Census of Ireland, 1813

Matthew Woollard

The Census Act, 1800 (41 Geo. III. c.15) only covered England, Wales and Scotland, probably because Ireland had not yet entered the Union, but also because the local administration differed to Britain. A bill for taking a census in Ireland was introduced to the House of Commons in 1806 but was defeated. Discussions for a census in Ireland were also made during the debates on the 1811 census of Great Britain and a bill was subsequently introduced for the first census of Ireland.

This act, the Census (Ireland) Act, 1812 (52 Geo. III c.133) was passed in 1812 and the census itself began in the following year, 1813. This census seems to have generally followed the model of the 1811 British census and was conducted under the supervision of William Shaw Mason, a civil servant and author of A Statistical Account, or Parochial Survey of Ireland (Dublin, 1814–1819).

The collection of information at this census was almost certainly by the viva voce method, where householders were asked to give the required particulars in an oral statement to the enumerator, rather than write down the relevant details. The enumerators were largely drawn from the barony constables and the parish officers who were predominantly Protestant, which led to hostility from a largely Catholic population. This religious conflict, combined with poor administration led to incomplete returns received by William Shaw Mason, and when the census was finally stopped in 1815 it was considered a failure.

No statistics were published as a result of this census until 1822. The two page abstract published that year omitted the population of six counties and two cities, and the report on the 1821 census noted that of the total of 40 major important administrative units only ten were considered to give complete returns. Mason 'deduced' the whole population of Ireland for 1813–15 on the basis of some spurious statistical calculation and is generally considered unreliable by modern historians (Froggatt 1965, Connell 1950 and Lee 1981).

REFERENCES

Census of Ireland, 1821, Abstract of the population of Ireland, according to the late census: viz return of the number of houses and inhabitants in the several counties of Ireland, as collected from the enumerators' periodical reports of progress, and from the reports of the magistrates: together with a comparative view of the number of houses and inhabitants as taken in 1813 BPP 1822 XIV, 737– (36). [View this document: Abstract of Population of Ireland, 1821]

Census of Ireland, 1821, Abstract of the answers and returns made pursuant to an act of the united parliament, passed in the 55th year of the reign of his late majesty George the third, intituled "An act to provide for taking an account of the population of Ireland, and for ascertaining the Increase or diminution thereof". Preliminary observations. Enumeration abstract. Appendix BPP 1824 XXII, 411– (577). [View this document: Preliminary observations, enumeration abstract, appendix, Ireland, 1821]

K. H. Connell, The population of Ireland (Oxford, 1950).

E. M. Crawford, Counting the people. A survey of the Irish censuses, 1813–1913 (Dublin, 2003).

P. M. Froggatt, 'The census in Ireland of 1813–15', Irish Historical Studies, 14 (1965), 227–235.

D. V. Glass and P. A. M. Taylor, Population and emigration (Dublin, 1976).

J. Lee, 'On the accuracy of the pre–famine Irish censuses' in J. M. Goldstrom and L. A. Clarkson, eds, Irish Population, Economy, and Society: essays in honour of the late K. H. Connell (Oxford, 1981), 37–56.