Editing Great Famine (Ireland) (section)

==Death toll==

[[File:Ireland population change 1841 1851.png|thumb]]
It is not known exactly how many people died during the period of the famine, although it is believed that more died from disease than from starvation.{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|p=204}} State registration of births, marriages, or deaths had not yet begun, and records kept by the [[Catholic Church]] are incomplete.{{refn|Civil registration of births and deaths in Ireland was not established by law until 1863.{{sfn|The Register Office|2005|p=1}}|group = fn}} One possible estimate has been reached by comparing the expected population with the eventual numbers in the 1850s. A [[1841 census of Ireland|census taken in 1841]] recorded a population of 8,175,124. A census immediately after the famine in 1851 counted 6,552,385, a drop of over 1.5&nbsp;million in 10 years. The census commissioners estimated that, at the normal rate of population increase, the population in 1851 should have grown to just over 9&nbsp;million if the famine had not occurred.{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|p=411}}

On the in-development ''Great Irish Famine Online'' resource, produced by the Geography department of [[University College Cork]], the population of Ireland section states, that together with the census figures being called low, before the famine it reads that "it is now generally believed" that over 8.75&nbsp;million people populated the island of Ireland prior to it striking.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://dahg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=8de2b863f4454cbf93387dacb5cb8412 |title=Story Map Series |website=dahg.maps.arcgis.com |access-date=3 September 2018 |archive-date=11 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711200322/https://dahg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=8de2b863f4454cbf93387dacb5cb8412 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1851, the census commissioners collected information on the number who died in each family since 1841, and the cause, season, and year of death. They recorded 21,770 total deaths from starvation in the previous decade and 400,720 deaths from diseases. Listed diseases were [[fever]], [[diphtheria]], [[dysentery]], [[cholera]], [[smallpox]], and [[influenza]], with the first two being the main killers (222,021 and 93,232). The commissioners acknowledged that their figures were incomplete and that the true number of deaths was probably higher:

<blockquote>The greater the amount of destitution of mortality&nbsp;... the less will be the amount of recorded deaths derived through any household form;—for not only were whole families swept away by disease&nbsp;... but whole villages were effaced from off the land.</blockquote>

Later historians agree that the 1851 death tables "were flawed and probably under-estimated the level of mortality".{{sfn|Killen|1995|pp = 250–252}}{{sfn|Kinealy|1994|p=167}} The combination of institutional and figures provided by individuals gives "an incomplete and biased count" of fatalities during the famine.{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2006|p=3}} Cormac Ó Gráda, referencing the work of W. A. MacArthur,{{sfn|MacArthur|Edwards|Williams|1957|pp=308–312}} writes that specialists have long known that the Irish death tables were inaccurate,{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2006|p=67}} and undercounted the number of deaths.{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2006|p=71}}

S. H. Cousens's estimate of 800,000 deaths relied heavily on retrospective information contained in the 1851 census and elsewhere,{{sfn|Cousens|1960|pp = 55–74}} and is now regarded as too low.{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=36}}{{sfn|Ó Gráda|1993|pp=138–144}} Modern historian [[J. J. Lee (historian)|J. J. Lee]] says "at least 800,000",{{sfn|Lee|1973|p=1}} and [[R. F. Foster (historian)|R. F. Foster]] estimates that "at least 775,000 died, mostly through disease, including cholera in the latter stages of the holocaust". He further notes that "a recent sophisticated computation estimates excess deaths from 1846 to 1851 as between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000&nbsp;... after a careful critique of this, other statisticians arrive at a figure of 1,000,000".{{refn|"Based on hitherto unpublished work by C. Ó Gráda and Phelim Hughes, 'Fertility trends, excess mortality and the Great Irish Famine' ... Also see [[Cormac Ó Gráda]] and [[Joel Mokyr]], 'New developments in Irish Population History 1700–1850', ''Economic History Review'', vol. xxxvii, no. 4 (November 1984), pp. 473–488."{{sfn|Foster|1988|p=234}}|group=fn}}

[[Joel Mokyr]]'s estimates at an aggregated county level range from 1.1&nbsp;million to 1.5&nbsp;million deaths between 1846 and 1851. Mokyr produced two sets of data which contained an upper-bound and lower-bound estimate, which showed not much difference in regional patterns.{{sfn|Mokyr|1983|pp=266–267}}{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=36}} The true figure is likely to lie between the two extremes of half and one and a half million, and the most widely accepted estimate is one million.{{sfn|Boyle|Ó Gráda|1986|p=554}}{{sfn|Kinealy|1994|p=168}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Decline in population 1841–1851 (%)<ref>{{harvnb|Lee|1973|p=2}}</ref>
|- style="text-align:center; background-color:#ffdead;"
!Leinster!!Munster!!Ulster!!Connacht!!Ireland
|- style="text-align:right;"
|15.3||22.5||15.7||28.8||20
|}
{{crossreference|<small>Detailed statistics of the population of Ireland since 1841 are available at [[Irish population analysis]].</small>}}

[[File:A terrible record John Johnson political & satirical cropped.jpg|thumb|left|Political cartoon from the 1880s: "In forty years I have lost, through the operation of no ''natural'' law, more than Three Million of my Sons and Daughters, and they, the Young and the Strong, leaving behind the Old and Infirm to weep and to die. ''Where is this to end?''"]]
Another area of uncertainty lies in the descriptions of disease given by tenants as to the cause of their relatives' deaths.{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=36}} Though the 1851 census has been rightly criticised as underestimating the true extent of mortality, it does provide a framework for the medical history of the Great Famine. The diseases that badly affected the population fell into two categories:{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=104}} famine-induced diseases and diseases of [[Illnesses related to poor nutrition|nutritional deficiency]]. Of the nutritional deficiency diseases, the most commonly experienced were starvation and [[marasmus]], as well as a condition at the time called dropsy. Dropsy ([[oedema]]) was a popular name given for the symptoms of several diseases, one of which, [[kwashiorkor]], is associated with starvation.{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=104}}

However, the greatest mortality was not from nutritional deficiency diseases, but from famine-induced ailments.{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=104}}{{sfn|Livi-Bacci|1991|p=38}} The malnourished are very vulnerable to [[infection]]s; therefore, these were more severe when they occurred. [[Measles]], [[diphtheria]], [[diarrhea|diarrhoea]], [[tuberculosis]], most [[respiratory infection]]s, [[Pertussis|whooping cough]], many [[intestinal parasite]]s, and cholera were all strongly conditioned by nutritional status. Potentially lethal diseases, such as smallpox and influenza, were so virulent that their spread was independent of nutrition. The best example of this phenomenon was fever, which exacted the greatest death toll. In the popular mind, as well as medical opinion, fever and famine were closely related.{{sfn|Woodham-Smith|1991|p=196}} Social dislocation—the congregation of the hungry at soup kitchens, food depots, and overcrowded workhouses—created conditions that were ideal for spreading infectious diseases such as [[typhus]], [[typhoid]], and [[relapsing fever]].{{sfn|Livi-Bacci|1991|p=38}}{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=104}}

Diarrhoeal diseases were the result of poor hygiene, bad sanitation, and dietary changes. The concluding attack on a population incapacitated by famine was delivered by Asiatic cholera, which had visited Ireland briefly in the 1830s. In the following decade, it spread uncontrollably across Asia, through Europe, and into Britain, finally reaching Ireland in 1849.{{sfn|Kennedy|Ell|Crawford|Clarkson|1999|p=104}} Some scholars estimate that the population of Ireland was reduced by 20–25%.{{sfn|Kinealy|1994|p=357}}