Things I learned today (Part 1)

My missus if from north Galway and if you look at the 1st edition Ordnance survey mapping ( 1840) the place is full of little villages of 20-30 houses. Nothing but green fields and stone fields now.

Thatā€™s the history of the world over the same period, population explosion and shifting from rural to urban areas. Yer man mr Smith in the matrix had a point about us being a virus.

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Very true. Weā€™ve become too good at living off the land due to automation etc and donā€™t need as many people working in rural areas.

Iā€™d love to know how many other countries on earth have lower populations now than they did 180 odd years ago.

When did Dublin pass out Cork for population? Was it during the famine?

@Thomas_Brady

And what would be estimated population if the famine never took place

Iā€™d guess about 25million on the island but really we were always going to lose a huge percentage to the USA one way or another. So did southern Italy with no famine.

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There was a greater need for a motorway between Limerick and Cork 200 years ago than there is now

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So youā€™re saying that thereā€™s stone walls and the grass is green?

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Iā€™ve no idea about Cork /Dublin ā€¦ But iā€™d imagine youā€™re not far off itā€¦ Certainly by 1880s - as well as labouring poor emigrating , Dublin would have been a placed of migration also, tho small enough numbers.

The overall population actually began to decline slowly in the 1830s and would have continued to do so, just not at the rapid pace of the famineā€¦ So the 8 million was around the peak of it - the land/system in place just couldnt provide for many regardless of potato blight and landlord, tho not all, were seeing it was cheaper to pay to ship tenants off to Americas than to keep em and threaten for rentsā€¦ we still would have lost a couple of million to the states.

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Youā€™d imagine the populations of the western cities would be much more comparable to Dublin given that theyā€™d be a more natural destination for domestic economic migrants

Shur the protestants ran everything in Cork and Limerick.

Anyway - this might interest someā€¦ I was looking at my great-grandparents wedding cert earlier

cc @Fagan_ODowd @ciarancareyshurlingarmy

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Thatā€™s of great interest thanks.

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I had never heard of this before. Interesting resource. Thanks

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You need to find the historic maps if you havent already ā€¦ http://map.geohive.ie/mapviewer.html

click on the tab on the left where it says ā€˜Base Information and Mappingā€™ and scroll down to the historic version you want.

Have you checked the same maps on Griffithā€™s valuation? - (maps from around 1840-1860)

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FFS Brady, when I saw the link I thought the outstanding marriage records were now available.

Most times I open that website I lose a good hour or two of my life. God I love maps.

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Iā€™d imagine that Cork Limerick Tipp etc was where the best land was and thus able to support the most people. Itā€™s no wonder we havenā€™t a tree left when you see those numbers and think that probably 90% of them could only support themselves on what they grew

Tipperary was the murder capital of Ireland for most of the 19th century - it was like the wild west. All connected to landā€¦ Except the faction fighting when the Ryans were fighting the Ryans or when the Mahers were taking on the Mahers.

The great Charlie Brooker of Black Mirror and News Wipe fame is married to Konnie Huq of Blue Peter fame.

This is another good site. Contains all the recorded archaeological sites in Ireland (red dots) and the architectural inventory (blue dots), if you click on the dots you should get more info on the sites. The menu on the top left will let you change the basemap between 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition OS mapping as well as two aerial views.

https://webgis.archaeology.ie/historicenvironment/

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