Ireland
The Effect of Marginal Location
Although Ireland is politically subdivided into the Irish Free State, which is a dominion of the British Empire, and Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the geographer must view the island as a whole. The history of Ireland has been characterized by peculiarly great fluctuations comparable to those of Greece. The reason is that Ireland lies on the northwestern margin of Europe near the moist, cool limit of agriculture, just as Greece lies near the opposite, or dry, margin. From the fifth to the seventh centuries A.D., after the days of St. Patrick, Irish culture surpassed that of any other country in northwestern Europe. The arts and agriculture were highly developed, and learning flourished greatly. Huge monastic schools sent out thousands of students, many of whom brought enlightenment, culture, and Christianity to countries like England, Scotland, France, and Germany. The old Brehon laws furnish a picture of a virile, young civilization which seemed to promise high achievement. Such a situation was possible because of two especially favorable conditions. One was that Ireland at that time enjoyed a period of comparatively dry, warm climate, a stage in one of the long climatic cycles which occur all over the world. In Ireland this particular stage was unusually important because that country is typically marginal. In other words, it lies so far north and is so oceanic that a slight lowering of temperature or an increase in cloudiness and rainfall is disastrous to crops. On the other hand, a change in the opposite direction, which would make little difference to France, for example, is of almost incalculable benefit to Ireland.
The second favorable condition was that Ireland's remote location protected it from barbarian invasions. All Europe was in confusion in those dark centuries; barbarians were swarming into all parts of the Roman Empire; England was invaded by the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. Those wild tribes were doubtless very virile and able people --excellent as ancestors--but they brought confusion and retrogression when they overwhelmed the old Roman civilization that had prevailed for centuries in England. Ireland, however, was fortunately so remotely located that it escaped all this, and was free to develop its own characteristic culture.
By the fourteenth century all this was changed. The coolest, most rainy phase of a long climatic cycle prevailed. Agriculture was almost impossible, and cattle-raising became practically the sole means of getting a living. To make matters worse, the isolation of Ireland had broken down. Danish invaders and then the Normans from England had poured into the country. Their warlike, destructive activities submerged Ireland much as the greatest waves of a mighty tempest at high tide overwhelm parts of the shore that have long been deemed safe. Thus the direst confusion prevailed in Ireland; the population became extremely scanty; and cattle raids, like those of the modern Arabs, were in many ways the dominant, or rather the favorite, activity when the Irish were not fighting with the English invaders.
The end of the sixteenth century saw another period of more favorable climate. The troubles of the British conquest died down, and at last, during the seventeenth century, the Irish population ceased to depend so completely on cattle and began to increase. The early part of the eighteenth century, however, was again cold and wet; progress was checked; and intense misery prevailed all over Ireland, as is so vividly depicted in some of Dean Swift's famous satires. But soon a more favorable climatic phase and the newly introduced potato began to do their work. Hillside land and bogs that had apparently not been cultivated since the good old Brehon days a thousand or more years earlier were reclaimed on all sides. During the century from 1730 to 1830 the relatively favorable climatic conditions and especially the potato, which had been introduced from America, permitted an almost unparalleled change to take place. The population increased from a million and a half to eight million. The Irish changed from a nation of cattle-keepers, whose main source of sustenance was milk and cattle, to a nation of small farmers depending mainly on potatoes.
Then came another swing of the climatic pendulum. Between 1831 and 1842 unfavorable weather fostered a blight which wrought havoc with the potato crop, and there were six seasons of dearth approaching famine. Then in 1846 the crop was almost a complete failure. Famine and pestilence ensued. About three million people were at one time on daily rations from the government. This led to tremendous migration to America. It intensified the social and economic evils arising from unjust laws, religious controversy, and absentee landlords who lived in England and allowed their agents to squeeze rents out of the peasants unmercifully. The final result is that the population of Ireland has been reduced by half and the country has returned to an economy in which the potato, although important, is subsidiary to cattle-raising. This is as it should be in a country so marginally located and hence so subject to disaster under the impact of even the small climatic cycles of recent centuries.
The Present Situation
The situation of Ireland is no longer so tragic as it was formerly. Unfavorable weather, ruthless invasions, unjust laws, and too great dependence on a single precarious crop do not bring disaster as they once did. With their independence renewed after centuries of suppression, the Irish are showing much energy. Signs of progress are everywhere visible in spite of the uncertain political conditions, and the future looks distinctly hopeful. Ireland's future, like its past, is certain to be closely related to that of Great Britain, because there Ireland must find its principal export market, but the development will presumably follow new lines. It is likely to resemble that of Denmark, for just as the Danes borrowed dairying methods from Ireland and perfected them during the second half of the nineteenth century, so Ireland is now ready to learn much from Denmark. Thus the development of co-operation and efficiency may be the best promise of a happy future for Ireland. The present political partition of the island may possibly be temporary if economic interests have greater weight than racial and religious differences. Ireland seems to be too essentially a geographic unit to remain forever divided into two sections.
Structure and Relief
Ireland's relief is not especially favorable. The island suggests a very irregular and shallow bowl, with a muchbroken rim of low, rounded mountains surrounding a central plain. The plain itself is broken by mountains. No part of the country is over 40 miles from mountains. The rim consists of a combination of the old Caledonian and Hercynian mountain systems, while the depression is filled with Carboniferous limestone. Evidences of recent Alpine mountain-building appear in the break between Ireland and Great Britain; in the accompanying eruptions of basalt that are represented by the Plateau of Antrim in the northeast; in the structural depression of Lake Neagh in that same region; and in the uplift and revival of some of the old mountain systems in the south, especially the sandstone Mountains of Kerry in the far west which attain elevations of 3,000 feet. The Irish mountains are mostly knobs of especially hard and resistant rock, such as the granite uplands of Wicklow, south of Dublin; Connemara, in the center of the west coast; and Donegal in the northwest. All mountains are bad for Ireland. Not only are altitudes above a thousand feet or even less too cool for agriculture, but mountains promote cloudiness and rainfall, especially on their western and seaward slopes. Such conditions are disastrous to agriculture in so marginal a country.
Another handicap of Ireland is that much of the present topography is the result of the erosion of soluble limestone, with its consequent unusual forms of relief. The lowland consists almost wholly of limestone, and in many cases this results in vast areas of bog. The central plain is a typical karst region characterized by underground drainage, and numerous sink holes and other undrained hollows. The largest of these hollows are occupied by numerous lowlying lakes not more than about a hundred feet above sealevel; thousands of smaller hollows contain bogs. Thus large parts of the lower land are useless for cultivation.
The Ice Age did not improve matters much. Glaciers of local origin covered the mountains, making them smooth and rounded, and carrying away a great part of the soil. Some parts of the lowland have profited from the glacial drift which was thus carried down, but in many places the number of lakes and bogs has been greatly increased.
Climate and Vegetation
The productivity of Ireland is influenced by climate even more than by relief. Ireland possesses an extreme marine climate. Along the west coast the winter temperatures average between 42° and 44° F., and even the interior runs between 39° and 40° F. The summers are cool, the average July temperature along the west coast being 58° or 59° F., and inland 60° or 61° F. The difference between summer and winter is remarkably small, particularly in the southwest where the range between the average temperatures of the warmest and coldest months is no greater than 15°. Rainfall is heavy in the west where there are from 60 to 80 inches, but decreases to the east in the rain shadow of the mountains, falling below 30 inches around Dublin. The distribution is fairly uniform the whole year round.
The influence of regular and abundant rainfall, high humidity, and prevailing cloudiness is shown by the great amount of moorland and bog. Moorland covers the higher parts of the mountain upland as in Great Britain, and parts of the central plain as well. Monotonous low lands covered by peat are typical of widespread sections, and peat is still the commonest Irish fuel. But where the drainage is sufficient, the climate gives rise to the grassland par excellence that accounts for the legendary green of Erin. In former time, at the phases of great climatic cycles when the climate was drier, the European forest extended into Ireland. This was the case, for example, at the end of the sixteenth century. Grass, however, was abundant and probably dominated the landscape even then, particularly in the west. The combined result of climatic cycles and deforestation by man has been that only the typical park landscapes of big estates with scattered trees in the midst of grassland remain to show the former extent of the forest. At present only 1.4 per cent of the whole area is in real forest, the lowest figure among the countries of Europe.

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