ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to clarify the political economic dynamics underlying the rise and fall of Irish fertility between 1725 and the late 19th century, which were expressed most dramatically in the Irish Famine of 1845-1849—so often involked as the great Malthusian watershed in Ireland's demographic history. Just as before the Famine, landlords emphasized pasture over food crops, livestock for export over human subsistence, while tenants and landless laborers remained close to starvation, vulnerable to any short-fall of hay to feed their animals or of grain or potatoes to feed themselves or pay their rent. Conventional wisdom provides a conveniently simple explanation of that Famine as the outcome of excessive population growth. By permitting Britain to import cheap grain from abroad in the very midst of the famine, the value of Irish grain fell and thus increased the quantity required to pay rent.
