¹ Age-specific rates of gross emigration from Irish ports were used to calculate the probability that fifteen-year-old members of various cohorts would remain in Ireland at the age of fifty-five (no account being taken of mortality). For the cohort born about 1861, this probability was 52.9% for men and 57.5% for women. Among members of this cohort remaining in Ireland aged 45-54, the proportions single were 27-3% for men and 24-9% for women (1911 Census).

² SirWilde, William R. Wills, Ireland, past and present; the land and the people (Dublin, 1864), pp 40–1.Google Scholar

³ My findings accord with those of Cormac Ó Gráda, ’Some aspects of nineteenth-century Irish emigration’ in Cullen, L. M. and Smout, T C. (ed.), Comparative aspects of Scottish and Irish economic and social history 1600–1900 (Edinburgh, 1977), pp 65–73.Google Scholar

⁴ The proportion of male emigrants from Connaught recorded as departing from the port of Dublin dropped from 70.7% in 1851-5 to 58.6% in 1861–5 and 24.2% in 1871–5. The proportion of Connaught emigrantsleaving Queenstown over the same period rose from 0.0% through 12.1% to 58.0%, with similar changes applying to female emigrants. See also note 6.

⁵ See for example McNeill, D. B., Irish passenger steamship services (Newtown Abbot, 1969), i, 20 (referring to the Cork-Bristol trade as early as 1826).Google Scholar

⁶ For example in Rosslare (1921) the two enumerators made no attempt to count passengers leaving by the boat-train, who left port only half-an-hour after reaching the station. In the port of Dublin (entered during 1900 by 7,542 ships engaged in ’intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland’), two elderly ex-policemen were assigned the impossible task of obtaining particulars of all passengers on ’all ships leaving the Dublin Port’, in addition to undertaking ’enquiries of a confidential nature’ See S.P.O., Rialtas files, R 2/2, and R.P. (C.S.O.), 20,346/1920; Annual statement of the navigation and shipping of the United Kingdom for the year 1900 [Cd 604], H.C. 1901, lxxv.

⁷ In 1886–95 police returns of agricultural labourers who habitually ’migrated’ outside their own counties during the harvest season showed that 86.9% of the total came from Mayo, Donegal, Roscommon and Galway (which contained 16.0% of the Irish population in 1881). Yet only 2.7% of’permanent emigrants’ to Britain came from these counties. Corresponding figures for 1881–5 were 80-6% for ‘migratory labourers’ and 3–5% for ‘permanent emigrants’ See annual Reports and tables relating to migratory agricultural labourers; Emigration statistics of Ireland (Command papers).

⁸ Emigration from Ireland; being the third report of the committee of Mr. Tuke‘sFund’ (London, 1884), pp 3–4. In 1883 the committee sent 1,862 emigrants to Canada from Gal way and Mayo, accounting for over half their total emigration (3,434).

⁹ From 1903 onwards occupational data were tabulated not merely for all emigrants, but also for those bound for the U.S.A. Since in 1911 64% of the residue were on their way to Canada, data for 1911 emigrants not bound for the U.S.A. give some indication of the occupations of Canadian-bound emigrants. For occupied male emigrants bound for destinations other than the U.S.A., the proportions designated as ‘labourers’ were 43–1% from Leinster, 46–6% from Munster, 45–5% from Ulster and 61 1% from Connaught. Corresponding proportions for emigrants making for the United States were 62–6% from Leinster, 83–8% from Munster, 56-9% from Ulster and 86–8% from Connaught. Farmers, shop-assistants and clerks, on the other hand, were less prominent among Irish emigrants bound for the United States than elsewhere. Earlier statistics show that in 1867 (although not 1857) the United States emigrants were likewise more commonly labourers than were those making for the North American colonies. In 1867 labourers comprised 85.4% and 66.2% of‘United States’ and ’Canadian’ emigrants from Ireland respectively (whereas a decade earlier these proportions were 81.4% and 84.1%?). See Emigration statistics of Ireland for 1911 [Cd 6131], H.C. 1912–13, cv, 595; Return of the number of emigrants ., H.C. 1868/9(397), 1, 429.

¹⁰ Mannion, John J., Irish settlements in eastern Canada (Toronto, 1974), p. 13 Google Scholar. The settlements studied by Mannion were established before the Great Famine.

¹¹ For New Zealand see Davis, Richard P., Irish issues in New Zealand politics (Dunedin, 1974)Google Scholar, chap. 2; John Morris, The assisted immigrants to New Zealand, 1871–79’ (M.A. thesis Auckland, 1973).

¹² Among Irish adult immigrants assisted to New South Wales in 1853-5 and 1864-9, 28-9% and 20-6% respectively could neither read nor write. For the Irish home population aged 20-9 years in 1851 and 1871, corresponding proportions (weighted according to the sex-ratios of the assisted immigrants) were 36% and 21 %. If these proportions be further weighted according to the county distributions of assisted immigrants, we obtain the figures 35-6% for 1851 and 23-3% for 1871, suggesting that illiteracy was only marginally more prevalent at home than among the assisted immigrants. Similar standardisation procedures may be used to contrast the Roman Catholic proportions among assisted immigrants and their populations of origin. The Catholic proportions of immigrants were 78-0% in 1853-5 and 80-6% in 1864-9; those for the Irish population in 1851 and 1871 were 77-7% and 76-7%; and those for the immigrants’ populations of origin were 84-2% and 82-6%. See Census of Ireland ïox 1851 and 1871, passim; annual Reports of agent for immigration (N.S.W., Votes and Proceedings).

¹³ Among assisted immigrants to N.S.W. the proportions of occupied males from Ireland returned as labourers, agricultural labourers or of kindred occupations were 86-8% in 1853-5,91-4% in 1856-60,85-9% in 1861-5, 87-0% in 1866-70,87-4% in 187680, 85-1% in 1881-5 and 82-0% in 1886-7. For the same periods domestic servants comprised 96-7%, 96-5%, 95-2%, 90-5%, 92-7%, 97-8% and 99-3% respectively of all occupied female emigrants assisted from Ireland. For Victoria in 1852-9, corresponding proportions were 92-5% (labourers) and 98-3% (servants). See annual immigration returns for N.S.W and Victoria (Votes and Proceedings). Statistics for all Irish emigrants to Australasia (see note 9 above) suggest that 79-7% of occupied males were labourers in 1857 and 72-3% in 1867, while 98-9% of occupied females were domestic servants in 1857 and 94-2% in 1867. The relatively low proportions of labourers may be accounted for by the considerable numbers of farmers, gentlemen and professional persons who emigrated without government assistance.

¹⁴ The statistical evidence of association is not entirely clear-cut (see Appendix), being stronger for the decade 1886–95 than for the previous decade, and for calculations involving the proportions rather than rates of emigration to Australia by contrast with the U.S.A. Naturally the loss of labourers and loss of tillage are inter-correlated, since amongst those lost labourers were many former tillers. For what they are worth, the coefficients of partial correlation between proportions of emigrants choosing Australia and loss of labourers (discounting loss of tillage) are +-21 (1876-85) and —25 (1886-95); whereas coefficients for proportions choosing Australia and loss of tillage (discounting loss of labourers) are +-21 (1876-85) and +-50 (1886-95). Corresponding coefficients involving proportions choosing the U.S.A. are +.58 and +.69, +.01 and —.33 in turn.

¹⁵ Ireland and the Irish question. A collection of writings by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (New York, 1972), pp 138 and 115.

¹⁶ Leslie, T E. Cliffe, ‘Political economy and emigration’ in Fraser’s Magazine, 11 (May 1868), p. 614 Google Scholar, an article reproduced in MacDonagh, Oliver(ed.), Emigration in the Victorian age (Farnborough, 1973)Google Scholar. Leslie was doubtless referring to the fairly small stream of unassisted emigrants making for the colonies.

²¹ have correlated the proportions Irish-born in each country of destination with three further variables: (1) the coefficients of variation within each country in the proportions Irish-born; (2) the correlation coefficients between proportions Irish-born and proportions native-born in sub-regions; (3) the correlation coefficients between proportions Irish-born and proportions of Other migrants’ in sub-regions (cf. note 19). The resultant coefficients are (1) —79; (2) +-69; (3) —76.

²² The coefficients of variation given in the Appendix provide overall indications of the extent of dispersion of Irish settlers overseas. Their trend is confirmed if we divide the highest Irish-born proportion in any sub-region by the overall proportion Irish-born in each region. Some of the ratios thus obtained are 1-56 for Queensland (most ‘Irish sub-region Darling Downs Central); 1-68 for N.S.W (Kiama); 1 74 for Victoria (Moira); 2–66 for England (Lancashire); and 3-08 for the U.S.A. (Massachusetts). The absence of Irish ’ghettos’ from Australian cities is confirmed by the low ratios of 1 29 for Sydney ( Waverley) and 1 -68 for Melbourne (Coburg). Statistics refer to males only j for Australia and Britain, both sexes for the U.S.A.

²³ For the proportions of assisted Irish immigrant girls listed as domestic servants upon arrival, see note 13 above. That many of them actually took up service is suggested by correlating the proportions of all females in service with the proportions born (1) in Ireland, (2) locally (N.S.W ) and (3) elsewhere. For Sydney these coefficients are +-40, —50 and +17 respectively. See Census of New South Wales for 1871.

²⁴ For discussion of the effects of variations in the balance of sexes upon Australian marriage rates and ages at marriage, see MacDonald, Peter F, Marriage in Australia 1860–1971 (Canberra, 1974).Google Scholar

²⁵ MacDonagh, Oliver, ‘The Irish Down Under’ in The Tablet (18 Mar. 1978), pp 269–70Google Scholar; and ‘The Irish in VictoTia, 1851–91: a demographic essay’ in Historical Studies, viii (1971), pp 67–92. MacDonagh offers statistical justification for his sound hypotheses only for Victoria, so that his comparative analysis is necessarily speculative.