Why Ireland Has Fewer People Today Than in 1841

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In 1841 the census counted 8,175,124 people on the island of Ireland. The latest censuses, 2021 in the north and 2022 in the south, counted 7,052,314. That is more than 1.1 million fewer people after 180 years. Here is what happened, county by county, and where the people went.

Prefer to watch? The 8-minute video above covers everything on this page.

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The two counts

The census of 6 June 1841 counted 8,175,124 people. The latest censuses counted 7,052,314: 1,903,175 in Northern Ireland in 2021 and 5,149,139 in the Republic of Ireland in 2022. The island is 1,122,810 people, or 13.7%, below its 1841 figure.

In those same years Scotland more than doubled, from 2.6 million people to 5.4 million. In historians’ estimates for today’s borders, every one of the 43 other European countries has more people now than in 1841. The slowest to grow, Czechia, is up by two thirds.

The map: 24 of 32 counties are still below 1841

Leitrim is the worst. It had 155,297 people in 1841 and 35,199 in 2022: down 77%. Roscommon is down 72%, Monaghan 67%, Cavan 66% and Mayo 65%. Tipperary, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Clare have each lost more than half. Even Cork, with its city, is down by almost a third.

Only eight counties have grown. Dublin has almost four times the people it had: 372,773 then, 1,458,154 now. The others are Kildare, Antrim, Down, Wicklow, Meath, Derry and Louth.

County	1841	Latest census	Census year	Change
Leitrim	155,297	35,199	2022	−77.3%
Roscommon	253,591	70,259	2022	−72.3%
Monaghan	200,442	65,288	2022	−67.4%
Cavan	243,158	81,704	2022	−66.4%
Mayo	388,887	137,970	2022	−64.5%
Tipperary	435,553	167,895	2022	−61.5%
Sligo	180,886	70,198	2022	−61.2%
Longford	115,491	46,751	2022	−59.5%
Fermanagh	156,481	63,585	2021	−59.4%
Clare	286,394	127,938	2022	−55.3%
Kilkenny	202,420	104,160	2022	−48.5%
Kerry	293,880	156,458	2022	−46.8%
Donegal	296,448	167,084	2022	−43.6%
Offaly	146,857	83,150	2022	−43.4%
Laois	153,930	91,877	2022	−40.3%
Tyrone	312,956	188,383	2021	−39.8%
Galway	440,198	277,737	2022	−36.9%
Limerick	330,029	209,536	2022	−36.5%
Waterford	196,187	127,363	2022	−35.1%
Westmeath	141,300	96,221	2022	−31.9%
Cork	854,118	584,156	2022	−31.6%
Carlow	86,228	61,968	2022	−28.1%
Wexford	202,033	163,919	2022	−18.9%
Armagh	232,393	194,394	2021	−16.4%
Louth	128,240	139,703	2022	+8.9%
Derry / Londonderry	222,174	252,231	2021	+13.5%
Meath	183,828	220,826	2022	+20.1%
Wicklow	126,143	155,851	2022	+23.6%
Down	368,143	553,261	2021	+50.3%
Antrim	354,178	651,321	2021	+83.9%
Kildare	114,488	247,774	2022	+116.4%
Dublin	372,773	1,458,154	2022	+291.2%

Belfast lies in two counties. The 1841 report counted it as one town, so the people who lived on the County Down side are counted here in Down.

What happened

Before the Famine the population had been rising fast. An estimate for 1672 put it at 1.1 million, and one for 1804 at 5.4 million. Then came the Great Famine, from 1845.

Nobody registered the deaths. Registration did not begin until 1864, so every figure is a reconstruction. The historians Phelim Boyle and Cormac Ó Gráda estimate one million deaths; Joel Mokyr and Ó Gráda, about 1.1 million; Kerby Miller, about 1.2 million.

And people left. Miller counts one and a half million who went overseas between 1845 and 1855, most to the United States, and another 200,000 to 300,000 who settled in Britain: more than two million in all. By the census of 1851 the island had about six and a half million people. One person in five was gone.

Why it kept falling

In most countries a population recovers after a disaster. Ireland’s kept falling. In the 26 counties that are now the Republic, every census from 1851 to 1961, except one, was lower than the one before: 6,528,799 in 1841, 4,402,111 in 1861, 3,870,020 in 1881, 3,221,823 in 1901.

Historians give different weight to the reasons, but they name the same ones: emigration in every decade, late and rare marriage, and farms passed whole to a single heir.

The island reached its lowest count in 1926: about 4.2 million people, barely half the number of 1841. The north had already turned; its low point was 1891, at 1.2 million. The south kept falling until 1961, when it had 2,818,341 people, 57% fewer than in 1841. In the 1950s alone, about 400,000 more people left than arrived.

Where they went

Above all, to the United States. The American census of 1850 found 961,719 people born in Ireland: more than four in ten of all the foreign-born in the country. Ten years later it was 1.6 million, and the number peaked in 1890 at 1,871,509. Today, 32.4 million Americans claim Irish ancestry, about one in ten — many now tracing exactly which townland their own family left. That is more than four times the population of the whole island.

The turn

In the 1970s, for the first time, more people came to the Republic than left. In the 1980s they left again. Since 1991 the Republic has grown from three and a half million to more than five million: the census of 2022 was the first above five million in 171 years. Northern Ireland is at the highest population it has ever recorded. The newest estimate for the Republic, for April 2026, is 5,525,600.

What the comparison can and cannot say

• The two latest censuses were taken a year apart, and they count differently: the south counts who was present that night, the north counts who usually lives there.
• Some county boundaries have moved since 1841, so a change of a few percent is approximate. None of the 32 is close enough to the line for that to matter.
• On the newest official estimates the island has about 7,454,000 people. That is still about 700,000 short of 1841.

So the island is growing again, but 24 of its counties have not got back to where they stood in 1841. Leitrim’s lowest count was as late as 1996. It has grown at every census since.

Figures checked against the sources below on 13 October 2026.

Sources

• Census of Ireland 1841, original county reports (hosted by the Central Statistics Office)
• Central Statistics Office: Census of Population 2022, population changes
• Central Statistics Office: Population and Migration Estimates, April 2026
• Central Statistics Office: Census Through History
• NISRA: Census 2021 statistical bulletin, 24 May 2022
• Our World in Data: population by country
• U.S. Census Bureau: Irish-American Heritage Month 2026
• U.S. Census Bureau: Working Paper 81, Table 4
• Mokyr and Ó Gráda, “Famine Disease and Famine Mortality: Lessons from Ireland, 1845-1850” (1999)
• Boyle and Ó Gráda, “Fertility trends, excess mortality, and the Great Irish Famine” (1986)
• Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles (1985)

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Picture credits for the video

Every clip, photograph, engraving, map and page in the video is real, from Pexels, Wikimedia Commons, the National Library of Ireland, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Love Ireland licensed library or the official sources themselves.

Video clips

• Vibrant dublin street scene in daylight, Selim Karadayı, Pexels License
• Bustling crowd on edinburgh s royal mile, Media Hopper Studio, Pexels License
• Lough key castle, Andrew Mulleady, Pexels License
• Aerial view of cork city river and buildings, Maurice Supple, Pexels License
• Busy pedestrian bridge in dublin city center, Mark Holmes, Pexels License
• Aerial view of irish town and historic church, Jay’s Photography, Pexels License
• Drone view of abandoned stone structure in ireland, Jay’s Photography, Pexels License
• Rural ireland drone 4k, Reel Focus Productions, Pexels License
• Titanic belfast museum exterior view, Clément Proust, Pexels License
• The statue of liberty, Matthis Volquardsen, Pexels License
• Aerial footage over the river liffey capturing the iconic samuel beckett bridge modern office buildings docked yachts and rowing teams in the water, Luciann Photography, Pexels License
• Aerial footage of the signage of grand canal docks and it s close surroundings, K, Pexels License
• Belfast city skyline on a foggy day, James Rea Jr., Pexels License
• Drone view of a city boston massachusetts usa, James Hamar, Pexels License
• Majestic cliffs of ireland s atlantic coast, Clément Proust, Pexels License

Photographs and engravings

• Emigrants boarding the tenders at Queenstown (Cobh), Co. Cork. Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland, 1890s or 1900s, Robert French, No restrictions
• Natural Ireland. Lough Allen by Kayak in Spring Sun, Jesse Burgle Johnson, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The Deserted Village at Slievemore, Achill Island, Co. Mayo, photographed in 2018, Veenpluis, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The Deserted Village at Slievemore, Achill Island, Co. Mayo, Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Gweedore, Co. Donegal. Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland, about 1880 to 1900, Robert French, No restrictions
• Fair day in Glenties, Co. Donegal. Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland, 1890s or 1900s, Robert French, No restrictions
• “Funeral at Skibbereen”, The Illustrated London News, 30 January 1847, Frederick James Smyth, Public domain
• The Famine memorial on Custom House Quay, Dublin (sculpture of 1997), photographed in 2018, AlBa344, CC BY-SA 4.0
• “Emigrants leaving Queenstown for New York”, wood engraving, Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain
• Main Street, Roscommon town, about 1903. Lawrence Collection, National Library of Ireland, National Library of Ireland on The Commons, No restrictions
• The State Emigrant Landing Depot, Castle Garden, New York (19th-century print, New York Public Library), Scan by NYPL, Public domain
• St. Patrick’s Day parade on Fifth Avenue, New York, 1909. Bain News Service, Library of Congress, Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain
• County Roscommon – Carrick-on-Shannon Bridge – 20200731195242, Jonjobaker, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Carrick-on-Shannon Bridge, Peter Gavigan, CC BY 2.5
• 2 photographs from the Love Ireland licensed library (licensed for commercial use; no credit required).

Maps, charts and pages

• County maps drawn by Love Ireland from boundary data: © Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0; © Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, Open Government Licence v3.0
• Charts drawn by Love Ireland from the census figures listed under Sources
• Pages of the Census of Ireland 1841 (public domain) and of the Central Statistics Office, NISRA and U.S. Census Bureau publications listed under Sources

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