In the 1950s, there was genuine speculation that Ireland’s population might dwindle away to almost nothing, to a scattering of coastal communities forced to eke out a meagre living from farming and fishing.
“The Vanishing Irish” narrative (it was the title of a book) with hindsight appears overbaked but it reflected the mood of a nation blighted by emigration and economic hardship.
The image of the last Blasket Islanders abandoning the country’s western-most archipelago (they left in 1953) hung in the air like a dark portent.
Ireland’s population had been in a state of near terminal decline since the Famine.
In 1841, the population of the island as a whole was estimated to be 8.175 million (it may well have been higher). By 1851, it was just over 6.5 million. By 1881, it had fallen to 5 million. By 1901, it was under 4.5 million.
Independence failed to halt the trajectory. In 1936, the population of the Irish Free State had shrunk to 2.9 million (the pre-Famine population of the 26 counties was 6.5 million). Another wave of mass emigration in 1950s saw the Republic’s population sink to an all-time low of 2.8 million in 1961. The 1966 census was the first to show an increase in population size since the Famine.
Ireland’s demographic footprint is unique in European terms. It is the only country to have a population that is smaller now than it was 180 years ago. It is also the only country to have population now that is 80 per cent larger than it was just 60 years ago. Despite that recent growth, the Republic’s population is not expected to eclipse 6.5 million, it’s pre-Famine total, until 2050, making the Famine a 200-year event in population terms.
Ireland’s unusual demography was compounded by the fact that it was bypassed by the great population trends of the 20th century.
It missed out entirely on the post-war baby boom, which spurred massive population surges in the US and Europe. Similarly when families became smaller and birth rates dropped in the 1970s and 80s as birth control became more widely available and more women entered the workforce, birth rates here, instead of falling, rose.
Even in the 1990s when our European peers were experiencing net inward migration, we were experiencing net outward migration, a reflection of the economic mismanagement that reigned in the 1970s and 1980s.
As historians like to note, the Celtic Tiger was preceded by a Celtic Tortoise.
The 21st century has partially extinguished Ireland’s outlier status, bringing us more into line with what’s happening elsewhere.
According to the Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) latest population figures, Ireland’s natural increase (excess births over deaths) fell to its lowest level in 27 years in the 12 months to April this year.
“This reflects an ongoing decline in births due to lifestyle choices with women deferring births until later in life and having fewer children, and also due to a reduced the number of women in the prime childbearing age group,” says John McCartney, director and head of research at BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland.
With people living longer because of improved medicine and healthier lifestyles, the population’s age profile is also advancing more rapidly than at any other time.
Having more retirees and proportionally less workers has big financial and societal implications up the line. It’s a sword of Damocles hanging over most Western countries.
Perhaps the most eye-catching change is how the one-time blight of emigration has morphed into record levels of immigration. The CSO noted that this was the third successive 12-month period where over 100,000 people immigrated to Ireland.
A population can only really increase in one of two ways: either by having excess births over deaths (the natural increase) or by having an influx of new people.
The figures indicate that net inward migration (which totalled 79,300) accounted for 80.3 per cent of the State’s overall population growth. The proportion of population growth driven by immigration was the highest ever recorded, even eclipsing the 2007 figure (73.3 per cent) when there was a large influx of migrants in the wake of EU enlargement.
The CSO noted that 91 per cent of net inward migration is now coming from “non-traditional” sources, outside of EU, UK, US, Canada and Australia.
While the agency did not break out these “non-traditional” sources, we can presume Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian aggression account for a significant share.
But this tide could go out as quickly as it came in given the statistics pre-date changes to the support regime for those coming from Ukraine. The current surge in immigration may therefore be a temporary blip linked to war rather than the beginning of a more conventional work-driven European immigration trend.
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