People of old Ireland in rare photographs, 1885-1925

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Ireland’s population had plummeted by more than three and a half million since the Famine and was still in decline. There were some 250,000 fewer people on the island in 1901 than there had been in 1891.
Late-nineteenth century Ireland was a country of tiny farmsteads and nasty urban tenements. It was an era when some Irish people still lived in mud cabins. Partial failure of the potato crop, which happened a number of times during the 1890s, was still capable of generating what late-Victorian administrators coyly called ‘distress’.
This was a time before the introduction of old age pensions and social welfare arrangements when the workhouse, however harsh its conditions might be, was often the only place of refuge for the aged, the infirm and the indigent. To many, emigration offered the only prospect of a better life.
More than 32,000 people left in 1899 alone, giving Ireland a higher emigration rate than any other part of Europe. There were thousands of others who migrated for part of the year in search of seasonal labor whose proceeds could help sustain their families at home.
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