Cemeteries are wonderful places to assess the demographic and ethnic ebb and flow of a place.
Kensal Rise cemetery in north west London is fascinating for a variety of reasons. However, one thing that strikes you is the huge number of Irish people buried here.
Huge swathes of the cemetery have Irish names on the headstones and in the vast majority of these are newish graves where Irish people were buried in the 1960s to 1990s.
These people are the demographic echo of the hundreds of thousands of Irish people who emigrated to Britain after 1916 and the eventual establishment of this state.
Independence precipitated a massive flight of people from this country.
This weekend as we celebrate 1916 and ultimately the foundation of the independent Irish State, maybe it is worth having a look at the economic balance sheet of independence.
Don’t get me wrong, I would not swap my passport for any other. However, sometimes we get dewy-eyed about the reality of the Irish state and the fact that if you break the past 100 years down into four segments of 25 years, the first 75 were not the most impressive – at least from a human perspective.
Did you know that in 1913, far from being poor, Ireland was actually quite a rich country – one of the richest in Europe. Income per head was on a par with Norway, Sweden and Finland.
In 1991, 75 years after the Rising, Irish income per head was half the income of the Scandinavians. What happened?
The last time I checked, you couldn’t buy bread with slogans, speeches and flags, so isn’t it a good idea to ask what actually happened to living standards and economic opportunity after the Rising?
What was the economic and financial backdrop to the Rising? And what economic policies were followed to ensure that the pledge to “cherish all the children of the nation equally” (which was intended to refer to Unionists rather than the poor) was underpinned by financial reality?
The story of our revolution, as I was told in school, is one of rich Britain subjugating poor Ireland. This sounds good, but it’s not entirely accurate.
In fact, the cold economic data suggest that the decades leading up to the Rising were a period of relative prosperity for those people who stayed in Ireland. They were decades of rapid social improvement.
I know it sounds counterfactual, but it appears to be true.
Take, for example, the lot of Irish skilled workers and tradesmen, such as carpenters and fitters.
During the Famine they earned about 90 per cent of what their English counterparts did. This ratio remained more or less unchanged, but in those decades leading up to 1913, both English and Irish tradesmen saw rapid increases in their wages.
The Empire project enriched all of Britain and Ireland. In the later part of the 19th century both Irish and English tradesmen got richer together.
However, we see much greater upward mobility in the wages of unskilled Irish workers and farm labourers, which actually rose rapidly after the Famine.
This goes against the national narrative. I am not saying that our people weren’t poor, but we were beginning to get richer.
In 1845, Irish unskilled workers earned half of what their counterparts were earning in Britain – by 1913 they were earning three-quarters.
This seems counterintuitive because these were years of natural catastrophe and mass emigration – and surely that should be the key metric for any assessment of economic viability.
But the fact is that those workers who stayed in Ireland did well after the Famine. When there are fewer workers to do the work, their wages tend to rise, and that’s what happened.
Therefore, strange as it may sound, the typical economic reasons for a Rising, which traditionally might be a deterioration in the plight of the local people ahead of the Revolution, were not present in Ireland.
In addition, wealth, which in agricultural Ireland primarily stemmed from land ownership, was also undergoing a transformation.
The various Land Acts from 1870 to 1909 began the mass transfer of land from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy to the local farmers.
This too would have had a profound positive impact on the wealth of the local population.
Finally, the Irish stock market, which if the country had been an economic basket case would have been falling, actually doubled in the late Victorian era.
During this period, politically, we had an Irish Home Rule party that held the balance of power in Britain and could therefore extract concessions from British imperialists who were looting the globe at the time.
As a result, large-scale sanitation and infrastructural projects were undertaken such as bringing clean water to Dublin from Roundwood Reservoir. (By the way, there is a statue of the forgotten man behind that initiative, which saved the lives of thousands of poor Dublin children – more than Jim Larkin ever did – situated just behind “Big Jim” on O’ Connell Street. Can you name him?)
So think about this again, in 1913, on the eve of the Rising, Irish income per head was on a par with the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland.
In 1986, 70 years after the Rising, Irish income per head was half the income of the Scandinavians.
Did our population expand rapidly so that our income per head fell – which would have been the inverse of what had happened between 1850 and 1900, when wages rose because the population fell? No, in fact the Irish population kept falling up until the 1970s.
Emigration remained at ridiculously high levels. As I walk around Kensal Rise cemetery, I see these people’s final resting place.
Consider this: in the 1950s, we know that 450,000 Irish people emigrated to England alone. That is not taking into account the people who went to America, Canada or Australia. And we are talking about a decade when the rest of the world boomed.
In the 1980s, again, when our major trading partners – the English-speaking world – boomed, we went backwards. This is hard to do.
Since the late 1980s, things have got much better.
In fact, since the mid-1990s, even despite the crash, Ireland’s living standards have increased dramatically.
However, the fact remains – the first 75 years of this state could be termed economic disaster, with the 1950s to the late 1960s and the whole 1980s being particularly bleak.
I am talking here about the ability of the new state to look after its own people, to match the rhetoric of nationalism with some semblance of achievement.
Two out of three people born in the country in the 1930s – the first real generation of the new state – ended up living abroad. Just take that in.
Like you, I presume, I am tremendously proud of this country. But in terms of the economic performance, I am glad I was born in the second 50 years of this state’s existence rather than the first, unlike these Irish people here in Kensal Rise cemetery
David, as usual you waterboard the data until it confesses to what you want it to say.
You mention the Land Acts but don’t mention that it was these that led to the Economic War in the 30s. Being on a par with Scandinavian countries means nothing in 1913. You talk about the lot of tradesmen but not of not of labourers who constituted the majority of the workforce.
Ireland had been part of the British colonial project for.centuries. That project was an abject failure for all colonised people and we should be grateful we managed to get out.
My parents emigrated to London in 1954 when I was 7. I am not well educated in Irish history or economics – but I do remember my parents saying that when the British left Ireland, they “emptied the coffers”, all the wealth that had been created they took with them, in other words. Is this so? (By the way, I lived in Ireland for 3 years 2004-2007 and watched your programme The Pope’s Children. Do I remember correctly that you said Ireland would do well to leave the EU and become a state rather like Venice in earlier centuries, being… Read more »
Very good article . I want to add my say if I may . You say that Ireland was very bleak up to the 80’s . Maybe Dublin was and other parts incl Cork . In Limerick & Clare the 60’s saw serious growth revival and Shannon Airport was the cornerstone to make that possible .Even in Clare there were special capital tax allowances for equipment of 120% instant for use in shops and normal businesses outside the free zone area and I can recall many ice cream vendors along the seaside coasts buying new machines frequently to keep up… Read more »
[…] did the idealism of 1916 turn into barbarism and then into dogmatic nationalism of the most dreary, backward kind? In the London Review of Books, Irish writer Colm Tóibín explores the history of Easter 1916 in […]
We must also be honest, and agree that 1914 probably represented a peak in British power in the world. Yes, after 1918, Britain’s continental rivals were in a disastrous state. And the Empire expanded further. But by 1918, Britain had been economically overtaken by the USA, and it was apparent that there was nothing that the British could do about it. Britain’s debts in 1918 were massive. The workforce was robbed of it’s fittest workers. And dominions like Australia and Canada were becomming more independent, and also richer. Therefore, we probably picked a good time, to leave the UK. Now,… Read more »
Ireland may not be so unique as the middle class of the world are squeezed out of existence. government policy, cronyism, malinvestment, misappropriation, etc sponsored by central bank monetary policy is wreaking havoc world wide. ” There is no way middle class households with declining real incomes can pay soaring costs imposed by state-enforced cartels and gain ground financially. If the four structural trends highlighted above don’t reverse, the middle class is heading for extinction, the victim of financialization, the glorification of financial speculation via central bank-central state policies, the decline of productivity and rising costs imposed by state-enforced cartels.”… Read more »
Well, here is a thought. Have we not been intellectually dishonest with respect to the economic improvement since 1990 ? Here are two that are particularly stupid. And they were pumped out by the media in Ireland (often at the behest of vested interests with a profit to gain). In the begining all sort of BS theories abounded. The state propaganda organ, churned out the rubbish that it was due to the profile of the national squad of plastic ball followers. Surely, on that basis Brazil should be super wealthy ? And presumably Singapore would be a basketcase ? Imagine,… Read more »
“was simply because it was in the stranglehold of the Irish Catholic hierarchy”
So why were Bavaria or Austria, also “in the stranglehold of the Catholic hierarchy”, so successful in progressing as wealthy, modern states?
“By 1916 nearly £24 million was raised in Ireland by the British government, but just over half of this, £12.6 million, was spent here, giving a surplus of more than £11 million towards the war effort in Britain.” to support a European royal interbred family feud that caused the deaths of 40 million.
Thanks for the retrospective David. Is your next article going to be an attempt at looking ahead for the next generations? What should the Ireland of 2016+ be doing so a hundred years from now, will look immeasurably better than the current article’s duration? There were some comments above on the “Swiss model”. It seems to me what Switzerland has done instinctively since 1848 (yes it is only that old), is …..plan for the future for all levels of society. Part of this is ensuring there’s a role to contribute for all of society ensuring anyone not going to college… Read more »
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Popular or not, the economic, social and cultural effects of on a people of subjugation by an outside ‘oppressor’ are real. 1. Ireland was subject to British Imperialism 2. Being subject to Imperial/colonial rule is harmful to native/indigenous populations. Which of these premises are people seeking to deny? As counterintuitive as it seems the British Empires decision to assume rule in Ireland ,India, Australia etc. etc. was not for the benefit of the people of those nations. One of the main objectives of imperialism and colonialism is to exploit the colonies and their inhabitants to generate economic wealth for the… Read more »
Greeting All
For the last three threads I have no received any email alerts of further contributions.
I have clicked on the little square each time to get the same.
Each time the box has vanished.
Twice I have written, emailed to the web master and David asking if there is a problem.
There has been a total silence.
Has anyone here any suggestions as to how to get this resolved?
While we all worry over parochial interests and petty politics we are being taken over by the banker financed cabal. When are we going to wake up rather than just give up!!
http://usawatchdog.com/criminal-bankers-control-us-government-push-war-paul-craig-roberts/
Morning Tony Nobody wants to wake up….. Nobody wants to learn or ask questions.. Nobody wants to rock the boat or stand out or ask questions Not negative…just how it is Fear is the great controller It is more important what people think of you than thinking for yourself….. People would need to acknowledge their is a problem before they will wake up…when they realise their might be a problem…they don’t want to know…… Fear & what if is the problem Fear is not a fact it is a feeling….and a very powerful one. Hope all good with you ?… Read more »
David
If you are interested in visiting graveyards why don’t you visit the famine graveyards around this country where thousands are buried in unmarked graves – a fine testament to British rule in this country.
Then you can wax lyrical all you want about the benefits of the union with the UK.
Peter.
A new constitution is needed. ##repealthe8th
We’re all looking at this in a very insular way, as if it’s a unique problem. I’ve just been talking with a bunch of people about the forthcoming US presidential election. The conversation ranged over the usual stuff, Trump, Clinton, Sanders, GOP, DNC, and so on: How can anyone vote for Trump (which, of course, is completely the wrong question); what about Hillary; what would Sanders actually do. It occurred to us that no one expects this to be, in any useful sense of term, an honest election. The US system is so totally, and systemically, broken, that the mere… Read more »