The Irish Famine and its sequel: population structure changes in the Ards Peninsula, Co. Down, 1841-1911.

Using censal data, the population structure of the Ards Peninsula, Co. Down was investigated from 1841 to 1911. During the study period there were highly significant declines at townland level in the mean total population, population density, number and proportion of inhabited houses, household size and deviations in the male/female ratio. The potential genetic effects of the changes, mediated via reduced effective population sizes, were exacerbated by marked differences in the patterns of population structure variation by religion. It is suggested that the current high incidence of recessive genetic disorders in the Northern Irish can be ascribed, at least in part, to these post-Famine events.

[1]  J. Mokyr,et al.  New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700-1850 , 1984 .

[2]  R. Gillespie.  Harvest Crises in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland , 1984 .

[3]  A. Hepburn.  Work, Class and Religion in Belfast, 1871–1911 , 1983 .

[4]  C. Gráda,et al.  Hearth tax, household size and Irish population change 1672-1821 , 1982 .

[5]  H. Wolff,et al.  Psychotherapy: experience as a medical student , 1981 .

[6]  S. Royle.  Sources for local studies: William Nolan, (Dublin: The author, no date of publication given. Pp. 61. £·50) , 1981 .

[7]  J. Relethford.  Simulation of the effects of changing population size on the genetic structure of Western Ireland. , 1980, Social biology.

[8]  A. Fix.  Anthropological Genetics of Small Populations , 1979 .

[9]  Connolly Sj.  Illegitimacy and pre-nuptial pregnancy in Ireland before 1864: the evidence of some Catholic parish registers. , 1979 .

[10]  J. Mokyr.  The Deadly Fungus: An Econometric Investigation into the Short Term Demographic Impact of the Irish Famine , 1978 .

[11]  E. E. McKenna.  Age, region and marriage in post-famine Ireland: an empirical examination. , 1978, The Economic History Review.

[12]  L. Woolf,et al.  Phenylketonuria as a balanced polymorphism: the nature of the heterozygote advantage , 1975, Annals of human genetics.

[13]  B. J. Graham.  The disappearance of clachans from South Ards, co. down, in the nineteenth century , 1971 .

[14]  B. Walsh.  Marriage rates and population pressure: Ireland, 1871 and 1911. , 1970, The Economic history review.

[15]  D. F. Roberts,et al.  Genetic Effects of Population Size Reduction , 1968, Nature.

[16]  S. Cousens.  The Regional Variations in Population Changes in Ireland, 1861-1881 , 1964 .

[17]  S. Cousens.  Regional Variations in Population Changes in Ireland, 1881-91 , 1963 .

[18]  S. Cousens.  Regional death rates in Ireland during the great famine, from 1846 to 1851 , 1960 .