18 THK IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



loses in importance when we look at the 

 number of marriages. In 1901 there were 

 1,049,413 women of child-bearing age (15-45) 

 in Ireland, of whom only 341,254 were marri< 

 altogether 32-5 per cent. The number 

 married women is continuously diminishing in 

 proportion to the number of marriageable 



men. 1 It is only in the backward districts of 

 Connaught that marriage frequency is great 

 In every 100 women of over 20 years of a.^c in 

 Mayo, there are only 33*3 unmarried, whilst in 

 County Dublin there are about 52*2 that 

 more than half. As illegitimate births, 

 especially in the Catholic portions of Ireland, 

 play no part, we perceive from these figures 

 the slow natural increase of the population. 



" Estimated by the number of married women 

 of the child-bearing age, the natural increase of 

 population in Ireland is at present very small," 

 says the Census. The picture of Ireland which 

 we used to conjure up, as a land of early 

 marriages, resulting in numberless children, has 

 long been incorrect. We may say without much 

 exaggeration that a large part of the population- 

 which is marriageable, and which desires to 

 marry, leaves Ireland every year to establish a 

 home beyond the ocean. Far truer than the 

 notion of a race multiplying like rabbits is the 

 saying of George Moore: "Nothing thrives in 

 Ireland, but the celibate." 



1 Census, 22. 



