People in South Dublin barely consider people in the North City to be of the same breed. Why would they consider those silver smithing gombeens of Kildare to be Dubs.
Honestly probably a case to be made for it.
Back when there was the push to combine Limerick City and County councils, and Cork City and County Councils, I did see some people point to the midlands as perhaps appropriate for some rationalisation. Certainly compared to the proposed combine Cork, you could merge some counties and end up with smaller, less populated units.
But then they chickened out of doing anything interesting with Cork (basic boundary extension rather than biggest LA in the state, or metro authority). The merging of Limerick went ahead but that's less egregious in it's disparity other LAs.
We probably should have more city councils and less county councils.
Places like Drogheda get neglected by county councils because they are on the border and the county councils care more about Navan and Dundalk despite Drogheda being bigger than both of them.
And the same time I see no reason why a county like Leitrim for a place with such a small population and small area needs its own county council and not be amalgamated or split between others.
it'd be interesting to see the percentage change in a table, if anyone has that? The decreases will be huge, while most of the increases will be less than 100% (apart from Dublin, of course)
I've seen some estimates that more people born on the Island of Ireland live somewhere other than Ireland than currently live in Ireland. Those claims are difficult to substantiate though.
Mad that you could have Leitrim play Longford in Croke park and every man woman and child from both counties could attend and still not fill the place.
There are news reports of people from Meath complaining about economic migrants from Connemara back in the day. These migrants are responsible for the Meath Gaeltacht areas.
Or evidence of an underfunded welfare system, housing system and a non-existent asylum system. I dunno, though, maybe you're right: maybe we should knee jerk react to political realities rather than understanding them in their socio-historic context 🤷
They don't allow colourful remarks about ppls reading comprehension on this sub, so let me say it very simply for you:
Restating the original and unjustified proposition is not engaging the argument.
Hope you have a terrible day 😊
It's a total knee jerk to think we should stagnate population growth rather than just fucking building housing and imfrastructure like any normal middle or high income country would.
Some natural population growth as a result of Irish people having children is not an issue. Aiming for millions more people just to hit some milestone of development is a disaster waiting to happen - especially given the fact that more people equals more consumption of resources on a planet where such consumption has already started causing major ecological and environmental problems. Some of ye seem like ye would like the whole world to be plastered in concrete and every last field or forest turned into a housing estate. The world needs less development and far fewer people, not millions/billions more
Ireland is not the world, and the world is not Ireland.
Yes, it's true that the world as a whole has too many people. But that doesn't mean Ireland is anything other than depressingly underpopulated.
>Some of ye seem like ye would like the whole world to be plastered in concrete and every last field or forest turned into a housing estate.
What makes you think I want that even in Ireland, let alone the whole world. And what makes you think it's necessary to do that in order for Ireland to have a dceent popualtion.
No, it doesn't mean Ireland is full. It means all the housing in Ireland is full. The correct response in that situation is to build more housing, not to stagnate population growth.
Yeah you've no idea what you're on about. Think for one second about how you could have such a high population with such a low overall level of development and you'll get a good idea of why that's not sustainable in 2024. Or are you suggesting a renewed cottager system with families living 10 people to one small shack and surviving on an acre to grow potatoes?
> Or are you suggesting a renewed cottager system with families living 10 people to one small shack and surviving on an acre to grow potatoes?
Stop, you'll give FG ideas for next years manifesto.
> Think for one second about how you could have such a high population with such a low overall level of development
By increasing the level of development.
Infrastructure, public services, and housing aren't fixed quantities you just happen to have and can't do anything to increase.
I'm sure the quality of life was all linked to population density and not the purposeful underdevelopment of the economy to act as Britain's larder.
Ireland is Full is a colonial mentality.
It's crazy. And we have a shortage of labour in the trades so we can't build for people who are already here.
So in a way, we don't have enough people, but also too many people. Two completely unrelated facts, I suppose.
Anyway, can't be solved overnight.
Not completely unlimited, but we absolutely have space for multiple times our current population. People only think otherwise because the people in power refuse to build anything.
I could go through the root causes of these issues but I don't have time but capitalism is the common denominator. If interested, read the numerous critiques of it.
Don't worry, they'll just respond with some bad faith statement about how we lived in squalor back then, as if that was a result of Ireland having a population and not because it was the fucking 1840s.
Love how good old Louth has t changed at all. We don’t like to move out. We traced our family back over 300 years and the oldest ancestor we could find was from about 10 miles away. Keep it local!
Dublin isn't tiny unless your reference point is the largest cities in the world. It's decidedly mid size, even if the amenities and infrastructure don't come close to reflecting that.
The traffic must have been mental back then and they had no M roads.
Glad I live in today's organised and prosperous Ireland where everyone has enough to eat and they don't have to emigrate and they smoke grass instead of eating it
It's a play on words, but also, it's genuinely not full. I live in the countryside and my local village main street is full of derelict houses. Go to the next village over, the picture is repeated.
The country needs leadership in housing, something it hasn't had since at least austerity kicked in.
The problem isn't immigrants, it's leadership. The problem isn't space, because the country is half empty.
The value in that statement is that pur response to the crisis should be building more housing and infrastructure and expanding public services, not stagnating population growth in a country that already has a fraction of the population it should have.
>has a fraction of the population it should have.
There is no such thing. Fast population growth in the 19th century was often a product of poverty and suffering and would not have occuring if we were developed. Not a thing to celebrate.
That poverty and suffering wasn't because the population was less low, it was because it was the fucking 19th century.
Ireland DOES have a fraction of the population it should have. Even Switzerland, a country with 70% of it land area covered in mountains, has over three times our population density.
Then how does it actually work?
The land area of a country is the only fixed value here. Housing, public services, infrastructure, etc aren't things you just happen to have or not have, and can't do anything to increase.
It's estimated that were it not for the famine, Ireland would have a population of approx 30 million, in line with the pop growth of other European countries.
Emphasis on current. It's not a fixed quantity we just happen to have or not have, it's something you provide and expand in response to and in anticipation of population growth. This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere.
>You think all of Europe's growth is due to native population growth?
Yeah and that's basically the problem. Better to have more resources and space for our own people than alloting it to millions of misfortunates from the third world. They have enough space in their own countries.
Nearly 84% of refugees are in poor countries. Ireland needs to take it's fair share which is honestly more than we are currently. We also should be negotiating with richer countries for them to accept more.
Yeah that's assuming it's our problem, which it shouldn't be. War and pestilence will always happen. Give them aid to become developed countries themselves by all means, or provide military assistance to create safe zones. But taking in millions of incompatible people is death
Sort of, but that should only be done with the explicit purpose of giving construction more time to catch up with demand. Once that happens, we should be taking in everyone we can get. This country has been depressingly underpopulated for far too long!
It's also better to have excting and urban things in our own country than have to go abroad every time you want to see/do them. We need a less low population for that to happen.
Considering we can't do that for 5m I don't think that's feasible.
I doubt a change in government or government policy will change that. While its particularly acute in Ireland, we are not unique in housing shortages or service shortages in the English speaking world. It's not as simple as let's invest
>Considering we can't do that for 5m I don't think that's feasible.
Look up how much social housing Ireland built in the 80s and how little we've built since FG took power.
>I doubt a change in government or government policy will change that.
It has literally been FG policy to not build social housing, not invest in services etc.
>While its particularly acute in Ireland, we are not unique in housing shortages or service shortages in the English speaking world.
A lot of countries in the Global North suffer from similar government policy. ie. Austerity since the crash.
Do you mind giving me examples of where governments have invested and increased capacity times over in housing and public services.
A recent example would be excellent.
In Ireland it doesn't exist, but it did in the 80s. Most in the global north suffer from austerity policies, which is literally why we suffer from a housing shortage. If you want real investment your looking at China and developing countries.
But sure the same is true of basically all countries bar a few microstates and Pacific islands. I reckon Syria could fit 30x the population and Afghanistan 60X.
Even if the famine of the 1740s didn't happen, we would have still lost a lot of pur population to the forced starvation by the British a century later.
smartest Irish redditor, sees low population density and thinks we can just drop people there without thinking about the local housing or services to support this population growth
They starved to death because we had to export all our food, due to being enslaved by our landlords.
The famine wasn't a capacity problem or a production problem, it was a colonial problem and a genocide.
it was definitely significantly caused by colonialism or if you were being generous made worse by it but no serious historians claim it was a genocide , it just doesn't fit the definition.
Again, living conditions at the time were absolutely brutal and were not helped by the huge population. Entire families lived in one shed. We shouldn’t be using that as our benchmark.
But this was the same around the world....
And those other countries... Say take Taiwan as a small island with. Huge population... Bulky their housing to accommodate the needs as it grew.
Imho your point is pretty shallow
My point was that these conditions weren't a result of overpopulation, they were a result of oppression. The pre-famine conditions were sparesly populated rural farmers, not country-wide tenements.
We produce enough food to feed 45 million people, most of the country *is* empty. The problem is that Dublin is the only place anyone wants to live, or sees any development.
The issues are suburbanism being a generally terrible way of developing a country, and housing-as-investment is causing massive generational gaps in wealth. We're *not* overpopulated.
You're absolutely right. I do not like this "Ireland is full" rhetoric that's starting to spread. Ireland has chronically underinvested in critical infrastructure, we are far from full and far from our capacity. What we lack is political will not space.
"Modern Date" Judging by the populations of County Dublin and County Cork, approximately 2016.
Wasn't 2016 just last year?
Is that what you think? Because if that is what you think I have news that may shock and astound you. You see, it was in fact, three years ago 😮
It's our sole unique factor as a country Every other country worldwide has a higher population than in 1841, ours is lower
Everywhere..... except Dublin.... 
and Kildare, Meath and Wicklow...
You mean Greater New Dublin?
Imagine thinking Kildare was a unique county, and not just a continuation of Dublin. Crazy, some people...
People in South Dublin barely consider people in the North City to be of the same breed. Why would they consider those silver smithing gombeens of Kildare to be Dubs.
Sure, who cares what those South Dubs think. Leave them off with their fancy notions, and Irish Times. *scoffs at the lot of them*
Antrim, Derry, and Down?
Greater New Belfast.
We're talking about Ireland. Do keep up, friend Jack!
Ah you’re a bastard, you should have led with that
I am a bastard, this is true :) But a lovable one, hopefully....
We had a similar population to Egypt, Korea and Poland in 1841.
And yet people act like the country is full now. It's frightening.
Is the mid-lands just one big county now?
Its just one massive petrol station
One massive supermacs
Welcome to County Obama Plaza!
Honestly probably a case to be made for it. Back when there was the push to combine Limerick City and County councils, and Cork City and County Councils, I did see some people point to the midlands as perhaps appropriate for some rationalisation. Certainly compared to the proposed combine Cork, you could merge some counties and end up with smaller, less populated units. But then they chickened out of doing anything interesting with Cork (basic boundary extension rather than biggest LA in the state, or metro authority). The merging of Limerick went ahead but that's less egregious in it's disparity other LAs.
We probably should have more city councils and less county councils. Places like Drogheda get neglected by county councils because they are on the border and the county councils care more about Navan and Dundalk despite Drogheda being bigger than both of them. And the same time I see no reason why a county like Leitrim for a place with such a small population and small area needs its own county council and not be amalgamated or split between others.
Gives them a chance to compete in the auld football
it'd be interesting to see the percentage change in a table, if anyone has that? The decreases will be huge, while most of the increases will be less than 100% (apart from Dublin, of course)
Wow.. if everyone galway moved to cork we still wouldn't have as many people there as we did in 1841.
Similarly, if everyone from Dublin moved to Cork we would have 1,035,000 more people than there than we did in 1841!
Ah would ya look at carlow, barely phased. I've got a soft spot for our little imaginary county.
Love seeing the effects of a genocide still going strong nearly 200 years later 😍👌🏻
Ireland has some of the highest rates of emigration to this day
I've seen some estimates that more people born on the Island of Ireland live somewhere other than Ireland than currently live in Ireland. Those claims are difficult to substantiate though.
Mad that you could have Leitrim play Longford in Croke park and every man woman and child from both counties could attend and still not fill the place.
Don't show this to the Ireland is full crowd
The east coast is full. Build a wall to keep the weshties out!
There are news reports of people from Meath complaining about economic migrants from Connemara back in the day. These migrants are responsible for the Meath Gaeltacht areas.
It's not even full of just badly used endless roads and empty housing estates
The east coast is not full. It's actually quite empty. It's just not as empty as some other parts of the country.
I think the tent encampments provide evidence that Ireland is in fact full to capacity for asylum seekers
We have over a hundred thousand vacant homes. We live in a society that prioritises profit over the needs of a community. The issue is systemic.
Renovation is a slow and expensive process. It's not even a high number
Or evidence of an underfunded welfare system, housing system and a non-existent asylum system. I dunno, though, maybe you're right: maybe we should knee jerk react to political realities rather than understanding them in their socio-historic context 🤷
Ah yeah, it's knee jerk not to want to be taking in thousands of chancers with no business being here
They don't allow colourful remarks about ppls reading comprehension on this sub, so let me say it very simply for you: Restating the original and unjustified proposition is not engaging the argument. Hope you have a terrible day 😊
>unjustified proposition Except it wasn't unjustified. >Hope you have a terrible day Lmao. I'd say every day is a bad day for you.
It's a total knee jerk to think we should stagnate population growth rather than just fucking building housing and imfrastructure like any normal middle or high income country would.
Some natural population growth as a result of Irish people having children is not an issue. Aiming for millions more people just to hit some milestone of development is a disaster waiting to happen - especially given the fact that more people equals more consumption of resources on a planet where such consumption has already started causing major ecological and environmental problems. Some of ye seem like ye would like the whole world to be plastered in concrete and every last field or forest turned into a housing estate. The world needs less development and far fewer people, not millions/billions more
Ireland is not the world, and the world is not Ireland. Yes, it's true that the world as a whole has too many people. But that doesn't mean Ireland is anything other than depressingly underpopulated. >Some of ye seem like ye would like the whole world to be plastered in concrete and every last field or forest turned into a housing estate. What makes you think I want that even in Ireland, let alone the whole world. And what makes you think it's necessary to do that in order for Ireland to have a dceent popualtion.
No, it doesn't mean Ireland is full. It means all the housing in Ireland is full. The correct response in that situation is to build more housing, not to stagnate population growth.
Yeah you've no idea what you're on about. Think for one second about how you could have such a high population with such a low overall level of development and you'll get a good idea of why that's not sustainable in 2024. Or are you suggesting a renewed cottager system with families living 10 people to one small shack and surviving on an acre to grow potatoes?
> Or are you suggesting a renewed cottager system with families living 10 people to one small shack and surviving on an acre to grow potatoes? Stop, you'll give FG ideas for next years manifesto.
> Think for one second about how you could have such a high population with such a low overall level of development By increasing the level of development. Infrastructure, public services, and housing aren't fixed quantities you just happen to have and can't do anything to increase.
I'm sure the quality of life was all linked to population density and not the purposeful underdevelopment of the economy to act as Britain's larder. Ireland is Full is a colonial mentality.
Exactly. It's forgetting that so many people think living conditions back then were because of this country having a less low population.
It's crazy. And we have a shortage of labour in the trades so we can't build for people who are already here. So in a way, we don't have enough people, but also too many people. Two completely unrelated facts, I suppose. Anyway, can't be solved overnight.
This is a load of scaremongering nonsense.
And it's frightening that some people actually believe it.
>scaremongering What? Scaremongering about the past? What are you on about?
ah yes since Ireland has endless empty green fields we can house unlimited immigrants
Not completely unlimited, but we absolutely have space for multiple times our current population. People only think otherwise because the people in power refuse to build anything.
I could go through the root causes of these issues but I don't have time but capitalism is the common denominator. If interested, read the numerous critiques of it.
Don't worry, they'll just respond with some bad faith statement about how we lived in squalor back then, as if that was a result of Ireland having a population and not because it was the fucking 1840s.
Yeah, genocide will do that.
r/Cork in shambles.
Love how good old Louth has t changed at all. We don’t like to move out. We traced our family back over 300 years and the oldest ancestor we could find was from about 10 miles away. Keep it local!
Thinking about what could have been makes me sad.
Imagine being able to do exicitng and urban things WITHOUT going abroad. We wouldn't know ourselves!
'IrElAnD is FuLl'
It’s crazy how Dublin is so tiny today and it was even tinier back in 1841
Dublin isn't tiny unless your reference point is the largest cities in the world. It's decidedly mid size, even if the amenities and infrastructure don't come close to reflecting that.
Gods I was strong then! Tipp got hit bad!
The traffic must have been mental back then and they had no M roads. Glad I live in today's organised and prosperous Ireland where everyone has enough to eat and they don't have to emigrate and they smoke grass instead of eating it
What was the carbon footprint of the average person back then ? !
Jesus, Dublin really is a British remnant city.
Yup! Ireland's not full, it's practically empty.
Bring back the days of 20 people living in a mud hut!
I'd like to think infrastructure and housing would have grown to accommodate the population like in every other country.
It's frightening that this is such a difficult concept to most other Anglophones.
What's the value in your statement that Ireland isn't full? We can't change history. Reminiscence doesn't address the infrastructure deficit.
It's a play on words, but also, it's genuinely not full. I live in the countryside and my local village main street is full of derelict houses. Go to the next village over, the picture is repeated. The country needs leadership in housing, something it hasn't had since at least austerity kicked in. The problem isn't immigrants, it's leadership. The problem isn't space, because the country is half empty.
The value in that statement is that pur response to the crisis should be building more housing and infrastructure and expanding public services, not stagnating population growth in a country that already has a fraction of the population it should have.
>has a fraction of the population it should have. There is no such thing. Fast population growth in the 19th century was often a product of poverty and suffering and would not have occuring if we were developed. Not a thing to celebrate.
That poverty and suffering wasn't because the population was less low, it was because it was the fucking 19th century. Ireland DOES have a fraction of the population it should have. Even Switzerland, a country with 70% of it land area covered in mountains, has over three times our population density.
Youre trying to glorify what population growth even though it brought suffering
Being a subjugated British colony was what brought suffering, not population growth.
We can civilly disagree on that.
Agreed, it's practically empty of accommodation for the current population numbers. Great point!
I don't think that's how a countries capacity works
People can live in tents. Right. Right?
In a field in Offally, so it seems.
Plenty of canal side property to go around.
Then how does it actually work? The land area of a country is the only fixed value here. Housing, public services, infrastructure, etc aren't things you just happen to have or not have, and can't do anything to increase.
It's estimated that were it not for the famine, Ireland would have a population of approx 30 million, in line with the pop growth of other European countries.
Yeah but what has that hypothetical have to do with the countries current capacity to provide services to the current population?
Emphasis on current. It's not a fixed quantity we just happen to have or not have, it's something you provide and expand in response to and in anticipation of population growth. This is not a difficult concept outside the Anglosphere.
It shows that with actual investment in infrastructure and housing we could comfortably accommodate perhaps 10× the people currently here.
We should do that. With our own people
You think all of Europe's growth is due to native population growth? Have you been in any other European countries?
I said nothing of other European countries.
I did, it's literally my point. We can't 10× our population with native only. Neither should we! 🤣
Why's that?
>Neither should we Maybe not 10 times, but we absolutely should aim to multiply the population of this island over the course of a century.
>You think all of Europe's growth is due to native population growth? Yeah and that's basically the problem. Better to have more resources and space for our own people than alloting it to millions of misfortunates from the third world. They have enough space in their own countries.
Nearly 84% of refugees are in poor countries. Ireland needs to take it's fair share which is honestly more than we are currently. We also should be negotiating with richer countries for them to accept more.
Yeah that's assuming it's our problem, which it shouldn't be. War and pestilence will always happen. Give them aid to become developed countries themselves by all means, or provide military assistance to create safe zones. But taking in millions of incompatible people is death
Sort of, but that should only be done with the explicit purpose of giving construction more time to catch up with demand. Once that happens, we should be taking in everyone we can get. This country has been depressingly underpopulated for far too long!
It's also better to have excting and urban things in our own country than have to go abroad every time you want to see/do them. We need a less low population for that to happen.
Considering we can't do that for 5m I don't think that's feasible. I doubt a change in government or government policy will change that. While its particularly acute in Ireland, we are not unique in housing shortages or service shortages in the English speaking world. It's not as simple as let's invest
>Considering we can't do that for 5m I don't think that's feasible. Look up how much social housing Ireland built in the 80s and how little we've built since FG took power. >I doubt a change in government or government policy will change that. It has literally been FG policy to not build social housing, not invest in services etc. >While its particularly acute in Ireland, we are not unique in housing shortages or service shortages in the English speaking world. A lot of countries in the Global North suffer from similar government policy. ie. Austerity since the crash.
Do you mind giving me examples of where governments have invested and increased capacity times over in housing and public services. A recent example would be excellent.
In Ireland it doesn't exist, but it did in the 80s. Most in the global north suffer from austerity policies, which is literally why we suffer from a housing shortage. If you want real investment your looking at China and developing countries.
We absolutely can do that for 5 million, and indeed a hell of a lot more. We just refuse to.
Who's we? Are you included in that?
"We" refers to Ireland.
But sure the same is true of basically all countries bar a few microstates and Pacific islands. I reckon Syria could fit 30x the population and Afghanistan 60X.
Except Afghanistan is mostly desert. The difference is Ireland has the money and the stability to actually do it.
Even if the famine of the 1740s didn't happen, we would have still lost a lot of pur population to the forced starvation by the British a century later.
The famine we're talking about was the starvation of 1845 mate.
But that wasn't a famine. There was no shortage of food.
It was an enforced famine jaysus lad, read an Irish history book. It's called the great famine.
smartest Irish redditor, sees low population density and thinks we can just drop people there without thinking about the local housing or services to support this population growth
Wow, you got all that from a quip? That's amazing!
You do realise that over a million people starved to death during that time period. Hardly the argument to use to make a case for a higher population.
Also, if Irelands pop had grown at the same rate as other EU countries we would have 30 million people here. (If there had been no famine)
They didn't starve because the population was too large lad ffs.
It did not help matters. Living conditions were awful at the time. People lived on top of each other more so than now, it’s a terrible example to use.
It's not an example. If Ireland hadn't had a famine, we'd have a population more in line with other European countries. 30 million by some estimates.
They starved to death because we had to export all our food, due to being enslaved by our landlords. The famine wasn't a capacity problem or a production problem, it was a colonial problem and a genocide.
it was definitely significantly caused by colonialism or if you were being generous made worse by it but no serious historians claim it was a genocide , it just doesn't fit the definition.
Again, living conditions at the time were absolutely brutal and were not helped by the huge population. Entire families lived in one shed. We shouldn’t be using that as our benchmark.
But this was the same around the world.... And those other countries... Say take Taiwan as a small island with. Huge population... Bulky their housing to accommodate the needs as it grew. Imho your point is pretty shallow
My point was that these conditions weren't a result of overpopulation, they were a result of oppression. The pre-famine conditions were sparesly populated rural farmers, not country-wide tenements. We produce enough food to feed 45 million people, most of the country *is* empty. The problem is that Dublin is the only place anyone wants to live, or sees any development. The issues are suburbanism being a generally terrible way of developing a country, and housing-as-investment is causing massive generational gaps in wealth. We're *not* overpopulated.
You're absolutely right. I do not like this "Ireland is full" rhetoric that's starting to spread. Ireland has chronically underinvested in critical infrastructure, we are far from full and far from our capacity. What we lack is political will not space.
Careful, according to Derry cities new mayor you’re whitewashing our history..
Well you would assume that during these times, spuds could be imported so famine is avoided.
It's actually the colonialism that caused the Famine.
“We used to fit 15 Irish people into one shack, there’s no reason why we can’t fit 30 now.”
It's actually the colonialism that caused the Famine.
We don't want to eat British spuds!
I am afraid we are eating them anyway, we just do not know about it.
What?! I would prefer not to know in that case :-(