Marriage and fertility in nineteenth century Londonderry

Abstract

The change in the age of marriage among the Irish, which occurred some time in the nineteenth century, is well known. Before the Great Famine early marriage was the rule; and this early marriage was associated with a rapid increase in population. Also connected with it was the subdivision of agricultural holdings since, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a father was prepared to provide for his children merely by dividing his farm?a process made easier by the general adoption of the potato as the dominant subsistence crop. Even before the potato failure of the 1840s jolted the structure of Irish rural society, a change-over to later marriage was noticeable in some parts of Ireland; but broadly the Great Famine may be thought of as marking the end of subdivision and thus, indirectly, the end of youthful marriage.