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Ireland developed one of the world's most intensive railroad networks in the second half of the 19th century. However, the emergence of railroads occurred in tandem with a failure to industrialize and mass depopulation suggesting limited, if any, impact on the island's economy. This paper examines this claim from a trade-based market-access perspective. Matching high-resolution geospatial data for nearly 3,400 districts to existing road and waterway networks as well as Ireland's nascent railroad network, we quantify the extent of market access improvements caused by rail. Additionally, we compute an external market access measure that accounts for improved access to international ports. Our findings reveal that this distinction is vital. Improvements in domestic market access brought about by railroads had a substantial positive influence on both population density and land values, while better access to ports had the opposite, negative, effect. Overall, these conflicting forces largely cancel out, hiding rail's importance. However, a supplementary analysis reveals that the introduction of rail fostered a significant reorientation within the economy across two key domains: emigration and the labour-intensiveness of agriculture. Areas with relatively more access to ports experienced greater levels of emigration and a faster switch from labor-intensive tillage to pastoral farming-with differential access explaining around two-fifths of the observed shift in both variables between the Great Famine and the Great War.

Are return migrants 'losers' who fail to adapt to the challenges of the host economy, and thereby exacerbate the brain drain linked to emigration? Or are they 'winners' whose return enhances the human and physical capital of the home country? These questions are the subject of a burgeoning literature. This paper analyzes a new database culled from the 1911 Irish population census to address these issues for returnees to Ireland from North America more than a century ago. The evidence suggests that those who returned had the edge over the population as a whole in terms of human capital, if not also over those who remained abroad.

The link between demographic pressure and economic conditions in pre-Famine Ireland has long interested economists. This paper re-visits the topic, harnessing the highly disaggregated parish-level data from the 1841 Census of Ireland. Using population per value adjusted acre as a measure of population pressure, our results indicate that on the eve of the Great Famine of 1846-50, population pressure was positively associated with both illiteracy rates and the prevalence of poor quality housing. But while our analysis shows that population pressure was one of the primary factors underpinning pre-Famine poverty, it also highlights the importance of geography and human agency. A counterfactual computation indicates that had Ireland's population stayed at its 1800 level, this would have led to only modest improvements in literacy and housing.

Electoral reforms in 1918 nearly tripled the number of people eligible to vote in Ireland. Following the reforms - the largest franchise extensions in UK history - the previously obscure Sinn Féin party secured 73 of Ireland's 105 seats, an outcome that presaged a guerrilla war and ultimately independence from the United Kingdom. This paper examines the relationship between the franchise extension and the election results. We find little evidence of a connection between the two. New female voters appear less likely to have supported Sinn Féin. New male voters were slightly more likely to vote for Sinn Féin, but the magnitude of this effect was small and statistically insignificant. In fact, non-voting appears particularly high for both groups of new voters. Our results suggest that the extension of the franchise cannot explain Sinn Féin's victory. We conclude their electoral success was more likely driven by a change of heart on behalf of the Irish electorate, rather than a change in its composition.

This paper explores the characteristics associated with marriages between Roman Catholics and members of other religious denominations ('mixed marriages') in 1911 Ireland. Using the recently-digitized returns of the 1911 census of population, we find that such marriages were relatively rare, varying from two to three percent of all mar- riages in Dublin to less than half a percent in Connacht. However, at the turn of the century in the Dublin area mixed marriages represented 12 per cent or more of mar- riages where at least one of the partners was a non-Catholic. When mixed marriages did occur the Catholic partner was more likely to be the wife. Using regression analysis we examine the individual characteristics of the partners to these marriages and find a number of characteristics significantly associated with them. However, the strength and even the direction of predictors like socioeconomic status vary substantially across regions, most notably between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. In Ulster mixed marriages tended to occur between partners in lower socioeconomic positions, whereas in the rest of Ireland the partners tended to be from higher social strata. Since the religion of the children born to mixed marriages was a contentious issue, we match our sample of partners of mixed religions to their children and find that the religion of the children was strongly influenced by the mothers religion. Couples of mixed religions had lower fertility than the general population, even when the influence of socioeconomic class and other potentially confounding variables is allowed for. This, as well as the evi- dence of higher infant-child mortality among families of mixed marriages, potentially indicates a lack of family and social support due to the general public disapproval of couples who married across the religious divide. Not applicable 2014-09-18 JG: Record recreated after damaged text_value

This paper outlines a simple routine to calculate the marginal effects of logit and probit regressions using the popular statistical software package R. I compare results obtained using this procedure with those produced using Stata. An extension of this routine to the generalized linear mixed effects regression is also presented. Not applicable Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences ti, sp, ab - kpw8/12/11

The Irish-born population in England is in worse health than both the native population and the Irish population in Ireland, a reversal of the commonly observed healthy migrant effect. Recent birth-cohorts living in England and born in Ireland, however, are healthier than the English population. The substantial Irish health penalty arises principally for cohorts born between 1920 and 1960. This paper attempts to understand the processes that generated this migrant health pattern. Our results suggest a strong role for early childhood conditions and economic selection in driving the dynamics of health differences between the Irish-born migrants and White English populations.

Recent empirical research has questioned the validity of using Malthusian theory in pre-industrial England. Using real wage and vital rate data for the years 1650-1881, I provide empirical estimates for a different region - Northern Italy. The empirical methodology is theoretically underpinned by a simple Malthusian model, in which population, real wages and vital rates are determined endogenously. My findings strongly support the existence of a `Malthusian' economy where population growth depressed living standards, which in turn influenced vital rates. In addition, I find no evidence of Boserupian effects as increases in population failed to spur sustained technological growth. Not applicable