How high a population could the island of Ireland realistically support ?

captainwang

We currently could only supply enough fresh water to for 10 million people, 25 years age we had enough fresh water for 100 million, blame pollution and bad water infrastructure

CDfm

owenc wrote: »

Well you can show me figures all you like i don't believe them a person is hardly going to without disease at that age its just daft! And your dna can't suddenly change when you get into the 1850s or something your family can't skip from living from 40 to 80 in 30 years thats just impossible! They should've done it on folks who were living without disease then the figures would be accurate considering some areas weren't affected with the potato famine due to different farming methods etc.

Well ,food, housing , sanitation, medicine etc .

Diseases like typhus , TB were killers and very contagious.

owenc

CDfm wrote: »

Well ,food, housing , sanitation, medicine etc .

Diseases like typhus , TB were killers and very contagious.

Yes but in reality most folk lived to a very old age quite commonly!

CDfm

owenc wrote: »

Yes but in reality most folk lived to a very old age quite commonly!

Some folk did but lots didnt especially in the 19th century didnt

children regularly died as did mothers in childbirth

routine illnesses and injuries were killers

30% of european armies were in hospital at any one time in the late 19th century

mcmanaman

slowburner wrote: »

'Support'? What does that mean? A comfortable lifestyle? A subsistence lifestyle? Poverty? Penury?

Ok if we take a look at our neighbours England who have a population of 51 million. Is the size of the nation in square miles,ie 50,337 sq miles, important in relation to their population or are different factors more important in this regard ?

recedite

captainwang wrote: »

We currently could only supply enough fresh water to for 10 million people, 25 years age we had enough fresh water for 100 million, blame pollution and bad water infrastructure

Here's the same contradiction again. People looking at some aspect of the current situation and then deciding to put a limit on the future population based on that.

When the first settlers arrived, they probably reckoned there was only enough wild boar to feed a few thousand people, and so they did their best to keep other tribes out.

If we needed more water in the future, we would first of all stop pouring sewage into the rivers. We would collect rainwater on our roofs. Then when all the rivers ran dry before they reached the sea, like the Jordan does today, we'd set up desalination plants around the coast.

slowburner

mcmanaman wrote: »

Ok if we take a look at our neighbours England who have a population of 51 million. Is the size of the nation in square miles,ie 50,337 sq miles, important in relation to their population or are different factors more important in this regard ?

50,337 sq miles of desert wouldn't support a greater population than 50,337 sq miles of arable land, would it?

CDfm

recedite wrote: »

Here's the same contradiction again. People looking at some aspect of the current situation and then deciding to put a limit on the future population based on that.

When the first settlers arrived, they probably reckoned there was only enough wild boar to feed a few thousand people, and so they did their best to keep other tribes out.

Thats it with history - people compare historical times with todays values. Its not like that.

They forget that we are descended from the best resoursed.

It amazes me that there aren't a few stories of cannibalism from the famine.

Fratton Fred

CDfm wrote: »

30% of european armies were in hospital at any one time in the late 19th century

WWI is reckoned to be the first war fought by the British army where they lost more people on the battlefield than in the hospital.

CDfm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

WWI is reckoned to be the first war fought by the British army where they lost more people on the battlefield than in the hospital.

Have you come accross this lady Mother Bridgeman - a nun from Kinsale that used the skills acquired during the famine in the Crimea.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=72249069&postcount=13

They say she invented soap and water for use in military hospitals and taught an Englishwoman about them. :pac:

CDfm

There are some links on this thread people may find useful

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056179188

slowburner

CDfm wrote: »

It amazes me that there aren't a few stories of cannibalism from the famine.

Wouldn't that be a hell of a subject to research.

CDfm

slowburner wrote: »

Wouldn't that be a hell of a subject to research.

There just has to be

There were even rumours of cannibalism, at least in the more restricted sense of the flesh of victims being eaten by survivors: in Mayo a starving man was reported to have 'extracted the heart and liver...[of] a shipwrecked human body…cast on shore' (The Times, May 23rd, 1849).

http://www.ucd.ie/economics/research/papers/2004/WP04.25.pdf

Here is the link

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/sadlier/irish/May23.htm

And this page 19

http://books.google.ie/books?id=2hPOqGvf1HwC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=irish+famine+and+cannibalism&source=bl&ots=7N9vWC4JsZ&sig=hd4oVHVmkfTcnEIOoj5bx_0aQMk&hl=en&ei=MMD5TbmJGISzhAetqdiFAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=irish%20famine%20and%20cannibalism&f=false

And in 1822 Alexander Pearse an Irishman in Aus was executed for murder and cannibalism

slowburner

CDfm wrote: »

There just has to be

Fascinating paper.
I was often told that people with access to the resources of the sea would starve rather than eat shellfish. Perhaps that sort of moral fibre prevented cannibalism. But I suspect there are many, many skeletons in the cupboard.
One of the things you don't hear much about, is the amount of insanity. This was the result of excessive consumption of cabbage (often rotten) which brought about iodine poisoning.
I heard a very moving description a couple of years back of what the countryside was like at the height of the famine. There was a silence about it - there were no birds to sing. And there was a stench all about from rot and decay.
When you think about it, the famine is a recent event, and yet there are relatively few descriptive stories from those that survived.
Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind floats this question; 'What did my ancestors do to survive the famine?'

slowburner

MAY 23, 1849 IRELAND
(From Our Own Correspondent.)
DUBLIN, Tuesday Morning.
THE FAMINE IN THE WEST

Those awful facts may have been reported, but if they were they have been cushioned and suppressed, for who has heard of them?"

I was always under the impression that the suppression of these sorts of tales was a post famine phenomenon - obviously not.

Cathaoirleach

slowburner wrote: »

When you think about it, the famine is a recent event, and yet there are relatively few descriptive stories from those that survived.

My grandfather told me that when he was a child, his great grandmother told him that she remembered seeing famine corpses with their mouths died green from eating grass.

slowburner

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

My grandfather told me that when he was a child, his great grandmother told him that she remembered seeing famine corpses with their mouths died green from eating grass.

Anecdotes like this are so precious.
This is the sort of observation which lifts the Famine out of the worn pages of school history books and brings us the reality of the horror.
Now it is part of our memory too.
Thank you.

Cathaoirleach

slowburner wrote: »

This is the sort of observation which lifts the Famine out of the worn pages of school history books and brings us the reality of the horror.

Exactly what I though when he told me that. He had an extremely vivid memory of all his life experiences and was a genius at articulating them.

Although my grandfather lost most of his Gaeilge towards the end of his life, he was able to mimic those sorrowful words spoken to him about the famine from his Gaelige-speaking grandmother. She would talk about it all the time as she was traumatised by it. I guess that's not something you can forget if you witnessed it firsthand.

It was haunting to hear it through my grandad, but I'm glad he told me.