Ireland

Ireland, an island forming part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, lies between 51° 26' and 55° 21' N. lat., and 5° 20' and 10° 26' W. long. It is washed on the N., W., and S. by the Atlantic, and on the E. by the North Channel (13 miles wide), the Irish Sea (138 miles), and St George's Channel (47 to 69 miles), which separate it from the larger island of Great Britain. It is an irregular rhomboid in shape, its greatest length, from Fair Head in Antrim to Crow Head in Kerry, being 302 miles; its greatest meridional length is 225 miles, and the average breadth 110 miles. The island was known to the Greek geographers as Ierne (Strabo), and to the Latins as Hibernia and Juverna. From the latest of the prehistoric occupants of 'The Green Island,' the invading Milesians or Scots, came the Latinised Scotia, one of the names by which the 'Isle of Saints' was known from the 6th till the 13th century.

Area.—Ireland is divided into the four provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, which again are subdivided into thirty-two counties. The total area is 20,819,928 acres, or 32,531 sq. m., or nearly two-thirds of that of England without Wales. Of the total area 15,066,761 acres were in 1889 arable and grass land, 326,343 acres were covered with wood, and 4,935,649 acres were bog, waste, roads, &c.

Population.—In 1801 the population of Ireland was 5,395,456 (a density of 166 per sq. mile); in 1841 this had increased to 8,175,124 (251 per sq. mile); thereafter set in, owing to emigration, a steady decrease, so that in 1891 the population was only 4,704,750 (144.4 per sq. mile). In 1891, 936,759 belonged to the agricultural class, 656,410 to the industrial, 255,144 to the domestic, 214,343 to the professional, and 83,173 to the commercial. In 1881 Ireland had only six towns with populations exceeding 20,000, and in 1891, eight; of which Dublin had 361,891, and Belfast 255,950. In 1890, 57,484 persons, and in 1891, 58,436 persons emigrated from Ireland, the vast majority of them going to the United States. By far the greatest number who left Ireland in one year emigrated in 1883—108,724. According to Mr Parnell, in 1890 there were in England and Scotland 750,000 persons of Irish birth (with probably 1,500,000 descendants). At the census of 1890 there were in the United States 1,854,971 persons of Irish birth; between the years 1821 and 1889, 3,443,152 Irish persons settled in the States. In 1881 there were in Canada 957,403 persons 'of Irish origin' (more than those of English origin, nearly twice as many as those of Scottish origin). In Victoria there were in 1881, 86,750 Irish; in Queensland, 21,300; in Western Australia, about 3000; in New Zealand, 50,000. In the other Australian colonies, South Africa, &c., the census does not distinguish precisely between the various British elements of population. During the thirty-seven years 1853–89, 2,775,007 Irish emigrated—2,289,735 to the United States, 173,343 to Canada, and 289,733 to Australia. In 1851–99 the total was 3,796,131.

* The figures for 1881 and 1891 include the soldiers and sailors serving in Ireland; the figures for 1841 exclude them.

Coasts and Physical Aspects.—The eastern coast is comparatively uniform and even; but the coasts on the north, west, and south are in many places rocky and high, and indented with numerous deep bays, especially at the south-west corner of the island. Most of these bays afford excellent harbours, some even for the largest of modern warships. On the west may be named the Bays of Donegal, Sligo, Clew, Galway, the estuary of the Shannon, and Dingle, Kenmare, and Bantry bays; on the south the spacious harbours of Cork and Waterford; on the north Loughs Foyle and Swilly, which both penetrate a long distance inland. On the east side, opposite England, are Wexford Haven, the Bays of Dublin, Drogheda, and Dunbalk, and Carlingford and Belfast loughs. Numerous islands occur, especially on the west, but they are for the most part small in size. Valentia, in the extreme south-west, was the terminus on the British side of the first Atlantic cables to North America, as those of 1858, 1865, and 1866, and of others since