Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/852

* IRELAND. 756 IRELAND. States. In the ajigregato, the mnle emisrants exceed in number the foniale, though the con- trar)' is true for the Province of Connaught. During the year 1!)00 tlic emigrants leaving Ire- land numlxred 45,.'iO0. The liirths usually ex- ceed the deaths by 22.000 or 2.'!. 1)00 annually. The following table gives the |)o|iiilation by prov- inces for each decade since 1S41 and the per cent, of decrease of each for the last decade: The Irish language was almost universally used in the rural districts by the Celtic element until about 18.3.5. t'onsidering the resentment which the Celtic element has always held toward the British, the gi-ncral change from the Irish to the Knglish language was remarkable for the little opposition that was made to it, and the rapidity with which it was acconiplislu'd. In 1881 18.2 per cent, of the population could speak POPDLATIOS FROM 1841 TO 1901 PBOnXCES 1841 18.il 1 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Percent. Leinster Munster Wster Coimaught 1 .982.000 2.404.0(X) 2.389,000 1,421,000 i.r.,82.000 1.860.000 2.014.000 1,012,000 1.4.^7,000 1.513.000 1,914,000 913,000 l.S.TO.OOO 1.. (93.000 1.833.(H)0 846,000 1.279,000 1.331.000 1,743.000, 822,000 1.192,000 1.174,000 1.620,000 719,000 1,150,000 1,075,000 L.^LOOO 650,000 3.5 8.4 2.4 9.7 In moi there were 2,197.739 males and 2,258.- 807 females. It will >e seen that Munster and Connaught have each declined much more than one-half during the period, and the rate of de- crease still continues high in those provinces. The average population per square mile is 140, or less than one-fourth that of England, and about equal to that of the State of New York. The loss of pojiulation has been at the expense of the rural districts, the urban population hav- ing held its own. The following talde shows the population of cities above 25,000 for 1891 and liiQl: Belfast Dublin Cork Londonderry Limericls Hathmine.9,')0 245.001 75.345 33.200 37.1.55 27.790 20.852 23,992 349.180 290.638 76.122 39.892 .38.151 32,602 26.769 25,799 While the density of population is no longer excessive, even for a country largely agricultural, a large number are scarcely able to secure a live- lihood. Certain regions are known as "congested districts,' and a special board has been created to aid the people and improve the conditions in such districts. The explanation lies in the fact that the tenants have l)een evicted from the more fertile regions (see AgrtcuUure) and have seg- regated in the less fertile broken regions, espe- cially in the western Province of Connaught, where the small holding of the peasant does not afford sutficient livelihood for the family, and large numbers are annually ol>liged to leave their homes during the iiarvest months and supplement their income by labor in the harvest fields of Scotland and Kngland. The landowning class, or the old aristocracy throughout Ireland, as also the greater part of the well-to-do trading and professional classes, belong to the English element. In Ulster a part of this class belongs to the Scotch element, but a majority of the Scotch are artisans or cotters, whose economic standard of life is somewhat higher than that of the Celtic element, the latter belonging almost entirely to the peasant and the laboring classes. .According to the census of 1901, there were 1.31,0.35 persons belonging to the professional class, 219.418 to the domestic class. 97.889 to the commercial class, R7fi.062 to the agricultural class. 039,413 to the industrial class, and 2.494.954. mainly children, to the indefinite and nonproductive class. Irish: in 1,891 only 14.5 percent. ((180,245). The percentage is naturally greatest in Connaught and -Munster. where the percentages in 1891 were 37.8 and 26.2. resj)ectively (over half of the popula- tion of Galway and Mayo were able to speak Irish), while in Ulster the percentage was only 5.2, and- in leinster 1.2. In 1891 only 38,192 jH-rsons were reported who spoke Irish (miy. In vcr^- recent years a movement has been started to popularize the Irish language again. In the last decade of the nineteenth ceiiturj' the number who were able to speak the Irish language decreased for the country as a whole, though the number almost doubled in Leinster, and increased also in Ulster. Relioion. That the religious denominations in Ireland correspond verj- closely to the different racial elements explains in part the social fric tion which exists in the countrj'. The Celtic Catholic Church resisted from the first the at- tempt* of the English to break its connection vith Rome and impose upon it the changes which Imd accompanied the religious revolt in England. The property of the Church of course continued in the hands of the Church that represented the Government. The Catholics were placed under serious disabilities, not being allowed to teach school, or to act as guardians. Priests were obliged to remain in their own ])arishes, and were excluded from public affairs. Tithes were ex- acted from the Catholics for the support of the Established Church. The disabilities were not removed until 1829. The tithes were commuted in 1838. When the political union with England was effected in 1800-01 there was also a union be- tween the established churches of the two coun- tries. The union was dissolved and the Irish Church disestablished by an act of Parliament which went into operation in 1871. The act pro- vided for the surrender of the property and reve- nue of the Church with the exception of pri- vate endowments. .Since then the government of the Church of Ireland is in the hands of a General Synod which meets annually. There are also twenty-three diocesan synods. There are two archbishops and eleven bishops. It will be seen from the table below that about three-fifths of the Episcopalians are concentrated in the Province of Ulster, and the greater part of the remainder are in I>einster. The Scotch who .settled in I'lster were mostly Presbrterians. More recently Methodism has secured a hold among them. Presbvterianism was proscribed during the reign of Queen Anne, but with this exception was generally tolerated by the Govern- ment, and until the disestablishment of the Epis-
 * Dublin suburbs.