Nineteenth‐century population structure of Ireland and of the Irish in England and Wales: An analysis by isonymy

Abstract

This article uses isonymy to test predictions about the genetic structure of Irish populations made on the basis of geography and population history, and compares the mid-nineteenth century population of Ireland with the late nineteenth century Irish-born population resident in England and Wales. Surname data were derived from (1) the householders named in the index to Griffith's valuation of Ireland, a survey undertaken between 1846 and 1864, and (2) of Irish-born residents named in 1881 census of England and Wales. Visual representation of the Griffith's valuation isonymy matrix by multidimensional scaling (MDS) gives a result very close to the geographical distribution of Irish counties, and Mantel matrix correlation shows random isonymy between counties to be negatively associated with geographical distance, generally decaying according to a pattern of isolation-by-distance, with exceptions that can be explained in terms of Irish population history. Some 141,360 Irish-born residents in England and Wales at the 1881 census were assigned to an Irish county of origin, and random isonymy by county of birth for this group also shows a close correspondence to Irish geography. The Mantel matrix correlation between the Irish in Ireland and the Irish in England is 0.855, R(2) = 0.7306, indicating that the emigrant Irish in England were representative of the populations of the Irish counties from which they were derived. This result, together with the strong geographical patterning of surnames in Ireland, suggests that isonymy can be used to investigate the population structure and origin of Irish emigrant groups in Britain and potentially throughout the Irish diaspora.

Paddy and Biddy no more: An evolutionary analysis of the decline in Irish Catholic forenames among descendants of 19th century Irish migrants to Britain

“…There is strong evidence from the 19th century censuses that the Irish population of Cumbria was recruited to a large extent from the nearest counties across the Irish Sea, in the province of Ulster (MacRaild 1998). Our own analysis of migration rates at the 1881 census confirms this, with more than 60% of the Irish in Cumberland to whom a birth county could be allocated coming from Down, Antrim and Armagh (Smith and MacRaild, 2009). To judge by the sectarian history of Cumbria, exemplified by the Victorian flourishing of the Orange Order there (MacRaild 1998), a high proportion of these settlers were Protestants, and thus unlikely to be named Patrick or Bridget.…”

A note on height and surnames: the role of networks

“…As for the use of surnames as a proxy for social networks, there are a number of precedents (Pollitzer, Smith, and Williams, 1988;Smith, 2002;Smith and MacRaild, 2009). An individual's surname not only functions as a label indicating membership of one or more socio-economic networks, such as family, ethnic group, and religious faith (Colantonio, Fuster, and Küffer, 2007) but also serves to track the evolution of societal patterns in migration, marriage (Smith and MacRaild, 2009), and labor market demographics. For information on education, see Case and Paxon (2008); on informal recruitment, Pellizzari (2010); and on discrimination, Fryer, Jr., and Levitt (2004), Bertrand andMullainathan (2004), andFoster (2008).…”

A Note on Height and Surnames: The Role of Networks

“…As for the use of surnames as a proxy for social networks, there are a number of precedents (Pollitzer, Smith, and Williams, 1988;Smith, 2002;Smith and MacRaild, 2009). An individual's surname not only functions as a label indicating membership of one or more socio-economic networks, such as family, ethnic group, and religious faith (Colantonio, Fuster, and Küffer, 2007) but also serves to track the evolution of societal patterns in migration, marriage (Smith and MacRaild, 2009), and labor market demographics. 4 Our dataset consists of pension-list information on a sample of 9,085 Dutch-Indies Army (KNIL) Indonesia and ethnic-Chinese recruits.…”