Marriage, fertility, social class and religion in an Irish industrial city: Belfast 1911 (original) (raw)

2010, Popolazione e storia

The demography of Ireland in the century after the Great Famine of the 1840s is nothing if not extreme by comparison with other countries in Western Europe. Relentless population decline after the mid-century crisis, an increasingly late age at marriage, a reluctance to control fertility within marriage, a high incidence of non-marriage-all of these features mark the country off from the European mainstream. In the economically and demographically depressed decade of the 1950s, when emigration reached rates not witnessed since the 1880s, there was even a suggestion of 'race suicide' on the part of the Irish (O'Brien 1953). This selective and apocalyptic vision related primarily to the Catholic Irish and to rural Ireland in particular. Urban Ireland was of only marginal interest while industrialized Belfast lay beyond the pale, in a variety of senses. Writing in the 1950s, a one-time governor of the Bank of Ireland, W.J. Louden Ryan (1955), noted a widespread belief that in matters demographic, as in much else, the Irish were considered 'unique'. Nowadays, however, historians are much more likely to emphasise the outlier status of Ireland within the West European demographic system rather than any notion of uniqueness (Guinnane 1997, 7). How might one account for this outlying position? Attempts have been made to explain the peculiarities of the Irish case by reference to cultural as well as economic considerations. It has been argued, for instance, that decisions to delay marriage or not to marry at all were conditioned by repressive attitudes towards sexuality, propagated most powerfully through classrooms, pulpits and confessionals by the nuns, priests and religious brothers of the Catholic Church in Ireland (Connell 1968; Messenger 1969). Remarkably high levels of fertility within marriage, and a low incidence of illegitimate births, were similarly attributed to the pervasive influence of the Catholic clergy (Gray 2000). But others have stressed the importance of economic and social factors 1. Industrialization progressed more slowly in Ireland than in other parts of western Europe. At the turn of the twentieth century Ireland was still a predominantly agrarian society, and the economy offered Irish women few work opportunities outside the home. Moreover, it has been argued by Guinnane (1997, 269) that emigration reduced the need for farming couples to limit family size. The costs and benefits of children may have been different in rural Ireland as compared to other parts of Europe, and these differences may also help explain why the Irish lagged behind other Europeans in reducing marital fertility (Guinnane, Moehling, Ó Gráda 2001).