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Day 9: Was Ireland Overpopulated in 1845?




This podcast was released early in the Great Famine Series. It asks tackles one of the key controversies about Ireland before the Famine – whether the island was overpopulated and whether this caused the famine.

In 1845 the population of Ireland was heading towards 9 million with many people surviving on a diet of potatoes. This has lead many to claim that the island was overpopulated. In this podcast I head to a remote village of Inver in Erris to see how the population has changed over the past 150 years. I also investigate exactly how many people lived in Ireland, what was the standard of living and whether the people were healthy. The answers are surprising to say the least.

“From the creator of the Irish History Podcast comes the story of Modern Ireland and its people written in death” 

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