Regional Variation in Household Structure in early 20th century Ireland

In this article, the author proposed the hypothesis that while the Irish family system moved from a nuclear family system, which had existed until the mid-19th century, to the stem family system, some regional variation characterized the formation of the stem family between western and eastern Ireland. The hypothesis was verified by using the 100% census returns of 1901 and 1911, GIS and linkage techniques. For the forms of households, in Connacht and Munster in western Ireland, the percentages of the extended family household and the multiple family household were 18.2% and 18.9% (among farmers : 20.4% and 24%), respectively, in 1901 and 19.4% and 18.6% (among farmers : 21.7% and 26.5%) in 1911. On the other hand, in eastern Ireland including Ulster and Leinster, the percentages were 17% and 16.6% (among farmers : 19.5% and 19%) in 1901 and 14.4% and 13.8% (among farmers : 17% and 18.9%) in 1911. Thus, the two forms of households showed a high-west, low-east pattern. The percentages of the two household forms were high among farmers in all four provinces and higher in 1911 than 1901. The percentage of farmers was higher in western Ireland than in eastern Ireland. Based on the aforementioned analyses, it was found that there were more stem families in western Ireland than in eastern Ireland, forming a peasant society in the small to medium-sized agricultural region where subsistence farming was practiced