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.