proceedings: anthropological society 81 



« 



13, and 11 per cent of the total population. The present Gaelic race of 

 Ireland is a blend of the Gael proper, a Keltic people who arrived in the 

 country probably from northern Spain about 1000 B.C., and of all other 

 races who preceeded or followed them up to the end of the thirteenth 

 century, including the neolithic man, the unknown megalith builders, 

 the dark haired Firbolg, the Picts, Danes, Normans, and Welsh. The 

 Irish immigration to the American colonies previous to the Revolution 

 was mainly of the alien Scotch and English element, known sometimes 

 as Scotch-Irish. The Gaelic Irish immigrants did not begin to arrive in 

 any great number until after the war of 1812, excepting in Maryland. 



The wars growing out of the Reformation and the Stuart contests 

 reduced the Irish race from an estimated 2,500,000 in 1560 to about 

 960,000 at the end of the Cromwellian war in 1652. In 1845 it reached 

 its maximum estimate of 8,500,000. Then came the great famine of 

 1846-47. Within three years nearly 1,500,000 perished of hunger or 

 famine fever. By the great flood of emigration Ireland has lost vir- 

 tually one-half of its population within sixty years. In 1911 it stood at 

 4,390,219, the lowest point reached in over a centur3^ Owing to gov- 

 ernmental and economic conditions this decrease has been chiefly at 

 the expense of the old native Gaelic stock rather than the Planter stock, 

 the Gaelic percentage, as indicated by the religious statistics, having 

 fallen from 83 to 74. In the sixty years ending March 31, 1911, accord- 

 ing to the official British figures, 4,191,552 emigrants left Ireland, or 

 nearly as many persons as are now living in the country. About 3,000,- 

 000 of these came to the United States, the total Irish immigration to 

 this country from 1821 to 1900 being, officially, 3,871,253. From 1821 

 to 1850 the Irish constituted nearly one-half of all our immigrants. Pre- 

 vious to the Revolution the "Scotch-Irish" immigration was so great 

 that in an official Parhamentary inquiry in 1778 it was asserted that 

 nearly one-half the American Revolutionary Army was of Irish origin. 

 Since 1870 the number of Irish-born in the United States has steadily 

 decreased, by death and dwindling immigration. According to the 

 census of 1910 there are now in the United States: Irish born, 1,352,155; 

 American born of full Irish parentage, 2,141,577; American born, one 

 parent born in Ireland the other in the United States (in most cases the 

 result of an Irish immigrant marrying an Irish American), 1,010,628. 

 Total of Irish birth or parentage, 4,504,360. This does not include any 

 of the 811,000 non-French Canadians in the United States, of whom a 

 large proportion are of Irish blood, or any of the 876,000 coming from 

 England, of whom also a large number are of Irish origin. Neither 

 does it include an}^ of the 1,177,000 American born "of mixed foreign 

 parentage," including such parentage combinations as Irish and German, 

 which alone probably runs above fifty thousand. Among the states. 

 New York stands first, with 1,091,000 of Irish birth or parentage; Mas- 

 sachusetts second, with 633,000; and Pennsylvania third, with 570,000. 

 For all these figures it may be asserted that more than four-fifths are of 

 Gaelic stock. 



By the latest British census, 1911, the population of Ireland was 



