Ireland had more people than all these countries in 1840…

30 comments
  1. If the famine hadn’t happened we be the 6th largest country by population in the EU and 26th in the world, we’d have about 30m. Crazy to think how different Ireland would be

  2. I heard in we lost a fair bit of height due to the famine. The british naval records, apparently, recorded the average height of an Irish man at around 6ft.

  3. If I recall, the population of GB at the same time was 17m, or just about twice ours. Now it’s 1:10

  4. What a grand and prosperous country. I’m sure it will continue to flourish despite the hardships it may face in the future.

  5. Basically lots of small towns and villages would have a larger population than they have now. You only have to drive around the countryside and see the sheer amount of tiny towns and villages to realise what could have been, west Tipp, east Limerick and north Cork is stuffed with them.

  6. It’s weird thinking about an Ireland with 30-40 million people. Dublin the size of London, Galway the size Dublin. Irish as our mother tongue. Our culture would be far more distinct, but also far less well known internationally. Maybe we’d even have a few former colonies overseas.

  7. Looks like we had one of the highest population growth rates in the world in the century before the Famine.

    Without the Famine would we have kept it up?

  8. People tend to talk about “THE Famine” is if it only happened once, but there was a whole series of famines in Ireland after the British took over the whole country and started the landlord system. The year 1740-1741 was known as the “year of slaughter” and a greater percentage of the population died than during the Great Famine 100 years later. There were many other smaller famines throughout the 18th and 19th centuries including a fairly major one in 1879, though by that time the Land League had organised to prevent evictions and thus fewer people died.

    It’s the same pattern in India – the Bengal Famine of 1943 was only one of [many](
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule). Hmm, I wonder what the common factor was?

  9. Reallifelore just did a great video on YouTube about Ireland and how its one of if not the only developed country with less people than 200 ago. Give it a watch its very good!

  10. Sometimes I think about the impact of events like this on a population over a long period, like in terms of physiological impact handed down over the generations.

    I don’t think we have come to terms with it, most people don’t think of the genocide as something that has affected them but just something to read about.

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