
The Slow Failure
Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920-1973
Mary E. Daly(Author)
University of Wisconsin Press
Published on 28. February 2006
Book
Hardback
456 pages
978-0-299-21290-2 (ISBN)
Description
Today Ireland's population is rising, immigration outpaces emigration, most families have two or at most three children, and full-time farmers are in steady decline. But the opposite was true for more than a century, from the great famine of the 1840s until the 1960s. Between 1922 and 1966 - most of the first fifty years after independence - the population of Ireland was falling, in the 1950s as rapidly as in the 1880s. Mary Daly's ""The Slow Failure"" examines not just the reasons for the decline, but the responses to it by politicians, academics, journalists, churchmen, and others who publicly agonized over their nation's ""slow failure."" Eager to reverse population decline but fearful that economic development would undermine Irish national identity, they fashioned statistical evidence to support ultimately fruitless policies that encouraged large, rural farm families. Focusing on both Irish government and society, Daly places Ireland's population history in the mainstream history of independent Ireland. Daly's research reveals how pastoral visions of an ideal Ireland made it virtually impossible to reverse the fall in population. Promoting large families, for example, contributed to late marriages, actually slowing population growth further. The crucial issue of emigration failed to attract serious government attention except during World War II; successive Irish governments refused to provide welfare services for emigrants, leaving that role to the Catholic Church. Daly takes these and other elements of an often-sad story, weaving them into essential reading for understanding modern Irish history.
Reviews / Votes
A valuable contribution on a central topic in modern Irish history from a leading historian of Ireland. The quality of the research is second to none. - Enda Delaney, author of Irish Emigration since 1921More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Wisconsin
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
798 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-299-21290-2 (9780299212902)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Mary E. Daly is professor of history and dean of the Faculty of Arts, University College Dublin. Her many books include A Social and Economic History of Ireland since 1800; The Famine in Ireland: Industrial Development and Irish National Identity: 1922-39; and Women and Work in Ireland.