One of the emerging preoccupations of early modern Europe was the quantification and classification of the human and natural world. Although counting people was an older pursuit, censuses took on greater significance as the role of the state expanded in the early modern period. While the modern enumerative census emerged from the 1790s, there had been several earlier efforts to quantify populations in parts of Europe. Several Italian states carried out fairly regular enumerations from the sixteenth century. Many were calculated based on the number of hearths in a building. From the mid eighteenth century, Sweden was able to calculate the general population based on data extracted from parish registers. In seventeenth-century Britain, John Graunt estimated population size based on births and deaths, while William Petty extrapolated population figures based on London's size and its export data. When the idea of an enumerative census of Britain was suggested in the 1750s it was rejected on the basis that it was thought an infringement on liberty and might expose a weakness to potential enemies.
Ireland was not immune to these impulses. Indeed, the presence of William Petty provided the initial impetus to determine the extent to which seventeenth-century Ireland was populated. But, unlike other parts of Europe, there was a greater desire to determine the religious and ethnic breakdown of the population, the better to measure how successful the colonisation and religious reformation of Ireland proceeded, and in the eighteenth century how legislation had been effective in converting Catholics. There was hope too that natural increase would advance the Protestant interest. But, as the editors point out, the exact reason for enumerating Protestants and Catholics in the 1760s remains elusive. They posit that the circumstances produced by agrarian agitation in certain parts of the kingdom earlier in the decade and initial steps to repeal anti-Catholic laws may have contributed to the desire to know the religious breakdown of society. Yet, the editors also point out that determining the size of particular religious groups was not solely an Irish preoccupation: similar surveys were carried out in Scotland a decade earlier, in England in 1767 and in parts of British North America at around the same time.
Two separate efforts were made to determine the size and denomination of the Irish population in the space of three years. The first was conducted in 1764 and 1765, based on the number of hearths in each house, and overseen by the hearth-tax collectors. The surviving returns amount to about 400 parishes, or about a quarter of places. While most of the parishes within Armagh, Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Louth, and Monaghan have available returns, those in Antrim, Carlow, Cork, Down, Kildare, King's, Limerick, Londonderry, Meath, Queen's and Tyrone have far fewer returns. In the case of Antrim and Carlow, only one parish is covered by the volume. The remaining thirteen counties have no known returns. The editors conclude that its reliability is questionable, but it nevertheless allows for a profile of religious demography in particular regions and a useful counterpoint to the later census. Perhaps of additional benefit is the fact that many returns record the condition of churches and chapels. Particularly useful are the two case studies introducing both censuses. These offer examples of how the censuses can be appropriately analysed and how a parish's entire population can be estimated by, for example, using a multiplier of five.
The second census was initiated by the Irish parliament in 1766 and conducted by clergymen of the Church of Ireland. The available returns are significantly better than the hearth-tax census and probably reflects the fact that clergymen were much more diligent in making return than hearth-tax collectors. The editors conclude that the 1766 census provides a more accurate profile of religious demography than its predecessor. The households of about 1,400 parishes were enumerated, but in varying degrees of detail. At a minimum, total numbers of Catholic and Protestant households were returned; at its most detailed, some returns gave the names of heads of households for either one or both denomination. What is presented here are the overall numbers for each parish, along with a commentary on location of the return, who made the survey and supplementary information relating to the parish. In several instances, particularly for Ulster, there is a breakdown of the Protestant figures for Anglicans, Presbyterians and others.
The volume represents an enormously impressive exercise in source collection and analysis, produced by three eminent scholars, long active in demographic history. Dispersed across several public and diocesan archives, as well as in numerous and sometimes obscure books and journals, the accumulation of the surviving returns in one place adds greatly to our ability to understand the local variations of population that existed across Ireland. But, this is no mere finding aid. The editors have calculated the mean household size for those parishes where it was possible to do so. Although they do not specifically provide a national mean household size, they mention 5.1 when suggesting a calculation for the overall size of the population. Mean household size could vary even within counties. For example, the mean household size of Newcaphel parish in Tipperary was 5.8, which was somewhat untypical, while in neighbouring Kilkenny, in Clonmore, it was 4.2. But, it is clear that Protestant households were generally larger than their Catholic counterparts, mostly explained by the presence of servants. Indeed, the data presented reaffirms the argument that servant-keeping was a measure of status and, in Ireland, was more characteristic of Protestant than Catholic households.
Notwithstanding the immense functionality and utility of electronic databases, this volume proves just how useful the book remains. At a glance, the reader can move from parish to parish, and on to the county with ease and speed, engaging with maps and graphs at the same time. One of the strengths of the publication are the county maps delineating each civil parish and showing the relative proportion of Catholics to Protestants. There is no better format than this to get an overarching view of denominational proportions across counties. County Down is illustrative of the sharp contrasts that existed. There, Protestants accounted for over 75 per cent in its northern parishes, while Catholics formed a significant majority in many of its southern parishes.
It would take nearly seventy years after the 1766 survey for the state to again quantify the numbers of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, and not until 1861 before a religious affiliation question was added to the statutory national census. By then, the Catholic and Anglican proportions of the population had all increased, but the Presbyterian figure had declined, a trend that seems to have begun in the eighteenth century. This volume will be critical for those who will want to examine this and other questions relating to the demographic history of Ireland. Indeed, it will be impossible to do without it.
