Locating the Georgians at Home and Abroad

This chapter examines how the number of people living in the British Isles continued to rise. It follows the long eighteenth century of apparently unstoppable growth and demographic catastrophe. Demographic boom in many areas of Great Britain tended to encourage in growth areas a sense of optimism and buoyancy. For most of this period, all three kingdoms were experiencing prolonged urbanisation. The chapter then shifts to discuss the stark demographic divergence between mainland Britain and Ireland. It recounts the various inventive make-work projects in response to food crises in eighteenth- as well as nineteenth-century Ireland. The chapter investigates how the Irish population looked for regular livelihoods in a well-functioning economy. Georgian demographic expansion had thus left Ireland vulnerable to natural disaster, with which officialdom was ill-equipped to deal. In the absence of new solutions, the chapter unveils how several Irish families took the empirical option of emigration, motivated by a combination of grief and determination.