst public health crises of modern Irish history. In fact, during the years 1878-1880 excess mortality levels were much higher than during any other period from when registration records began in 1864 up to the present day. Western regions, particularly Co. Mayo, have long been considered the worst affected by this crisis, but from the perspective of excess mortality, we establish that this was an islandwide crisis and one that was more severe that previously understood. The study of excess mortality in Irish history has been neglected partly because of some concerns expressed by scholars about the reliability of the source material in the annual statistical reports of the Registrar General. Yet, we document the reliability of the registers by cross-referencing with census returns, demonstrating their accuracy in the 1870s and 1880s, and their importance as sources to provide vital insights and context in modern Irish history.

Keywords: Land War; Excess Mortality; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 N13 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea and nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/283610/1/1881098370.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:hwuaef:283610

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Working Papers from Heriot-Watt University, Department of Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().