Economic%20Development%20in%20Ireland%201798-1921

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Economic Development in Ireland 1798-1921

• Prof. Peter Gray
• Queens University Belfast

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Economic Developments in Ireland 1798-1921

• Three aspects
• Economic developments
• Perceptions of the Irish economy and the politics
  of the economy
• Economic policy

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The national question(s) and the Irish economy

• What was the Irish economy?
• 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
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Six phases of economic development

• 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

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Three demographic regimes

• 1. A regime of population growth c.1793-1845
• A regime of demographic collapse c.1845-51
• A regime of sustained decline c.1852-1921

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Relative population figures
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1. The era of boomc. 1793-1815

• Domestic textile production in Ulster, late 18thC

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Agricultural change

• 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 Britains bread basket from 1790s
• Growing landowning expenditure and indebtedness
• Increased labour-power and potato-cultivation the
  basis of Irish tillage expansion

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Cottier agriculture

• Subdivision of land promotes rapid rural
  population growth from 1770s
• 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

Clachan settlement, Derrynane, Co. Kerry, 1845
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Proto-industrialisation

• 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)
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2. The era of malaisec. 1815-1845
Cottiers cabin, Co. Kerry, 1845
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Agricultural crisis

• 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)

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Contraction of the textile industry

• 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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British economic policy in Ireland Assimilation

• 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 English-style
  landless labouring class
• Preference for laissez-faire, especially under
  Tories

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British economic policy in Ireland Liberal
intervention

• 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

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3. The era of catastropheThe Great Famine,
1845-52
Soup Kitchen queue, 1847
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The potato crisis

• 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 1847-50, but crisis of
  entitlements means continuing famine

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Famine

• Famine accompanied by devastating epidemic
  diseases
• Large numbers of deaths from late 1846-spring
  1849
• Late and inadequate state response hampered by
  laissez-faire 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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Famine policies

• Relatively generous aid 1845-6
• Withdrawal from interference in food markets from
  1846
• Relief through public works (1846-7) 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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Mortality 1846-51

• 1.1m excess deaths 1846-51 (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

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4. The era of rising expectations c.1852-1877
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Post-Famine recovery

• 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 Gladstones first land act,
  1870

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Belfasts industrial revolution

• 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

Harland and Wolff, Belfast one of worlds
largest shipyards by 1900
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5. The era of rural conflictc. 1878-1903
Eviction scene, 1881
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Land War (1879-82)

• 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

Attack on a process server, 1880
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Continuing land conflict 1885-1903

• 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
• Wyndhams Land Act 1903 begins mass purchase of
  farms by occupying tenants with state loans

Anti-landlord cartoon, 1882
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6. The eclipse of economics?c. 1903-1921
New Creamery, Killeshandra, Co. Cavan, 1911
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Constructive Unionism

• 1885 Ashbourne Land Act
• 1903 Wyndham Land Act
• 1891 Congested Districts Board seeks to promote
  development in west
• Sir Horace Plunkett promotes agricultural
  co-operation through Irish Agricultural
  Organisation Society (1894)
• 1899 Irish Department of Agriculture established
• Widespread establishment of creameries

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Labour

• 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

Titanic propellers, Belfast, 1912
James Connolly
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Nationalist economics

• Ranch War 1906-9, but land radicalism
  increasingly marginal
• Sinn Féin demand for Irish economic autarky from
  c.1905
• 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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Unionist economics

• 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 Belfasts heavy industry after
  1920

Titanic propellers, Belfast 1912
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Conclusion Irish economies by 1920s

• 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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Follow up

• Visit QUBs interactive website
• Irish History Live
• www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/