Irish Migration, 1650–1700

The flows of immigration and emigration over our four centuries came closest to equilibrium during this half-century. Ireland’s draw on the population of its neighbouring island remained strong and immigration in these five decades was actually greater than in the previous half-century. Inflows and outflows were particularly strong in the wake of the Cromwellian and Williamite military victories of 1649 and 1690 respectively. As in the first decade of the century, the 1650s saw emigration by large numbers of Irish Confederate forces to the Catholic continental powers, which added to the attraction of Ireland to the point that new settlers arrived and former settlers were sufficiently encouraged to return. The final decade of the 1690s proved decisive in consolidating British settlement in Ulster as newcomers were both pushed from Scotland by devastating famine and pulled into a buyer’s land market. Although the Cromwellian transplantation to Connacht is still remembered as a brutal example of deliberate migration policy, it demonstrates how limited early modern governments were in their power to engineer the societies they desired. Warfare, the land market, the economic cycle and urban growth did more to shape patterns of internal migration than government policy. Strong ties with Europe persisted, but emigration to the new world, particularly the West Indies, increased significantly. To potential Irish migrants, the Americas in 1700 seemed somewhat closer and the Atlantic less broad than in 1607. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Archaeology · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Emigration · Famine · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Immigration · Irish · Political science · Population · Settlement (finance) · Sociology · Demography · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Irish and British Studies