Troubled Geographies by Ell Paul S. Lloyd Christopher D. Gregory Ian N. Cunningham Niall A. Shuttleworth Ian G

Author:Ell, Paul S., Lloyd, Christopher D., Gregory, Ian N., Cunningham, Niall A., Shuttleworth, Ian G.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780253009791
Publisher: Indiana University Press

Up to this point northeast Ulster’s distinctive industrial character had always been represented as the basis of its economic good fortune. In the 1930s that industrial character became Ulster’s undoing. The depression hit Northern Ireland extremely hard, harder than any other region of the U.K., with over one hundred thousand people being out of work in 1935.29 The depression was protracted as well as severe. Even in 1938 29.5 percent of insured industrial workers were still unemployed, compared with 23.8 for Wales, the worst affected part of Britain.30 It is unfortunate that data on occupation and employment are unavailable for Northern Ireland in the 1937 census, as we lose the statistical ability to assess this critical period in the state’s economic development. These questions were dropped in order to facilitate a small Northern Ireland enumeration in 1937 that would then be synchronized with a larger census to coincide with that planned for Britain in 1941.31 The Second World War put paid to that plan, and the next census was not held in Northern Ireland until 1951, by which time a radically altered economic picture existed. The aggressive economic policies of the Fianna Fáil government had exacerbated the crisis by cutting Northern Ireland off from its natural markets for manufactured goods in the south.32 Despite all the irredentist rhetoric of the south, embodied in the territorial claim in articles 2 and 3 of the new 1937 Irish Constitution, the economic policies of De Valera’s government had served only to reinforce Partition and inflame sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland.33

The Free State’s neutrality during World War II was another cause of division on the island, although from a military and political point of view De Valera had little choice other than to adopt an unaligned position.34 At an economic level the war benefited both states, as it revitalized Northern Ireland’s industrial base, which was turned over to the war effort, while the south’s agricultural market in the U.K. surged due to wartime food shortages.35 Underlying the map for 1946/51 in figure 7.5 is the fact that World War II and postwar rebuilding had hauled Northern Ireland’s heavy industries out of the dismal and prolonged slump of the 1930s. Also evident from the map is that the war and postwar rebuilding had the opposite effect on the south, reinforcing its reliance on agriculture not only through increased demand but also through the fact that the prewar policy of modest industrialization had increased rather than decreased the south’s reliance on external commodities like raw materials.36 Finally, the south’s neutrality meant that it failed to share as fully as Northern Ireland in the fruits of postwar rebuilding programs.

A new period of economic stagnation ensued. During the war emigration naturally declined, but 175,000 people still left the Republic of Ireland area to work in the U.K.’s factories between 1941 and 1946.37 The immediate postwar period was an economic and demographic disaster for the south, with 500,000 people leaving between 1945 and 1960, the vast bulk due to economic necessity.

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