Opinion

Fears of the ‘vanishing Irish’ proved unfounded in the 1950s, and they’re unfounded now

Rite & Reason: The average age at marriage is now markedly higher than in the days of The Vanishing Irish. Or is marriage vanishing?

The Irish economy, which appears robust at the moment, is supporting a population that could only have been dreamed of by the authors of The Vanishing Irish. Photograph: Agency Stock
Dr Finola Kennedy
Sun Jul 21 2024 - 04:00

Seventy years ago, in 1954, a book entitled The Vanishing Irish was published by a leading London publisher. It had been edited by John O’Brien, a priest professor at Notre Dame University in the United States. Contributors included well-known figures of the time, such as Paul Vincent Carroll, Shane Leslie, Seán O’Faoláin and Bryan MacMahon.

[ Paul Vincent Carroll, a playwright devoutly critical of the Catholic Church ]

The two big themes of the book were emigration and marriages that, according to the writers, were too few and too late. O’Faoláin said that if population decline continued: “We would be like a scattering of chaste rabbits nibbling around the coast line of Australia”.

The reluctance of Irish men to marry was stressed by one of the women writers, Mary Frances Keating, who claimed that Irish men were “marriage-shy”. Kathleen Norris summed up her contribution with 19th-century poet and lyricist Tom Moore’s query, “Are Ireland’s sons so good or so cold as not to be tempted by women or gold?”

Patrick Noonan, a Holy Ghost priest, suggested the introduction of marriage and family allowances financed by “a system of graded taxation” affecting old maids (over 25) and bachelors (over 30). Carroll claimed that while the Irishman is not materialistic, the Irish woman is materialistic “under the alluring veils and the sweet petticoats and the doelike eyes”.

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A more positive contribution came from Canon John Hayes, founder of Muintir na Tíre, who said: “Cures must be found. We have to face up to the position, and our first effort must be in the economic field.” He stressed the importance of local sports clubs and local drama clubs. He was hopeful.

Another positive contribution came from writer John D Sheridan, who suggested moving some government departments out of Dublin, a policy that was followed decades later. MacMahon endorsed the suggestion of De Valera to build a dower house or cottage on every farm to which the farmer and his old wife could move when the son eventually took over the farm.

[ Writing of Bryan MacMahon put social irony in sharp focus ]

A few years earlier, a commission had been established to investigate what was happening. The Commission on Emigration and other Population Problems produced a splendid report that was published in 1954, the same year as The Vanishing Irish.

The commission was chaired by Dr James Beddy, once a classmate of (later taoiseach) Seán Lemass. The commission comprised 24 four members, including Beddy. One member resigned shortly after being appointed while another died in 1952. The membership included a Church of Ireland clergyman, three Catholic priests, two of whom were Jesuits, the other became a bishop. Just two of the 24 members were women.

Some years after the publication of The Vanishing Irish and the commission’s report, Ireland’s population began to grow again.

Given the facts of the Irish economy today, when immigration is a big issue, those texts almost resemble works of fiction. But they were far from fiction in their time. Yet, puzzles abound.

When the commission reported, the average age at marriage in Ireland was 28.0 for women and 33.1 for men. In 2023 the average age at marriage was 35.8 for women and 37.7 for men in opposite-sex marriages, and 38.0 for women and 40.8 for men in same-sex marriages.

The average age at marriage is markedly higher than in the days of The Vanishing Irish. Or is marriage vanishing? Recent data show that more than 40 per cent of births took place outside marriage or civil partnership.

Recently, in a ruling on the O’Meara case in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell was reported as saying that the distinction in legislation between a married and unmarried couple was “arbitrary and capricious”.

Regardless of the social context of births, population has soared. When those texts were published, Ireland’s population was under three million; now it is more than five million.

The Irish economy, which appears robust at the moment, is supporting a population that could only have been dreamed of by the authors. But it is partly kept afloat by immigrant workers, as a visit to any hospital, restaurant, filling station or building site will attest.

Much employment depends on immigrants – and population growth is supported by births to immigrants, with more than one in five births now to a foreign-born mother.

Dr Finola Kennedy is an economist and author of Cottage to Creche: Family Change in Ireland (2001), Frank Duff: A Life Story (2011) and Local Matters: Parish, Local Government and Community in Ireland (2022).