The Structure of Irish Households of Early 20th Century: Comparing Results for Co. Clare and Co. Meath

This paper sets out to clarify the characteristics of Irish household structure from a perspective of comparing Co. Clare of middle-class farmer\u27s region and Co. Meath of large farmer region. My hypothesis that the type of stem family was more dominant in Co. Clare than Co. Meath., because the norm of stem family in Co. Meath was weaker than Co. Clare. Sons in Co. Meath who were not appointed heirs faced the choice of receiving small amounts of money before leaving home to seek employment in large cities like Dublin, Belfast or Cork, and emigrating to Britain or the United States. But sons in Co Clare were not easy to get job at near town and they wanted to wait for inheritance of landholding. To verity this hypothesis, I used the 1901 and 1911 census returns (100% data) and have arrived at the following results. Firstly I found the average of size of household in Co. Clare was 5.2 members and 1901 and 5.0 in 1911 and this number was larger than those in Co. Meath (4.4 and 4.3). It seems that partly the small number of children born due to influenced by the late marriage and the practice of celibacy in Co. Meath. Secondly I believe the type dominant household was stem family (extended family household and multiple family household), its number of 23.8% in 1901 and 17.6% in 1911, but in Co. Meath simple family type was dominant. Thirdly looking at a detailed tabulation of kinship groups in 100 households, the household had 51 (1901) to 54 (1911) persons in Co Clare, but in Co. Meath from 47 to 49 persons. In that situation we saw to construct the stem family in Co. Clare. I have mostly verified the above my hypothesis by using agricultural and census data