In 1841 the population of Ireland was over 8 million, with 6.5 million in the area that is now the Republic. Population of the
Republic of Ireland 1841–2017
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: Figure 18.13 Ireland’s population since the Great Famine Population after the Famine
The Great Famine occurred from 1845 to 1852 when the potato crop failed because of blight. This cut off the population’s main food source.
• Over a million people died of starvation. • A further million people emigrated to the UK and the USA. The emigrants were mostly young couples so the birth rate dropped during this period too. Many farmers abandoned their land in hope of a better future somewhere else.
• The population continued to fall as birth rates dropped and emigration continued. It levelled off around the foundation of the state in 1922 at around 3 million. The poor economy of the 1950s and 1960s and rising emigration saw the population drop to under 3 million. It gradually started to grow again in the 1970s due to economic and social change. The economic boom of the 1990s and early 2000s saw Ireland’s population grow to over 4 million as Ireland became a destination for economic migrants in search of work.
Go to Chapter 12 to learn more about Ireland’s population distribution (where people live) and density (the number of people per km2
). Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone was a colony of Great Britain from 1808 to 1961, forming part of the province of West Africa. Since independence, its population has grown from 2.3 million in 1961 to 7.3 million in 2017. The population change can be seen in the graph on the right:
ACT VITY
There was a civil war in Sierra Leone. Can you work out which decade it occurred in from studying this graph?
334 8
2 3 4 5 6 7
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 : Figure 18.14 The population of Sierra Leone since independence 2010
